i4 BRITANKt AND THE CHASE. 



men, picked from the line for good conduct, and do their 

 general business well ; but get into awful difficulties with 

 the poachers. For instance, the other day an old poacher, 

 who knew the country well, was chased by one of them. 

 He pretended to be lame, and hobbled away, having the 

 other all along under his hand, as they say, and at last 

 drew him on to a morass. Arrived there, he slackened his 

 jDace more and more, and got the gendarme to leave his 

 carbine on the edge, and venture after him from tuft to 

 tuft, by paths best known to himself, until they reached 

 the middle, and then the poacher gaily sprang away to the 

 other side, and left him. The gendarme followed — soon 

 lost the track — got into the bog — floundered from one 

 depth to another, until finally he was well planted up to 

 his shoulders, and there his tormentor, after some pleasant 

 raillery, left him ; and had not some chance passer-by 

 noticed the cocked hat, the gendarme would have been 

 starved to death. Sometimes, in dodging about, they meet 

 with a surprise. A gentleman I know was lately followed 

 by one, who seemed to take him for a poacher, and was 

 trying to conceal himself, in order to fall suddenly upon 

 him. But a gendarme can hide himself almost as easily 

 as an ostrich. Accordingly, some game shortly rising, my 

 friend fired, whether at it or not may be judged from the 

 fact that down from a bush came tumbhng the gendarme 

 grievously peppered. The gentleman was summoned before 

 the judge ; and said he fired at the game — how could he 

 fancy that gendarmes were in every bush ? " But," said 

 the judge, "the game was not in a line with the officer." 

 " Perhaps not precisely in a line," said the other coolly ; 



