k our horses
it was bearable, but sometimes when they broke into a jog-trot, which
nothing apparently could make them change, it was very fatiguing after
a long day.

Sometimes, when we had people staying with us, we followed the hunt in
the carriage. We put one of the keepers of the Villers-Cotterets
forest on the box, and it was wonderful how much we could see. The
meet was always amusing, but when once the hunt had moved off, and the
last stragglers disappeared in the forest, it didn't seem as if there
was any possibility of catching them; and sometimes we would drive in
a perfectly opposite direction, but the old keeper knew all about the
stags and their haunts when they would break out and cross the road,
and when they would double and go back into the woods. We were waiting
one day in the heart of the forest, at one of the carrefours, miles
away apparently from everything, and an absolute stillness around us.
Suddenly there came a rush and noise of galloping horses, baying
hounds and horns, and a flash of red and green coats dashed by,
disappearing in an instant in the thick woods before we had time to
realize what it was. It was over in a moment--seemed an hallucination.
We saw and heard nothing more, and the same intense stillness
surrounded us. We had the same sight, the stag taken in the water,
some years later, when we were alone at the chateau. Mme. A. was dead,
and her husband had gone to Paris to live. We were sitting in the
gallery one day after breakfast, finishing our coffee, and making
plans for the day, when suddenly we saw red spots and moving figures
in the distance, on the hills opposite, across the canal. Before we
had time to get glasses and see what was happening, the children came
rushing in to say the hunt was in the woods opposite, the horns
sounding the hallali, and the stag probably in the canal. With the
glasses we made out the riders quite distinctly, and soon heard faint
echoes of the horn. We all made a rush for hats and coats, and started
off to the canal. We had to go down a steep, slippery path which was
always muddy in all weathers, and across a rather rickety narrow
plank, also very slippery. As we got nearer, we heard the horns very
well, and the dogs yelping. By the time we got to the bridge, which was
open to let a barge go through, everything had disappeared--horses,
dogs, followers, and not a sound of horn or hoof. One solitary
horseman only, who had evidently lost the hunt a