The Werewolf Blood Trail: Tales of Gore, Terror & Hunt. Редьярд Джозеф Киплинг
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destined to be short lived.
All of a sudden, just as the hounds, that were crying in concert in a way which more and more delighted the Baron’s ears, were passing under the tree where Thibault was perched, the whole pack came to a standstill, and every tongue was silenced as by enchantment. Marcotte, at his master’s command, dismounted to see if he could find any traces of the deer, the whippers-in ran up, and they and Marcotte looked about, but they could find nothing.
Then Engoulevent, who had set his heart on a view-halloo being sounded for the animal he had tracked down, joined the others, and he too began to search. Everyone was searching, calling out and trying to rouse the dogs, when above all the other voices, was heard, like the blast of a tempest, the voice of the Baron.
“Ten thousand devils!” he thundered.
“Have the dogs fallen into a pit-hole, Marcotte?”
“No, my Lord, they are here, but they are come to a check.”
“How! come to a standstill!” exclaimed the Baron.
“What is to be done, my Lord? I cannot understand what has happened, but such is the fact.”
“Come to a check!” again exclaimed the Baron, “come to a standstill, here, in the middle of the forest, here where there is no stream where the animal could have doubled, or rock for it to climb. You must be out of your mind, Marcotte!”
“I, out of my mind, my Lord?”
“Yes, you, you fool, as truly as your dogs are all worthless trash!”
As a rule, Marcotte bore with admirable patience the insults which the Baron was in the habit of lavishing upon everybody about him at critical moments of the chase, but this word trash, applied to his dogs, was more than his habitual long-suffering could bear, and drawing himself up to his full height, he answered vehemently, “Trash, my Lord? my dogs worthless trash! dogs that have brought down an old wolf after such a furious run that the best horse in your stable was foundered! my dogs trash!”
“Yes, trash, worthless trash, I say it again, Marcotte. Only trash would stop at a check like that, after hunting one wretched buck so many hours on end.”
“My Lord,” answered Marcotte, in a tone of mingled dignity and sorrow, “My Lord, say that it is my fault, call me a fool, a blockhead, a scoundrel, a blackguard, an idiot; insult me in my own person, or in that of my wife, of my children, and it is nothing to me; but for the sake of all my past services to you, do not attack me in my office of chief pricker, do not insult your dogs.”
“How do you account for their silence, then? tell me that! How do you account for it? I am quite willing to hear what you have to say, and I am listening.”
“I cannot explain it any more than you can, my Lord; the damned animal must have flown into the clouds or disappeared in the bowels of the earth.”
“What nonsense are you talking!” exclaimed the Baron—“do you want to make out that the deer has burrowed like a rabbit, or risen from the ground like a grouse?”
“My Lord, I meant it only as a manner of speech. What is a truth, what is the fact, is that there is some witchcraft behind all this. As sure as it is now daylight, my dogs, every one of them, lay down at the same moment, suddenly, without an instant hesitation. Ask anybody who was near them at the time. And now they are not even trying to recover the scent, but there they lie flat on the ground like so many stags in their lair. I ask you, is it natural?”
“Thrash them, man! thrash them, then,” cried the Baron, “flay the skin off their backs; there is nothing like it for driving out the evil spirit.”
And the Baron was going forward to emphasise with a few blows from his own whip the exorcisms which Marcotte, according to his orders, was distributing among the poor beasts, when Engoulevent, hat in hand, drew near to the Baron and timidly laid his hand on the horse’s bridle.
“My Lord,” said the keeper of the kennel, “I think I have just discovered a cuckoo in that tree who may perhaps be able to give us some explanation of what has happened.”
“What the devil are you talking about, with your cuckoo, you ape?” said the Baron.
“If you wait a moment, you scamp, I will teach you how to come chaffing your master like that!”
And the Baron lifted his whip. But with all the heroism of a Spartan, Engoulevent lifted his arm above his head as a shield and continued:
“Strike, if you will, my Lord, but after that look up into this tree, and when your Lordship has seen the bird that is perched among the branches, I think you will be more ready to give me a crown than a blow.”
And the good man pointed to the oak tree in which Thibault had taken refuge on hearing the huntsmen approach. He had climbed up from branch to branch and had finally hoisted himself on to the topmost one.
The Baron shaded his eyes with his hand, and, looking up, caught sight of Thibault.
“Well, here’s something mighty queer!” he cried, “It seems that in the forest of Villers-Cotterets the deer burrow like foxes, and men perch on trees like crows. However,” continued the worthy Baron, “we will see what sort of creature we have to deal with.” And putting his hand to his mouth, he halloed:
“Ho, there, my friend! would it be particularly disagreeable for you to give me ten minutes’ conversation?”
But Thibault maintained the most profound silence.
“My Lord” said Engoulevent “if you like ...,” and he made a sign to show that he was ready to climb the tree.
“No, no,” said the Baron, at the same time putting out his hand to hold him back.
“Ho, there, my friend!” repeated the Baron still without recognising Thibault, “will it please you to answer me, yes or no.”
He paused a second.
“I see, it is evidently, no; you pretend to be deaf, my friend; wait a moment, and I will get my speaking-trumpet,” and he held out his hand to Marcotte, who, guessing his intention, handed him his gun.
Thibault, who wished to put the huntsmen on the wrong scent, was meanwhile pretending to cut away the dead branches, and he put so much energy into this feigned occupation that he did not perceive the movement on the part of the Baron, or, if he saw, only took it as a menace, without attaching the importance to it which it merited.
The wolf-hunter waited for a little while to see if the answer would come, but as it did not, he pulled the trigger; the gun went off, and a branch was heard to crack.
The branch which cracked was the one on which Thibault was poised; the Baron was a fine shot and had broken it just between the trunk and the shoe-maker’s foot.
Deprived of his support, Thibault fell, rolling from branch to banch. Fortunately the tree was thick, and the branches strong, so that his fall was broken and less rapid than it might have been, and he finally reached the ground, after many rebounds, without further ill consequences than a feeling of great fear and a few slight bruises on that part of his body which had first come in contact with the earth.
“By Beelzebub’s horns!” exclaimed the Baron, delighted with his own skill, “if it is not my joker of the morning! Ah! so, you scamp! did the discourse you had with my whip seem too short to you, that you are so anxious to take it up again where we left off?”
“Oh, as to that, I assure you it is not so, my Lord,” answered Thibault in a tone of the most perfect sincerity.
“So much the better for your skin, my good fellow. Well, and now tell me what you were doing up there, perched on the top of that oak-tree?”
“My Lord can see himself,” answered Thibault, pointing to a few dry twigs lying here and there on the ground, “I was cutting a little dry wood for fuel.”
“Ah! I see. Now then, my good fellow, you will please tell us,