FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162  
163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   >>  
e yard. This most useful reinforcement with their vigorous attacks and loud barking completed the tumult and the tragedy. In twenty minutes the eight wolves were dead, and with them half the faithful dogs. The poor unfortunate lad, his throat torn open, was dead; his courageous, though unsuccessful defenders, were all more or less wounded, and the gallant farmer's left hand so injured, that as soon as surgical assistance could be procured for him, amputation was found to be necessary. The monsters, stretched side by side in the yard, were also stone dead, every one of them; but not a voice on the farm raised the heart-stirring shout of victory. Consternation and gloom reigned over it, and it was long indeed ere the voice of mourning deserted its walls. The skin of the wolf is strong and durable; the woodmen, _braconniers_, and mountaineers, make cloaks and caps of it, the tail being left on the latter to fall over the ear by way of ornament; they likewise cover with it the outside of their game-bags. They tan it also, and excellent shoes are made of the leather, soft and light for summer wear,--it is likewise made into parchment, not to write the history of their ancestors upon, but to cover small drums, the rattle of which, on fairdays and _fetes_ is sure to set the peasants dancing. This fact is alluded to in a song of our province, written by a shepherd-poet, in the pleasing dialect of Le Morvan, of which the following is a free translation: Hark! 'tis the wolf-skin drum, We come! We come! Yes, come with me sweet girl, and fair As rosebud wild that scents the air. The heavens are bright, the stars are shining, Thy lovely form my arms entwining; Together let us lead the dance Deep in thy sylvan haunts, dear France! Hark! I hear those sounds again, The wolf-skin drum, the pipers' strain. Wealthy persons use a wolf-skin for a carriage-rug, and in the rainy season as a mat at the door of a room. "There is nothing good in the wolf," says Buffon, "he has a base low look--a savage aspect, a terrible voice, an insupportable smell, a nature brutal and ferocious, and a body so foul and unclean that no animal or reptile will touch his flesh. It is only a wolf that can eat a wolf." "No animal," writes Cuvier, "so richly merits destruction as the wolf." With these two funeral orations on these incarnate fiends of Natural History, I shall close this chapter, remarkin
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   138   139   140   141   142   143   144   145   146   147   148   149   150   151   152   153   154   155   156   157   158   159   160   161   162  
163   164   165   166   167   168   169   170   >>  



Top keywords:
likewise
 

animal

 

Together

 
entwining
 

shining

 

lovely

 

incarnate

 

orations

 

France

 

funeral


haunts

 
bright
 

sylvan

 
fiends
 
translation
 

Morvan

 

shepherd

 

pleasing

 

dialect

 

History


scents

 

Natural

 

rosebud

 

heavens

 

savage

 
aspect
 

Buffon

 

terrible

 

ferocious

 

brutal


unclean

 

nature

 
reptile
 

insupportable

 

carriage

 

season

 

destruction

 

pipers

 

strain

 

Wealthy


persons
 
Cuvier
 

writes

 

written

 

richly

 
merits
 

remarkin

 
chapter
 
sounds
 

injured