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. CHAPTER XIII. Appearance of the _Mare_ in the morning--Forest etiquette--Mode of obtaining possession of the best _Mare_--Every subterfuge fair--The jocose sportsman--The quarrel--Reveries in the hut--Comparison between meeting a lady and watching for a wolf.