of the
dogs, their carts and oxen, and go some dozen of miles, through storm
and tempest, through rush, rock, and swamp, to set a sportsman in his
right way again. Without saying a word, with steps attendant on his
weary progress, they trudge on before, making a sign for him to follow;
and when they have placed him once more on his road, a nod, a shake of
the hand, a smile, a kind word falling from his lips, pays them the full
price of all their troubles. Never have I seen one of them accept the
least pecuniary reward for such services--they do nothing but their
duty, they say; and as they are happy in the firm conviction that the
whole forest belongs to them, they think they are only doing the honours
of their green drawing-rooms. Thus it always happens, that when, by
their good care, you have escaped certain danger, it is with great
difficulty, and only after a deluge of rhetoric, that they consent to
accept for their daughters or wives a red wool dress, a gold cross, or a
row of large blue Pundaram beads; or for themselves a few dozen of iron
bullets, a bag of shot, or a flask of powder. This abnegation, this
frankness of the heart, this kind sympathy for every stranger, is
universal among the mountaineers; these benevolent and kindly feelings
are a portion of their holy traditions, and as such are most religiously
grafted by every mother into the soft wax-like hearts of her dear little
ones.

But while delighting to describe the virtues of these denizens of the
forests, these amiable fauns and jolly satyrs, I must not forget those
jovial trencher-men, the _cures_ of Le Morvan. Every sportsman
possesses, or should possess, the digestion of an ostrich; for his
appetite is generally prodigious, and the viands that fall in his way
are not always the most savoury. When, however, the venison pasty, the
truffled turkey, or the _pain de gibier_ is within his reach, no one is
so capable of enjoying and doing justice to these delicacies of the
table, of knocking off so dexterously the neck of the champagne bottle
when the corkscrew is absent, or whose legs are stretched out so
gracefully at the sight of brimming glasses and _recherche_ viands.

In these, his fallen moments, and after a good day's sport, a Morvinian
would tell you he could drink all the Burgundian cellars dry,--aye, and
those of Champagne too; and as to smoking, why, he would smoke a whole
crop of tobacco.

To all keen sportsmen, therefore, who love good ea