When night has set in, the four calves are led out from the stockade and fastened to strong posts which have been fixed in front of each face of the hut. Silence now reigns supreme, and the wolves,--the spur of famine in their insides, mad in short with hunger,--begin to sniff the breeze and run their noses over the rank dewy grass of the underwood. At this point of my narrative I must bespeak the forbearance of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and beg them to read on to the end, and weigh well the question and the result, before they bring an action against me for what follows. The calves in question having been placed, they each--must I write it?--receive an incision in the neck, the effect of which is that the blood flows slowly, and they bleat without ceasing;--such is the custom, as it is said, with butchers to make veal white and pleasing to the eye of the epicure; a really inhuman habit--but when the deed is done with a view to the extermination of wolves, I think there is little doubt but Mr. Martin himself would have used a fleam in the cause. This operation over, the sportsmen divide, post themselves, with their guns ready, on each side of the hut, and wait with beating hearts the arrival of the expected four-footed visitors. Nine o'clock passes--ten, half-past--not a sound is heard in the forest; the sportsmen who look out on the snowy scene around them observe nothing; all without is dreary silence, broken at intervals by the poor ruminating creatures in front, the cry of a solitary owl, the fall of some dead branch which age and the tempest has separated from the giant oak, the sudden spring of the squirrel awakened by the noise, and, in the interior of the cabin, by the soft gurgling of the ruby wine escaping joyfully from its glass prison-house, to cheer the heart of the impatient _chasseur_--and who knows better than he how to empty a flask of genuine Burgundy?