296 WOLF-HUNTING. 



most natural, seeing that no sufferer appealed to him in vain, and 

 that in pursuing a wolf he meant killing him, and rarely failed in 

 doing so, if he had been guilty of any daring outrage or had 

 acquired an especial ill-fame among the country-folk. This being 

 the rule of the Louvetier, it was impossible to question the bona 

 fide manner in which he fulfilled the duties of his office, which, 

 if it provided him and his friends with a wild and attractive 

 sport, contributed in no small degree to the public good. Yet 

 he looked on a she-wolf late in the season as a master of hounds 

 in this country looks on a vixen in February ; and no rat-catcher, 

 professing to clear a barn of its rats, but somehow or other 

 allowing the heavy-with-young to escape his clutches, could do 

 his work more adroitly than St. Prix when a she-wolf in a similar 

 condition was roused by his hounds. 



Under these circumstances, Shafto, who had been brought 

 up with a full knowledge of the conventional laws that govern 

 fox-hunting in England laws which for moral force might laugh 

 to scorn those of Draco was scrupulously particular in deferring 

 to the Louvetier's wishes in all matters relating to the chase of 

 the wolf and the boar ; and as already, by the help of Kergoorlas' 

 and Shafto's hounds, a larger number of heads and hides had been 

 accounted for than in any previous season since the appointment 

 of St. Prix to that office, our forest bill of fare was restricted to 

 the pursuit of smaller game, of which there was certainly no lack 

 in the immediate neighbourhood. 



The woodcock, which before the commencement of the snow 

 had been scattered broadcast over the vast covers, whether 

 stretching upwards to the highest ridge of the Black Mountains 

 or down into the hollow and sheltered valleys below, were now 

 driven to a limited area kept open in well-known spots by warm 

 springs and running water a concentration that enabled us to 

 find every cock in the country with one old setter, belled for 

 the purpose, and taught to break point and flush his game at the 



