le of the
woods; and though he knew all the nobility of the department, and met its
male representatives out shooting and hunting, he only regularly visited
one family, the Courvilles, who were very pleasant neighbors, and had
been allied to his race for centuries, and in their house he was liked,
and taken the greatest care of, and he used to say: "If I were not a
sportsman, I should like to be here always."

Monsieur de Courville had been his friend and comrade from childhood,
and lived quietly as a gentleman farmer with his wife, daughter and
son-in-law, Monsieur de Darnetot, who did nothing, under the pretext of
being devoted to historical studies.

Baron de Coutelier often went and dined with his friends, as much with
the object of telling them of the shots he had made, as of anything else.
He had long stories about dogs and ferrets, of which he spoke as if they
were persons of note, whom he knew very well. He analyzed them, and
explained their thoughts and intentions:

"When Medor saw that the corn-crake was leading him such a dance, he said
to himself: 'Wait a bit, my friend, we will have a joke.' And then, with
a jerk of the head to me, to make me go into the corner of the clover
field, he began to quarter the sloping ground, noisily brushing through
the clover to drive the bird into a corner from which it could not
escape.

"Everything happened as he had foreseen. Suddenly, the corn-crake found
itself on the borders of the clover, and it could not go any further
without showing itself; Medor stood and pointed, half-looking round at
me, but at a sign from me, he drew up to it, flushed the corn-crake;
_bang_! down it came, and Medor, as he brought it to me, wagged his tail,
as much as to say: 'How about that, Monsieur Hector?'"

Courville, Darnetot, and the two ladies laughed very heartily at those
picturesque descriptions into which the Baron threw his whole heart. He
grew animated, moved his arms about, and gesticulated with his whole
body; and when he described the death of anything he had killed, he gave
a formidable laugh, and said:

"Was not that a good shot?"

As soon as they began to speak about anything else, he left off
listening, and hummed a hunting song, or a few notes to imitate a hunting
horn, to himself.

He had only lived for field sports, and was growing old, without thinking
about it, or guessing it, when he had a severe attack of rheumatism, and
was confined to his bed for two months