My good luck departed with that first battue. There were ten more, but not one hare came my way.
I returned to the house tired out. I had killed a hare a hundred paces from the farm; M. Moquet had offered to send it there at once, but I declined to be thus parted from it, and I carried it on my back some eight or ten leagues.
I need hardly say that amidst the jokes which always enliven a shooting party's dinner I came in for a large share. The evolutions which I had executed; all the hares coming my way from an instinct that my gun was loaded with earth; no more passing me after my gun was put right again; all these items, to say nothing of my face, which had been scratched by the hare during my hand-to-hand struggle with it, formed capital themes for jesting.
But one thing made me forget all these quips and jibes, and sent me into an ecstasy of unspeakable happiness.
The series of jokes of which I was the butt finished by M. Deviolaine saying:
"Never mind! I will take you boar-hunting next Thursday, to see if you will catch hold of those gentry, with your arms round their bodies, as you catch hares."
"Do you really mean it, cousin?"
"Honour bright."
"On your honour, really?"
"On my word of honour."