46 A MONTH IN THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



belt, accompanied by mine host and his two sons, 

 Jules and Maurice, we proceeded to inspect the kennel 

 of hounds, whence I desired to select the two couple 

 of old steady foxhound bitches I had procured for 

 M. d'Anchald from my old servant George Carter, 

 Mi*. Assheton Smith's huntsman, and which, some of 

 them, were descended from my foxhound Harrogate. 

 The kennel, adjoining the chateau, consisting of a 

 lodging-house and yard, was to that extent perfection 

 itself, with plenty of clean wheat-straw on the bed- 

 stead — site, aspect, and all, it could not be amended; 

 "but" (how I hate that much- conveying mono- 

 syllable !) in that kennel I beheld about seventeen 

 hounds, in every possible and impossible stage of 

 disease and incapability, and not above two or three 

 among them that even looked fit to follow an animal 

 of chase. There tottered Saxon — the great, able 

 young bloodhound, in the prime of life, who, single- 

 handed, had often hunted down, in runs of from 

 two to four hours' duration, the wild New Forest 

 deer, and whom I had sold to M. d'Anchald in the 

 previous spring — scarce able to sustain himself, nor 

 possessed of energy enough to know me ; as thin as 

 a whipping-post, as hollow in his coat as a " French 

 hen," and nearly blind from the yellow matter accu- 

 mulated in the corners of his eyes. 



