A month in the forests of France

Front matter

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Chap. III

“Tf our discretion tells us how to live, We need no ghost a helping hand to give ; But if discretion cannot us restrain, It then appears a ghost would come in vain.” Crabbe.

AMONG others, there is one very great error in the French management of railway traffic. Anything which causes confusion and delay to the traveller ought to be avoided, and all unnecessary complication in machinery of every description set aside. In France there are different offices for the payment of different things belonging to one and the same passenger—in England one office and one payment suffices for them all. At the Orleans station first I had to pay at one window for my own ticket, at a second for my dogs, and at a third for an over-weight of luggage. In addition to this, the luggage is separated from its owner, and the owner has not the chance to see that it is duly put into the van and none of it left behind.

Although the porters on the French rail are professedly forbidden to demand money, there is not one in fifty of them that does not dun the English traveller for reward almost for the mere reply as to where he is to take his ticket. When these fellows were attentive and careful of my dogs, I gave them something; but when they demanded money, as they generally did, for taking my luggage from the cab to the railway office, I invariably refused it.

At the Orleans station one of these men demanded money at the very office window while I was taking the ticket either for my dogs or for the extra weight of luggage, I forget which; and, on my giving him a few sous, he complained that it was not enough. On this I immediately reported him to the official ticket-taker in the office, who shook his head at him and laughed, when he returned the sous, and again said they were not enough. I took them back and told him if he fvished to follow up his suit for more he must apply to the king of the infernal regions, as, having refused the sous from me, he would then get nothing. Fortunately for me, at the Orleans station there was a French lady who understood and spoke English fluently, and with the greatest possible kindness she came up and offered her services in the shape of interpreter between me and the officials.

THE ORLEANS RAILWAY. Bey

Even in her presence the porters craved money,

when she told me I had better submit to the imposition than run the risk of having some of my _ parcels purposely left behind; I therefore gave two or three of them a trifle rather than be put to any inconvenience. This is not as it should be, and not in accordance with the courtesy shown to Frenchmen when travelling on an English line. Not one of our porters dare attempt such an imposition; and I am fully convinced if such a demand reached the ears of an Englishman on the spot, he would report the of- — fender, and at once obtain his discharge. The same lady, who thus so good-naturedly gave me her attention, informed me that she was requested to ask if I would sell any or all of my dogs, when I replied that none of them could be disposed of, but if she herself desired either a terrier or a bloodhound, the first time I had one to spare, the same, without purchase should be laid at her feet. She gave me her address ; and I will not forget my promise.

At this station I had the pleasure of seeing the Marshal Pelissier, Duke de Malakoff, who travelled by the same train; when, instead of beholding a form resembling the delineation of Punch, as “our special correspondents” were so fond of painting him, I beheld a short, square, thickset, hale and hearty

D 2 man, with not much waist certainly, but at the same time not possessed of stomach sufficient * to prevent his sitting on horseback.” He trod the platform with a quick, firm, soldierlike step; and my belief is, that in a wrestle he would kick up the heels of some of the English “ gentlemen of the press” who used to be so fond of holding him up to ridicule.

At last, my hounds in their box, or dog’s hole (an improvement, though, on the English holes), and my luggage stowed away, I found myself again progressing towards Nevers—a gentleman and a lady, and one other gentleman, my travelling companions. Though smoking in a carriage, I believe, is professedly prohibited in France, as it is in England, both these gentlemen made themselves horribly disagreeable by puffing at their cigars; when, as I thought it not worth while for the nonce to turn myself into a tobacco-stopper, I bore the infernal fumigation with great good-humour, seeing, too, that the lady (though I thought I read a look of disgust in her features when she accorded permission to smoke) did not openly object to it. Somehow or other we got into an indistinct interchange of ideas, the sight of Malwood having induced some sporting conclusions ; when one of the gentlemen, to show me that he knew what Malwood was for, failing to make

ZOOLOGY IN A RAILWAY CARRIAGE. 37 himself verbally intelligible, got down on his hands and knees, stooped his head, as if to a scent, and then flung it up and bellowed, to the infinite mirth of the lady as well as of myself and the other gentlemen. He then resorted to my pocket-book, and drew the animals of chase, and one way or other we got on very well.

