THE WORTH OF THE LIMIER. 135 



an endeavour to make him safe for the Saturday's 

 chase, the vieux sanglier charged him and drove him 

 from the proposed scene of his daily lair, and then 

 left perpetual cards for the piqueur on the bark of 

 trees, in the shape of scores run up on the point of 

 his tusks, just to show him what he could do if he 

 only caught his disturber. The assertion the hunts- 

 man made was as follows : — He had worked after 

 this boar for several days, and had always har- 

 boured him ; that is, he had traced him by slot and 

 by limier to his lair, and then from his lair the fol- 

 lowing morning to his feed and to his lair again, 

 until, as he declared, he had traced him from his 

 feed to his lair on the Friday night, or rather on that 

 Saturday morning, and, by a circuit ahead of him 

 with the limier, proved that he had gone no further, 

 and, therefore, that without the smallest doubt he 

 could put the hounds upon him. 



I am afraid that had I ventured, in conversation 

 with my immediate friends at the chateau, to treat 

 piqueurs and the limier with contempt, from the spe- 

 cimen of the servants I had seen, as well as from the 

 dishonesty, unsteadiness, and bodily infirmities of the 

 hounds, the size of the forest, the number and variety 

 of animals it contained, and the nature of the ground. 

 I should have received for answer an *^ Ah, ha, then ! " 



K 4 



