A CHKISTMAS SHOOT IN ARDENNES 111 



and then staggered up, looking very wicked. My 

 left barrel took him a little forward, and, as it proved 

 afterwards, completely cut his throat. At the moment 

 it reduced his warlike ardour, and turned him down 

 the hill again. Forty yards on, and before I had 

 quite reloaded, he dropped on his side — dead. Almost 

 at this moment a double shot rang out from my 

 neighbour, a gendarmerie officer, and in a minute 

 this was repeated. At the end of the beat I went 

 to him, and found that my shot had turned the 

 ''sounder" towards him, and as they passed along 

 behind he had fired both barrels, hitting once, and 

 then again, with an unknown result ; but his pig had 

 fallen in the attempt to cross a little rivulet with 

 steep banks, and both here and elsewhere there was 

 plenty of blood. 



There was great jubilation when the party assem- 

 bled. The track of the pigs led to a fir-covered hill. 

 Most of the guns were posted beyond this, the rest, 

 of whom I was one, going with the beaters, in case 

 of a charge from a wounded animal. We had not 

 gone very far up the hill when I almost met and 

 shot a fox. Not two minutes later I heard three 

 shots and much shouting from the firing-line. As 

 I presently learnt, my shot had started the wounded 

 animal, who had gone on to his doom. The only pity 

 was that he was small, a mere infant by mine, which 

 weighed over three hundredweight, and whose tusks 

 hang in the room where I write. In this little beat 

 two more foxes were shot, for, of course, there was 

 no reason against firing now. The rest of the pig 

 were tracked on over the boundary. 



Thus, with three roe, two pig, and four foxes, we 

 wended our way to Mersch in triumph, but, strange 



