The Mares, very different from one another, and having each of them very different admirers, are of three kinds; they are either small or large, near or distant from the village or neighbouring hamlet; and according as they are circumstanced in one or other of these respects they are more or less valuable. The largest, the deepest, the least known, those in short that are situated in the recesses of the forest, are the best and most frequented by game; to balance this advantage they are the most fatiguing and the most difficult to approach.
In the violent heats of July and August, when the sun burns up the herbage, when the wind as it passes parches the skin, and the sultry air scarcely allows the lungs to play—when the earth is quite dried up—the hot-blooded animals, whose circulation is rapid, remain completely overpowered with the heat in their retreats all day, either stretched panting on the leaves, or lurking in the shade of some rock; but the moment the sun, in amber clouds, sinks below the horizon, and twilight brings in his train the dark hours of night, and its humid vapours, the beasts of the forest are again in movement, again their ravenous appetite returns, and they lose no time in ranging the woods, seeking how and where they may gratify it. Then it is these large Mares, silent as a woman that listens at a keyhole—silent as a catacomb, is all at once endowed with life,—is filled with strange noises, like an aviary, and becomes, as night falls, a common centre to which the hungry and thirsty cavalcade direct their steps.
The first arrivals are hundreds of birds, of every size and colour, who come to gossip, to bathe, to drink, and splash the water with their wings. Next come troops of hares and rabbits, who come to nibble the fresh grass that grows there in great luxuriance. As the shades grow deeper, groups of the graceful roebuck, timid and listening for anticipated danger, their large open eyes gazing at each tree, giving an inquiring look at every shadow, are seen approaching with noiseless footsteps; when reassured by their careful reconnaissance, they steal forward, cropping the dewy rich flowers as they come, and at last slake their thirst in the refreshing waters.
At this instant you may, if you are fatigued, and so desire it, finish your day's sport. You may bring down the nearest buck; and then as the troop, wild with affright, make for the forest, the second barrel will add a fellow to your first victim.
But, no! pull not the trigger; stop, if only to witness what follows. See the roebuck prick their ears; they turn to the wind; they appear uneasy; call one to the other, assemble; danger is near, they feel it, hear it coming; they would fly, but find it is too late; terrified, they are chained to the spot. For the last half hour the wolves and wolverines, which followed gently, and at a distance, their own more rapid movements, have closed in upon them from behind, have formed the fatal circle, have noiselessly decreased it as much as possible, and at length come swiftly down upon the helpless creatures; each seizes his victim by the throat, the tranquil spot is ere long full of blood and carnage, and the echoes of the forest are awakened to the hellish yells of the savage brutes that thus devour their prey.
The cries of agony, of death and victory, sometimes last for a quarter of an hour; and during the fifteen minutes that you are watching the scene from your hut, you may fancy the teeth of these brutes are meeting in your own flesh, and feel a cold paw with claws of steel deep in your back or head.
The slaughter over, these monsters pass like a flight of demons across the turf, vanish,—and again all is silent. And when the tenth chime of the distant village clock is floating on the breeze, though it reaches not your cabin—when the falling dew, now almost a shower, has bathed the leaves, with rain chilling their fibres—when the bluebells and the foxgloves and all the wood-flowers rest upon their stems—when the songsters of the grove, with heads comfortably tucked under their warm wings, sleep soundly in their nests, or in the angles of the branches—when the young fawns, lost in some wild ravine, bleat for their mothers whom they never will see more; and the gorged wolves, their muzzles red with blood, are stretched snoring in their dens and lurking-places—then it is the heavy boars, shaking off their laziness, leave their sombre retreats—take to the open country, and trotting, grunting, and with hesitating footsteps, come and plunge their awkward and heavy bodies in the marshy waters, and wallow in the soft mud.
[1] Query,—fox-hunting and stag-hunting.—Translator.