220 A MONTH IN THE FORESTS OF FRANCE. 



CHAP. XV. 



" Rail on, ye vile and loathsome crew — 

 Swear that the sky's no longer blue, 



That honey is not sweet : 

 That Nightingales are harsh as crows, 

 The Milch-cow roars, the Lion lows ; 



But dare not to entreat 

 One link to sever from that chain, 

 That makes your efforts worse than vain ! " 



Berkeley. 



On the Thursday after our defeat by the sow, I 

 amused myself by killing a few partridges, and by 

 attending to and nursing the hounds ; it being quite 

 evident to me that between ill-health, want of con- 

 dition, and over work, we had little or nothing left to 

 hunt with ; and that the tongues of all the hounds 

 had come to be a good deal faster than their legs. 

 Although this state of things will easily be understood 

 by an English huntsman, there was not a piqueur in 

 that part of France into whose head such a possibility 

 entered. The prospect of further sport began now 

 to fail ; but we were aroused into another energetic 

 attempt by the news that, in a portion of the forest 

 with which, according to my friends, it was easy to 