To get from the main line to Nevers I had to clear out to a branch line at a station called Guétin ; and while on the platform collecting my luggage, a firm friendly grasp was laid on my shoulder, and M. d’Anchald welcomed me most heartily to France. From Guétin we proceeded to Nevers, arriving there at half-past six in the afternoon, and from the station to the Hotel de France, where the carriage to take us to the chateau was in waiting. A very tempting dinner-bell, summoning to the table d’héte, was ringing when we arrived at the hotel, and M. d’Anchald advised me to have some dinner; but, having lunched at one of the stations, and not feeling at the moment hungry, I declined, with a grateful idea of dinner about half-past eight at the chateau. Alas! I did not then know the French estimation of distance. The two hours’ drive I expected, under the most favourable circumstances would have been four; but as we had some delays in Nevers on account of one

D 3 thing and another, and a wheel chose to get into a very lively state of fire instead of locomotion, it was after two o’clock in the morning before the hospitable chateau received us under its ample roof.

As soon as we reached the precincts of the forest, my eyes were straining from the carriage-window into its deep dark depths, and wondering, as the white stems of the aspen and ash stood out in the light of the lamps from the impervious background, if a boar or wolf had ever passed under the boughs and stems Isaw! At one spot, as we neared the chateau, M. d’Anchald heightened the interest I felt by telling me there was a litter of wolves hard by; for one of his people, who were on the look-out, had found their ‘‘ larder” with the remains of a horse in it, and, while this man was searching for signs of the using of wolves, he had put up a band of ten wild boars.

I must not forget to mention the two white mares which drew the carriage—one of them, for heavy power and shape, the cleverest creature of the sort I eversaw. She had the immense power of an English dray-horse, while at the same time she could trot lightly and well in a barouche, and was symmetry itself to look at. The other mare was immensely powerful and clever, but not so handsome.

On entering the chateau, forming the rug of the

THE CHATEAU SAUVAGES 39 fireplace in the dining-room, I saw a very well-preserved old wolf’s skin, gray and completely tawny with age, as to which my friend, as a sort of seasoning to our late (or rather early) repast that morning, related to me the following legend : —

This old wolf had been known for years in the forest around the chateau, and had been frequently hunted, and as often escaped. Once, when he was closely pursued, M. d’Anchald viewed him run into the midst of a flock of sheep, and, though he kept his eye on the flock, he never saw the wolf leave it. On the other sportsmen with the hounds coming up, they surrounded and advanced on the sheep, supposing _ that the wolf was hidden among them; but, after the most minute search the wolf could not be found, and what was to them still more extraordinary, the hounds could never hit upon him again.

From what I have since seen of the French chase and method of hunting, I could account for the latter fact without the aid of one unearthly suspicion. So often and so oddly had this old wolf eluded his pursuers, that people began to think that it was not a wolf even in sheep’s clothing, but a devil in a wolf’s skin, and, without some especial aid from St. Hubert, the huntsmen despaired of a victory. Grown bolder with age and impunity, and desperate too from infir-

D4 mity, this old wolf began to seek his food in broad daylight, and, when the sheep were feeding anywhere near the woods, he would suddenly appear and chase them for a dinner.

It is the custom, in those cultivated valleys between the woodlands, to send a little girl out in charge of the sheep. One day the old wolf made his usual sortie on the flock; but as the French sheep are better calculated for running than roasting, and every hour at the wolf’s age made him slower, he failed to catch his mutton, when, in a state of purblind excitement and famine, he seized and killed the only creature not fast enough to escape, and devoured the little girl. A second time he committed a similar outrage; when, on the alarm reaching the village, and the peasants sallying forth in force, as he retreated from the remains of the poor creature he had killed and partly eaten, the villagers thought, from the way he ran against a portion of the wood, that he was blind.

For a time nothing more was heard of him; but he again suddenly appeared in a raid upon the sheep, and, failing to catch one, he, in a third instance, killed a little girl in attendance on them, and had devoured one of her thighs when the villagers came and drove him away. As they bore the poor girl’s body to the cottage of mourning, a great quantity of

