268 WOLF-HUNTING. 



they could reach the spot the man had jumped on his legs, and,, 

 starting off like a tail-piped cur, disappeared, amid the shouts and 

 laughter of the braconniers, in an adjoining thicket. He had 

 been more frightened than hurt by the kick, which the bystanders 

 averred was a mere touch of the toe a wrestling exploit, designed 

 to give the fellow a back fall, and nothing more. But the most 

 provoking part of this affair was the delay occasioned in recovering 

 the hidden guns ; and as the braconniers not only possessed by 

 far the best dogs, but knew best where game was to be found,. 

 Marseillier, who had always an eye to the pot, insisted on the 

 advisability of going back, all hands, to aid them in the search, 

 and then, with an unbroken line and all the dogs, to go to work 

 again. 



This arrangement, after some parley, was acceded to ; but 

 the time and trouble expended in finding the guns, shoved, as 

 they were during the short panic, into the densest furze bushes, 

 was a worry not to be described. At length, all being found, we 

 managed to get once more under weigh together, and again the 

 beat was resumed in right earnest. The space of country swept 

 by the extended line could not have been less than four hundred 

 yards, from St. Prix on our right to the pugnacious braconnier 

 on the extreme left ; so that, searched and trodden out as the 

 ground was, it would have been almost impossible for a cock- 

 mouse to have escaped detection within the limits of that 

 doomed area. So regular and so systematic was the operation, 

 and so expert the marksmen, that it seemed to me quite 

 wonderful, not that game should be scarce, but that there should 

 be any game at all within two leagues at least of the town of 

 Carhaix, when battues like these were carried on hebdomadally 

 throughout the season. 



When a hare, the shiest of animals in this district, was found, 

 and by sheer luck had escaped the shower of slugs that whizzed 

 in her wake, the whole pack, including even the stately Sancho, 



