Volume V Part 32 (1/2)

Hautot Senior answered:

”As much as you like, especially in the Puysatier lands”

”Which direction are we to begin at?” asked the notary, a jolly notary fat and pale, big paunched too, and strapped up in an entirely new hunting-costurounds We will drive the partridges into the plain, and ill beat there again”

And Hautot Senior rose up They all followed his exauns out of the corners, examined the locks, stamped with their feet in order to feel themselves fir as yet been rendered flexible by the heat of the blood Then they went out; and the dogs, standing erect at the ends of their lashes, gave vent to piercing hohile beating the air with their paws

They set forth for the lands referred to They consisted of a little glen, or rather a long undulating stretch of inferior soil, which had on that account remained uncultivated, furroith mountain-torrents, covered with ferns, an excellent preserve for game

The sportsmen took up their positions at so hiuests in the s followed It was the solemn moment when the first shot it awaited, when the heart beats a little, while the nervous finger keeps feeling at the gun-lock every second

Suddenly the shot went off Hautot Senior had fired They all stopped, and saw a partridge breaking off froht to fall down into a ravine under a thick growth of brushwood The sports excited, rushed forith rapid strides, thrusting aside the briers which stood in his path, and he disappeared in his turn into the thicket, in quest of his game

Almost at the same instant, a second shot was heard

”Ha! ha! the rascal!” exclaimed M Bermont, ”he will unearth a hare down there”

They all waited, with their eyes riveted on the heap of branches through which their gaze failed to penetrate

The notary, -truot them?”

Hautot Seniortowards the keeper, said to hio, and assist hiht line We'll wait”

And Joseph, an old stump of a man, lean and knotty, all whose joints formed protuberances, proceeded at an easy pace down the ravine, searching at every opening through which a passage could be effected with the cautiousness of a fox Then, suddenly, he cried:

”Oh! co has occurred”

They all hurried forward, plunging through the briers

The elder Hautot, who had fallen on his side, in a fainting condition, kept both his hands over his stoh the linen vest torn by the lead, long streaun, in order to seize the partridge, within reach of hi off with the shock, had torn open his entrails They drew him out of the trench; they reh which the intestines caed hiht him back to his own house, and they awaited the doctor, who had been sent for, as well as a priest

When the doctor arrived, he gravely shook his head, and, turning towards young Hautot, as sobbing on a chair:

”My poor boy,” said he, ”this has not a good look”

But, when the dressing was finished, the wounded ers, opened his lances, then appeared to search about in his memory, to recollect, to understand, and he ood God! this has done for me!”

The doctor held his hand

”Why no, why no, so”

Hautot returned: