WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 285. 



that wolves would beset his path ere he could possibly gain the 

 walls of Gourin. 



" Here, then," said Owen, impatiently thrusting a box of 

 lucifer matches into the man's hand, "take that for thy protection. 

 Thou hast enough there, with the aid of St. Francis, to scare all 

 the wolves in Brittany." 



" I would rather trust to these walls than to all the saints in 

 the calendar," said the charcoal-burner ; " and as for the matches,, 

 let me but listen to the crackling faggots on thy hearth-stone, and 

 I'll give thee all I have earned by my day's labour with a thankful 

 heart." 



Vain, however, were the poor fellow's entreaties for further- 

 hospitality. As well might he have hoped to move the mercy of 

 Pluto and the Eumenides as that of Owen Mawr and his wife,, 

 who, seeing it was but the commencement of a snow-storm,, 

 apprehended no danger whatever from the attack of wolves, and 

 attributed the man's disinclination to quit the Hermitage to his- 

 appreciation of the good fare he had found therein. His fears,, 

 they believed, were a mere sham ; and accordingly, as Owen all 

 but thrust him from the gate, Annette bid him, with a pitiless 

 grin, tell his beads every yard of the way, or the Loup-garou 

 would have him as well as his horses before he reached Gourin. 



.But the joke was a grim and a cruel one for the charcoal- 

 burner's ears. His beasts, indeed, trotted merrily out the moment 

 the gates were opened, but he himself went forth to the lonesome 

 hill-side with the dread of a man driven to his doom. That very 

 night the wail of a wolf startled Annette in her dreams, and quicker 

 than lightning to her thoughts came the visage of the charcoal- 

 burner pleading for protection at the gates of the Hermitage ; 

 and as, again and again, the dismal howling was answered by other 

 wolves near and around the circuit of the walls, she could not help 

 fearing the poor fellow's forebodings would be realised to the 

 bitterest end. Yet, though safe as within the walls of a fortress, 



