My readers will doubtless not be of the same way of thinking as Thibault, who saw nothing offensive in this pleasantry of his, but on the contrary, rubbed his hands together smiling at his own thoughts, and indeed so pleased with them that he had reached the town, and found himself at the end of the Rue de Largny before he was aware that he had left the Bailiff’s house more than a few hundred paces behind him. He now made a sign to his wolves, for it was not quite prudent to traverse the whole town of Villers-Cotterets with a dozen wolves walking alongside as a guard of honour; not only might they meet dogs by the way, but the dogs might wake up the inhabitants. Six of his wolves, therefore, went off to the right, and six to the left, and although the paths they took were not exactly of the same length, and although some of them went more quickly than the others, the whole dozen nevertheless managed to meet, without one missing, at the end of the Rue de Lormet. As soon as Thibault had reached the door of his hut, they took leave of him and disappeared; but, before they dispersed, Thibault requested them to be at the same spot on the morrow, as soon as night fell. Although it was two o’clock before Thibault got home, he was up with the dawn; it is true, however, that the day does not rise very early in the month of January. He was hatching a plot. He had not forgotten the promise he had made to the Bailiff to send him some game from his warren; his warren being, in fact, the whole of the forest-land which belonged to his most serene Highness the Duke of Orleans. This was why he had got up in such good time. It had snowed for two hours before day-break; and he now went and explored the forest in all directions, with the skill and cunning of a bloodhound. He tracked the deer to its lair, the wild boar to its soil, the hare to its form; and followed their traces to discover where they went at night. And then, when darkness again fell on the Forest, he gave a howl,--a regular wolf’s howl, in answer to which came crowding to him the wolves that he had invited the night before, followed by old and young recruits, even to the very cubs of a year old. Thibault then explained that he expected a more than usually fine night’s hunting from his friends, and as an encouragement to them, announced his intention of going with them himself and giving his help in the chase. It was in very truth a hunt beyond the power of words to describe. The whole night through did the sombre glades of the forest resound with hideous cries. Here, a roebuck pursued by a wolf, fell, caught by the throat by another wolf hidden in ambush; there, Thibault, knife in hand like a butcher, was running to the assistance of three or four of his ferocious companions, that had already fastened on a fine young boar of four years old, which he now finished off.