the certain
prospect of being drowned. The very hares knew how matters were, and
passed to and fro before the garden-windows; and a stray wolf, which
came one evening into the court-yard, sat on his hind-quarters and
looked us impudently in the face; as to the birds, they ate up very
nearly every peach and apricot we had. The silence of the grave reigned
everywhere--the house seemed a very sepulchre, in which nothing could be
heard but the monotonous liquid bubblings of the fountains, the ticking
of the clocks, and the sighing breezes that whistled through the
casements.

Fairly worn out with this state of things, I was thinking seriously of
leaving for the gay swamps of Holland, when a crisis occurred in the
banker's disorder, and after a severe struggle, in which every bone of
his body seemed to twist itself round, he was declared by his pallid
doctor out of danger--saved. Surrounding his bed, we drank with no
little joy to his perfect recovery, and during one entire week we
suspended on the walls of his bed-room, according to the custom in Le
Morvan, garlands of lilies and _vervenia_, interwoven with green foliage
and wild thyme. From this time he improved daily, and three months after
no one would have recognized the sick man; his face became quite rosy,
and his eyes looked full of returning health. With a gun on his
shoulder, he followed us nimbly through the vineyards, never flinched
from his bottle, sang barcarolles with the ladies, made declarations of
love to all the young girls, promised to marry each, once at least, and
danced away in the evening under the acacias with the nymphs of the
village, to whom he had always some secret to tell behind the trees, or
in some snug little corner. The woodcock season having arrived during
his stay, which was now nearly over, we determined that he should be
introduced to _la chasse aux Mares_.

Pardon me, kind reader, for all this gossip by the way, but this is the
point at which I wished to arrive.

CHAPTER XV.

Summer months in the Forest--_Mare_ No. 3--Description of it--The
Woodcock fly--The Banker has a day's sport--Arrives at the
_Mare_--Difficult to please in his choice of a hut--Proceeds to a
larger _Mare_--His friends retire--The Banker on the alert for a
Wolf or a Boar--Fires at some animal--The unfortunate
discovery--Rage of the Parisian--Pays for his blunder, and recovers
his temper.

During the months of June,