156 A MONTH IN THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



wolf. Alas, it was nothing more than I had pre- 

 viously thought must often happen. It was a hound 

 lugging along his couples, and fighting with the 

 briars. Resting my gun against a tree, I tried to 

 catch him, but in vain. 



The cry then, save in one or two individual excep- 

 tions, died away ; bushes began to crack here and 

 there, and I caught glimpses of blouses making their 

 way up; so, mounting Coco, I walked gently on, 

 listening to the distant cry, now so far off that it 

 came or ceased with the air that brought it. I was 

 sitting in a ride, with my groom and two blouses, 

 when it struck my ear that there was a very re- 

 markable sullen bay proceeding from a single hound ; 

 it was a long way off, and between me and the 

 distant line of chase. Occasionally a lighter tongue 

 or two seemed to back the sullen bay, and, whatever 

 those tongues were after, they shifted their positions, 

 and seemed to be here, there, and everywhere. 

 Thinking that there was something in it, I forebore 

 all attention to the distant chase, and listened for 

 nearer information, leaving the society of the two 

 blouses, dismounting, and going on some little dis- 

 tance on foot. I had not left the blouses above ten 

 minutes, when I heard that strange single sullen bay 

 again, evidently nearer to the spot I had just left 



