“Ho, there, you scoundrel! answer me.”
It was the Baron, who seeing his dogs wavering, was anxious to make sure that they were not on the wrong scent.
“Ho, there, you scoundrel!” repeated the wolf-hunter, “have you seen the beast?”
There was evidently something in the manner of the Baron’s questioning which did not please our philosophical shoe-maker, for although he was perfectly aware what was the matter, he answered: “what beast?”
“Curse you! why, the buck we are hunting! He must have passed close by here, and standing gaping as you do, you must have seen him. It was a fine stag of ten, was it not? Which way did he go? Speak up, you blackguard, or you shall have a taste of my stirrup-leather!”
“The black plague take him, cub of a wolf!” muttered the shoe-maker to himself.
Then, aloud, with a fine air of pretended simplicity, “Ah, yes!” he said, “I did see him.”
“A buck, was it not? a ten-tiner, eh? with great horns.”
“Ah, yes to be sure, a buck, with great horns,—or great corns, was it? yes, I saw him as plain as I see you, my Lord. But there, I can’t say if he had any corns, for I did not look at his feet, anyhow,” he added, with the air of a perfect simpleton, “if he had corns, they did not prevent him running.”
At any other time the Baron would have laughed at what he might have taken for genuine stupidity; but the doublings of the animal were beginning to put him into a regular huntsman’s fever.