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.
An old she-wolf came along bringing with her half-a-dozen hares which she had surprised in their love frolics, and she had great difficulty in preventing her cubs from swallowing a whole covey of young partridges which the young marauders had come across with their heads under their wings, without first waiting for the wolf-master to levy his dues.
Madame Suzanne Magloire little thought what was taking place at this moment in the forest of Villers-Cotterets, and on her account.
In a couple of hours’ time the wolves had heaped up a perfect cartload of game in front of Thibault’s hut.
Thibault selected what he wanted for his own purposes, and left over sufficient to provide them a sumptuous repast. Borrowing a mule from a charcoal-burner, on the pretext that he wanted to convey his shoes to town, he loaded it up with the game and started for Villers-Cotterets. There he sold a part of this booty to the gamedealer, reserving the best pieces and those which had been least mutilated by the wolves’ claws, to present to Madame Magloire.
His first intention had been to go in person with his gift to the Bailiff; but Thibault was beginning to have a smattering of the ways of the world, and thought it would, therefore, be more becoming to allow his