The morning dawned, and with the first rays of light master and men, for whom the event was a perfect fête, set some ladders against the walls of the court, and from them, as well as the windows, fired volleys on the entrapped wolves. Unable to resist, the animals for some time hurried hither and thither, crouching in every nook and corner of the yard: but the wounds from balls which reached them behind the stones, or under the carts, soon turned their fear into rage. They began to make alarming leaps, and the most dreadful yells. The work of destruction went on but slowly;—the men were but indifferent shots, the wolves never an instant at rest;—and the rapidity and perseverance with which they continued to gallop round, or leap from side to side of the yard, as if in a cage, essentially baffled the endeavours of their enemies.
The affair was in this way becoming tedious, when an unlooked-for misfortune threw a dreadful gloom over the whole scene.
The ladder used by one of the party being too short, the young man placed himself on the wall, as if in a saddle, to have a better opportunity of taking aim; when one of the wolves, the largest, strongest, and most exasperated, suddenly bounded at the wall, as if to clear it, but failed; subsequently the animal attempted to climb up by means of the unhewn stones, like a cat, and though he again failed, reached high enough almost to seize with his sharp teeth the foot of the unfortunate lad. Terrified at this he raised his leg to avoid the brute—lost his balance—and the same moment fell with a heart-rending scream into the court below. Each and all the wolves turned like lightning on their helpless, hopeless victim, and a cry of horror was heard on every side.
The storm of leaden hail ceased: no man dared fire again, and yet something must be done, for the monsters were devouring their unhappy fellow-servant. Listening only to the dictates of courage and humanity, the noble-hearted farmer, gun in hand, leaped at once into the yard, and his men all followed his heroic example. A general and frightful conflict ensued. The scene which then took place defies every attempt at description. No pen could adequately place before the reader the awful incidents that succeeded. He must, if he can, imagine the howling of the wolves, the piteous cries of the lacerated and dying youth, the imprecations of the men, the neighing of the horses and roaring of the bulls in the stables; and, more than all, the crying and lamentations of the women and children in the house—a fearful chorus—such as happily few, very few persons were ever doomed to hear. At last the farmer's wife, a powerful and resolute woman, with great presence of mind unmuzzled the dogs, and threw them from a window into the yard. This most useful reinforcement with their vigorous attacks and loud barking completed the tumult and the tragedy. In twenty minutes the eight wolves were dead, and with them half the faithful dogs. The poor unfortunate lad, his throat torn open, was dead; his courageous, though unsuccessful defenders, were all more or less wounded, and the gallant farmer's left hand so injured, that as soon as surgical assistance could be procured for him, amputation was found to be necessary.
The monsters, stretched side by side in the yard, were also stone dead, every one of them; but not a voice on the farm raised the heart-stirring shout of victory. Consternation and gloom reigned over it, and it was long indeed ere the voice of mourning deserted its walls.
The skin of the wolf is strong and durable; the woodmen, braconniers, and mountaineers, make cloaks and caps of it, the tail being left on the latter to fall over the ear by way of ornament; they likewise cover with it the outside of their game-bags. They tan it also, and excellent shoes are made of the leather, soft and light for summer wear,—it is likewise made into parchment, not to write the history of their ancestors upon, but to cover small drums, the rattle of which, on fairdays and fêtes is sure to set the peasants dancing. This fact is alluded to in a song of our province, written by a shepherd-poet, in the pleasing dialect of Le Morvan, of which the following is a free translation:
Hark! 'tis the wolf-skin drum,
We come! We come!
Yes, come with me sweet girl, and fair
As rosebud wild that scents the air.
The heavens are bright, the stars are shining,
Thy lovely form my arms entwining;
Together let us lead the dance
Deep in thy sylvan haunts, dear France!
Hark! I hear those sounds again,
The wolf-skin drum, the pipers' strain.
Wealthy persons use a wolf-skin for a carriage-rug, and in the rainy season as a mat at the door of a room. "There is nothing good in the wolf," says Buffon, "he has a base low look—a savage aspect, a terrible voice, an insupportable smell, a nature brutal and ferocious, and a body so foul and unclean that no animal or reptile will touch his flesh. It is only a wolf that can eat a wolf." "No animal," writes Cuvier, "so richly merits destruction as the wolf." With these two funeral orations on these incarnate fiends of Natural History, I shall close this chapter, remarking that the anathema bestowed on them by Buffon is not quite correct, for if wolves are dangerous, and enemies to the public weal, and "there is nothing good" in them during their lives, they, at least, become useful after their death.