134 A MONTH IN THE FOKESTS OF FRANCE. 



excellent proverb, but which is very often neglected 

 — by my own countrymen occasionally, but by your 

 countrymen invariably — and that is, / always look at 

 my gun, and never let my gun look at me or at any of 

 my friends ; so, supposing a miracle was vouchsafed 

 to it, and it fired by spontaneous combustion, it 

 could do no harm." 



They shook their heads, as if suspicious that the 

 overpowering excitement so constitutional with them 

 must prevent me from being careful ; and then they 

 brought me their guns, the hammers of some of them, 

 when at half-cock, being so close down upon the 

 nipple, as scarcely to admit of a possibility of judging 

 whether they touched the cap or not. On studying 

 the reason of this proximity of the half-cock to the 

 nipple, I discovered it to be the French idea that 

 then, if the spring of the hammer and trigger gave 

 way, the fall of the hammer would not have force 

 enough to explode the cap. I shrugged my shoulders, 

 and said I should be very sorry to found my ideas of 

 their safety on such a plea. 



At last, the servants and their limier being well 

 filled, we started for the wood in which the wicked 

 solitary was said to be harboured ; and a report got 

 about that a day or two previous, while the hunts- 

 man was boring the boar to death with his limier in 