LEGEND OF AN OLD WOLF. 41 blood flowed from the arteries of the torn limb, and dropped upon the road, and on the threshold of the door whence the poor child but a few hours before had passed in all the health and vivacity of youth. As is the custom, during the night an old woman sat up with the corpse; when, in the very witching hour “when churchyards yawn and graves give up their dead,” while the rest of the villagers were buried in repose, the night pitch dark and airless, as if nature feared yet listened for an approaching thunderstorm, the old woman was roused from her lonely vigil over the dead by asullen but approaching sound, as of the long heavy gallop of some large animal coming down the road straight to the cottage-door. Stride by stride, more audibly and nearer it came; the old woman in a frenzy of terror, rose as the result became evident, and as she rose some creature rushed against the portal with a blow like that of a sledge-hammer, shook the door from latch and lock to its very foundation, and then seemed to fall back from the force of the concussion. More dead than alive, the old woman then heard what seemed to her a low growl or moan of pain and disappointment, and a heavy, slow, and perhaps limping, trotting footfall, as the creature retreated in the direction whence it had arrived. In the morning the pad of the wolf was detected up to the cottage-door; he was blind, and at night, on returning to the spot whence he had been forced from his repast on the little girl, he had discovered and hunted up the traces of her blood, and in his blind pursuit came rushing down the road, till his course was thwarted by the cottage-door. So great had become the terror occasioned by this old wolf, and I regret to say so inefficient were the legitimate means of hunting him, that an extra reward was offered for his head; when at last, the moon being bright and high, adead horse was placed in the forest to attract him, and a man in atree above it with a gun. ‘The first night nothing was seen of the old wolf; but on the second the temptation to the blind and famished animal was too strong. He came to the bait, and while tearing at the flesh with the jaw of “ starvgtion,” a bullet avenged his murderous deeds, and thus ingloriously he fell dead. How I looked at this venerable and venerated skin, and hoped that the owner of it, now no more, had left an infinity of sons and daughters, every one of whom had also innumerable pledges of loupish felicity ; and with a hearty good wish for the prosperity and fecundity of the larger game, I bade my hospitable friends good night, or rather good morning, and retired to my chamber, in which I found all that could refresh a traveller, or add to his comfort and contentment.

Chap. IV

“ Forget thee ! if to dream by night and muse on thee by day, If all the worship deep and wild a poet’s heart can pay, If prayers in absence breath’d for thee to Heay’n’s protecting power, If winged thoughts that flit to thee, a thousand in an hour, If busy fancy blending thee with all my future lot, If this thou call’st ‘ forgetting,’ thou, indeed, shalt be forgot !” . Moultrie.

Ir was late that morning when I opened my eyes, and at first could not realise where I was; but after a rub or two at my forehead, consciousness returned, and I felt myself at the chateau in the French forests. With a swing I leapt from my bed, and, entering the recess of the window caused by the thickness of the walls, I threw the casement open, and inhaled as sweet a sigh, from as sunny a morn, as ever a sportsman revelled in. Beneath my window was a terrace, whence arose to my delighted senses the aroma of mignonette and other flowers, while below its wall were splendid meadows, as green and rich as those beneath the battlements of Berkeley Castle, filled with white cattle. Beyond the meadows the undulating ground arose in some arable land, ee abutting the edge of the luxuriant wild, or copsewood forest. Oh! what a balmy, easily breathed, and invigorating air; how soft the sky, and how green the fields and woods. I looked on them all with a heartfelt veneration; and if I wished for eyes that were far away, and thought on hours which I had shared with them in beautiful prospects something like the one now. before me, that did not enervate the sportsman’s arm, nor render me less anxious to bring a boar to bay. m

The meadows I gazed on, in olden times had been an immense lake, I suppose of nearly two or three hundred acres of water, and had formed the defence on one side of the chateau, its waters being carried round on the other side by a ditch, protected at the flanks by towers. From the cellars of the chateau I subsequently ascertained that a subterranean passage extended a considerable distance, opening out into the dense forest, but at this time unexplored on account of malaria and other impediments. “Oh why,” I once upon a time exclaimed to my friend M. d’Anchald, “did you not keep up the lake, for the sake of the wild swans, and all the varieties of fowl and fish upon and within it ?”

“The bullocks are better,” was his reply; “a bullock to an acre is better than the ducks.” And

A DRAW FOR AN OTTER. 45 in one sense of the word, of course, I could offer no contradiction.

