est. In winter, when the
snow covered the earth for several weeks, the famished and furious
wolves assembled in the neighbourhood in packs, carrying off in the
broad daylight everything they could lay their teeth on; sheep and
shepherd, dogs and huntsman, horse and horseman, bones, hair, and skins
half-tanned, old hats and shoes--even the corrupt bodies of the dead
were torn from their resting-places, and eaten by these horrid animals.

On moonlight nights, these brutes would come fearlessly up to the very
walls of the farm, dancing their sarabandes in the snow, howling like so
many devils, shrieking and showing their long white teeth, and demanding
in unmistakable terms something or somebody to devour; their yells,
their cries of rage, of victory, and of love, intermingled with the
funereal song of the screech-owl, and the lugubrious melodies which the
current from the blast without caused in the large open chimneys,--was
the concert, which from December to April lulled the inmates of St.
Hibaut to sleep; music that would I doubt not have reduced even the
formidable proportions of the inimitable Lablache, and made Mario sing
out of tune.

But these were the good old times, the good old times! Well do I
remember, when the shadows of those winter evenings lengthened, when
nightfall came, and when at last the moon arose, bringing out in light
and shade every object within the court-yard, and at some distance from
the house, then it was that Monsieur de Cheribalde went his rounds. I
see him in my mind's eye now, with his gun on his shoulder, followed by
his five enormous bloodhounds strong and fierce as lions, and Navarre,
surnamed the Four-Pounder, who walked a few paces to the right and left,
opening his large saucer eyes, poking and squinting into every bush and
corner.

Navarre, for forty years the head gamekeeper of the domain, was his
master's right hand, his _alter ego_. He had never in his whole life
been beyond his woods,--had never seen the church-steeple of a great
town. To him, the dark belt of firs that skirted the horizon, was the
limit of the world; and when told that the sun never set, and that when
it sank behind the mountains, it was only continuing its course, to beam
bright in other skies and on other lands, and to ripen other
harvests,--Navarre smiled, and did not believe a word. Happy Navarre!
what did it signify to him what was done, or what happened behind those
hills? He was thin and dry as a ma