t I was
hardly there before in dashed after me an enormous wolf. I cried out,
expecting to be torn to pieces every moment, but the creature lay on his
belly, his mouth wide open, his eyes glaring, and his long tongue
hanging out of his mouth, and although he touched me, he was so
exhausted that he did not attack me. The noise increased, and I
immediately perceived that it was the hunters in pursuit of him. I had
crawled in feet first, the wolf ran in head foremost, so that we lay
head and tail. I crept out as fast as I could, and perceived men and
dogs not two hundred yards off in full chase. I hastened to the large
tree, and had not ascended six feet when they came up; the dogs flew to
the hole, and in a very short time the wolf was killed. The hunters
being too busy to observe me, I had in the meantime climbed up the trunk
of the tree, and hidden myself as well as I could. Being not fifteen
yards from them, I heard their expressions of surprise as they lifted up
the blanket and dragged out the dead wolf, which they carried away with
them; their conversation being in Dutch, I could not understand it, but
I was certain that they made use of the word "_English_." The hunters
and dogs quitted the copse, and I was about to descend, when one of them
returned, and pulling up the blankets, rolled them together and walked
away with them. Fortunately he did not perceive our bundles by the
little light given by the moon. I waited a short time and then came
down. What to do I knew not. If I did not remain and O'Brien returned,
what would he think? If I did, I should be dead with cold before the
morning. I looked for our bundles, and found that in the conflict
between the dogs and the wolf, they had been buried among the leaves. I
recollected O'Brien's advice, and dressed myself in the girl's clothes,
but I could not make up my mind to go to Flushing. So I resolved to walk
towards the farmhouse, which, being close to the road, would give me a
chance of meeting with O'Brien. I soon arrived there and prowled round
it for some time, but the doors and windows were all fast, and I dared
not knock, after what the woman had said about her husband's inveteracy
to the English. At last, as I looked round and round, quite at a loss
what to do, I thought I saw a figure at a distance proceeding in the
direction of the copse. I hastened after it and saw it enter. I then
advanced very cautiously, for although I thought it might be O'Brien,
yet it