Having luxuriated in the air and prospect for some moments, I surveyed my room. In addition to all the comforts of an English bedroom, by the side of my bed, and in especial compliment to my known devotion to St. Hubert, lay the beautifully preserved skin of a huge wolf, the head and open jaws containing the teeth, admirably stuffed and retained, and the edge of the skin surrounded with crimson cloth. What a fit accompaniment this trophy was for the luggage that lay around it! The moment I was dressed and waiting for a summons to a very late breakfast, I unpacked my things and arranged them ready to my hand; and scarcely had I done so when my hearty host entered and gave me, as an Irishman would say, the *‘ top of the morning.”

From the late hour at which we had gone to bed, and the consequent delay in the morning appearance, it was decided only to draw that portion of the river near the chateau for an otter—report, as usual, asserting that the banks were haunted by the young and old of the animals in question. Having no shafts that would fit my spear-heads we resolved to take our guns to give the otter the coup de grdce ; 80, sticking my straight English hunting-horn into my 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, Mr. 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 bedstead—site, aspect, and all, it could not be amended; “but” (how I hate that much-conveying monosyllable!) 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 accumulated in the corners of his eyes.

A FRENCH KENNEL OF HOUNDS. 47

‘* What on earth is the matter with Saxon?” I exclaimed,

“‘ Nothing ; ” was the reply.

* Nothing! Why, he is dying, and so are three parts of the hounds. All are skeletons, save one or two, who are as fat as prize pigs; all are more or less eaten up with the mange, and even the best-looking are in no condition. What makes the most of them so thin ?”

“I don’t know: they eat what they like.”

** What makes that one so fat?”

“TI don’t know: he has the same chance as the others.”

** How do you feed them ?”

* We let them all in together.”

“Good Heaven! What do you let them eat?”

*‘ Barley bread, soaked in hot water.”

‘No flesh ?”

**Oh yes, sometimes.”

** Well, the hounds are dying: how do you account for it?”

“Oh, perhaps some very hot weather. We took them out the other day to an attack of young wolves, and, after a time, they all lay down; and they have looked bad ever since.”

Reader, dear brother huntsman, will you believe it, that these poor hounds had lain cooped up in their kennel from March till the end of August, and then, without any previous exercise or trot on the roads, or rule as to the quantity of fat they carried, and not having had any meat, they were taken out into the severest and best-scenting woods imaginable, and put to hunt cub wolves, in a climate warmer than that of England and on a very hot day? Well might they tire and lie down; well might they look ill from low fever induced by such unwonted exertion; all I wonder at is, that they contrived to hunt a brace of cub wolves to their death, and that Mr. Assheton Smith’s old Blossom had capabilities sufficient in her to overtake and get punished by the old vixen wolf. I wonder that these hounds did not all fall off in fits, die at once, or go mad; and I ceased to marvel so much at the complicated nature of the diseases by which they were more or less oppressed.

The seventeen hounds that were there collected consisted of about five or six French hounds, some rough and some smooth, and one was a little harrier; to these were added my great able-bodied bloodhound Saxon, who stood nearly 25 inches high, and several full-sized foxhounds, old and young, one of them a clever dog hound called “ Windsor,” from her Majesty’s kennel at Ascot Heath, but who was

‘ Fe ale a

A COUPLE OF STEADY HOUNDS. 49 down of two toes, and therefore, as far as speed and endurance went, done for. All the French hounds, except one old rascal called Musto, or some name like it, were either cripples or attenuated worn-out skeletons, save one powerless dog, liver-coloured and white, with a stump tail, for it could not be called a stern. He was in fair flesh, though very mangy, but without exception as powerless, ill-grown, and ugly a thing as ever ran on four bad legs ; I think they called him Papajeau. Out of this strange collection I had to choose two couple of steady old foxhounds, the more recently imported from England the better, and I asked to be shown those purchased from George Carter. Only two of these were fit to go, Blossom and one other; so I had to take two able young foxhound bitches.

Wishing to make my otter pack up to three couple, I then asked them to point out to me a couple of their surest, most truthful, and steadiest hounds, on whom they could rely; when they selected one of the old worn-out black-pied French hounds, and a smooth French dog, who looked to have in him a cross of the harrier. Both were old, each was hideous, and I saw that neither could run a yard; but, as they were recommended to me by my friends as remarkable for truth and steadiness, I accepted their services,

E and with these three couple of hounds and my two terriers we started for the river. They were about to couple their hounds up; but, not conceiving that such a thing could be needful, I ‘discarded couples for the hounds of my choice, and in amazement viewed them chain the old worn-out cripples.

At the place where we were to commence, there were barns and a cottage standing on the banks of the river, close to the chateau—the path by the door of the cottage used only by men, women, and children, and joining the high road. As this led immediately to the brook, I bade them uncouple the two French hounds, which request was complied with, and, about half-past two o’clock P.M., on the most frequented thoroughfare, to my horror, the old smooth French dog put down his nose as if feeling a scent, and started in full cry along the beaten path, the other French animal looking at him and doing the same — Blossom and the English hounds, as well as my terriers staring at them in mystified astonishment.

‘For heaven’s sake,” I said, “take up those two old false cripples, those babblers.”

“‘ Babblers ! what is that ?”

«* Why, devils who kick up an infernal clatter without scent before them.” |

“QOh, no; they don’t do that. Something has been there in the night.”

FP ne ea

THE BABBLERS DISCOVERED. 51

“Something there in the night! Yes, and in the day too, —rats, cows, chickens, and children; but not an animal of chase. Take them up, or I cannot attempt to hunt an otter.”

By this time these false old villains had disturbed their industrious fleas, and had sat down to scrately in silence. So the rejoinder made to me was:

“ Oh those hounds spoke from excitement, on being just let out of their couples; they won’t do it again.”

“ Won't they ?” I replied; “I know better; I have seen quite enough to be well aware that the fault of babbling, or telling lies, is a systematic one with them; but seeing is believing, and you shall convince yourselves,”

By this time I had reached the bushes on the bank of the stream, when gently, and in an under tone of voice, I encouraged old Blossom and my terriers to draw. Scarce a word had passed my lips, when off set the two old liars again in full cry; so I insisted on their return home — when one of my kind friends humoured me and returned them to their kennel.

We then commenced to draw steadily and well, except that Master Nip bowled into a young duck, but without the touch of an otter. The otters had been there, for on the banks in the grass, and on an occasional old stump of a tree, there were the

E 2

‘*sprainting ” places frequent, but very stale; so, having drawn down the river as far as we could go with daylight before us without finding, we were about to return home, when the voice of a distant horn reached us from the depths of the forest. I thought that I heard a confused tune played afar off, and deemed it some musician disporting himself windily to the woods; but my friends were much occupied with it, and at last told me that it was a hunter (who had heard my horn recalling a hound who had drawn away from the river) appealing to me for aid, and telling me by his horn that his wolf was beaten, his horse tired, and that, in that position he could not kill his animal of chase; and therefore, hearing my horn, he called on his brother huntsman to make in and assist him. While listening to this sylvan summons, we occasionally heard the baying of a hound; but, as we were all on foot, we could in no way make in, so the wolf escaped.

While thus drawing the Niévre for an otter, I was struck with its swift shallows and deep dark holes, and eddying pools beneath the alders, and, being assured that there were pike and perch in the river, I mentally resolved that on the first idle day I would haunt the banks of the stream with a live minnow for perch, and a good paternoster, such as is used

THE RIVER NIEVRE. 53 in the Thames, with two hooks to lie at the bottom. What a pretty little valley it is through which this river flows, winding its course, a green meadow on either side, with the dark copse-wood of the forest fringing the upland as if shutting out the noisy world. The approximation to the woodland forms one of the difficulties to otter-hunting; with old foxhounds unused to the amphibious sport, they think that you are mistaken in holding them along the river banks, and very naturally keep away for the higher and dryer lying. Otter-hunting then proved a blank, as it always does unless you have a whole day before you; so we returned to the chateau, all the better for our walk, with appetites quite prepared for dinner.

On the next day, Sunday (and a very rainy Sabbath it was), I again repaired to the kennel deeply anxious at least to do something for my friend’s hounds, and to put them in a better condition. Alas! we huntsmen of England too well know how long it takes to put a hound in sufficiently good trim to run down a wild animal; and, once let a pack become a prey to ill health and complicated disease, all possible exercise with the best food in the world will not avail them until medical treatment has restored each functional disarrangement, and left a

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Pe ain 4a paternity 9 ie i Se ile a Ee clean basis on which to build the breadth of muscle So necessary to speed and endurance. Again I stood in that well-built kennel-yard, and tried to discover what ailed the hounds; and the more I studied them the more was I confounded. In short, all the diseases I had ever known in the whole course of my experience seemed to have run into each other, and fastened on this devoted kennel.