Index

' There is something, however, very exhilarating in this breathless, still, bright cold — with a clean white expanse — a spotless world before you — every tree fringed — every stream stopped — freedom to range over every summer impediment; while the crystal snow, lighting up into a delicate pink or pearly hue, or glistening with the brightest prismatic colours beneath the clear, low sun, and assuming a beautiful lilac or blue where our long shadows intercept its rays, can no longer be stigmatised as a dead lifeless white. We walk every day, and no sooner are the heavy double doors, which effectually seal our house, heard to open, than half a dozen huge, deepmouthed cattle-hounds come bounding through the deep snow to meet us, oversetting, with the first unwieldy caress, some little one of our party, scarce so tall as themselves, and even besetting the biggest with a battery of heavy demonstrations, to which it is difficult to present a firm front. Sometimes we take the beaten track of the road, where peasants with rough carts, generally put together with less iron than an English labourer would wear in his shoes, pass on in files of nine or ten; as often as not the sheepish-looking driver, with his elf locks, superadding his own weight to the already overladen little horse — or where a nimble-footed peasant woman, with high cap arid clean sheepskin coat, plunges half-leg high into the deep snow to give you room, and nodding, and showing her white teeth, cheerily ejaculates Terre hommikust, or Good day. Or we follow a track into the woods so narrow that we walk in each other's steps like wild Indians, and the great dogs sink up to their bodies in the snow whilst endeavouring to pass us. This is the land of pines— lofty, erect battalions — their bark as smooth as the mast of a ship — their branches regular as a ladder, varying scarce an inch in girth in fifty feet of growth— for miles interrupted only by a leaning, never a crooked tree — with an army of sturdy Lilliputians clustering round their bases — fifty heads starting up where one yard of light is admitted. What becomes of all the pruning, and trimming, and training— the days of precious labour spent on our own woods? Nature here does all this, and immeasurably better, for her volunteers, who stand closer, grow faster, and soar higher, than the carefully planted and transplanted children of our soil. Here and there a bare jagged trunk, and a carpet of fresh-hewn boughs beneath, show where some peasant-urchin has indulged in sport which with us would be amenable to the laws — viz., mounted one of these grenadiers of the forest, hewing off every successive bough beneath him, till, perched at a giddy height aloft, he clings to a tapering point which his hand may grasp. The higher he goes the greater the feat, and the greater the risk to his vagabond neck in descending the noble and mutilated trunk. In perambulating these woods, the idea would sometimes cross us that the wolves, the print of whose footsteps, intercepted by the dotted track of the hare and slenderly defined claws of numerous birds, are seen in different directions, and even beneath the windows of our house, might prowl by day as well as by night. One day, when, fortunately perhaps, unescorted by the huge dogs, we were mounting a hill to a neighbouring mill, my companion suddenly halted, and lying her hand on mine silently pointed to a moving object within fifty yards of us. It was a great brute of a wolf stalking leisurely along— its high bristly back set up — its head prowling down — who took no notice of us. but slowly pursued the same path into the wood which he had quitted a few minutes before. We must both plead guilty to blanched cheeks, but beyond this to no signs of cowardice; and, in truth, the instances are so rare of their attacking human beings, even the most defenceless children, that we had no cause for fear. They war not on man, unless under excessive pressure of hunger, or when, as in the case of a butcher, his clothes are impregnated with the smell of fresh blood. This is so certain an attraction that peasants carrying butchers' meat are followed by wolves, and often obliged to compound for their own safety by flinging the dangerous commodity amongst them; or if in a sledge, tnree or four of these ravenous animals will spring upon the basket of meat and tear it open before their eyes. Wherever an animal falls, there, though to all appearance no cover nor sign of a wolf be visible for miles round, several will be found congregated in half an hour's time. Such is their horrid thirst for blood, that a wounded wolf knows that only by the stictest concealment can he escape being torn in pieces by his companions. As for the dogs, it is heartrending to think of the numbers which pay for their fidelity with their lives. If a couple of wolves prowl round a house, or fold, at night, a dozen dogs, with every variety of tone, from the sharp yap of the shepherd's terrier to the hoarse bay of the cattle-hound, will plunge after them, and put them to flight. But if one, more zealous, venture beyond his companions, the cunning brutes face about, seize him, and before three minutes are over there is nothing left of poor Carrier Pois, or sheepboy, — a common name for these great mastiffs, — but a few tufts of bloody hair. The cattle defend themselves valiantly, and the horses, and the mares especially who have a foal at their side, put themselves in an attitude of defence, and parry off the enemy with their fore-feet— their iron hoofs often taking great effect. But woe be to them if the wolf, breaking through the shower of blows, spring at the throat, or, stealing behind his prey, fasten on the flank! — once down all is over, though there be but one wolf. Sometimes, in a sudden wheel round, the wolf will seize upon a cow's tail, on which he hangs with his jaws of ten-horse power, while the poor animal drags him round and round the field, and finally leaves the unfortunate member in his grasp, too happy to escape with a stump. At one time these animals increased so frightfully in number that the Ritterschaft, or assembly of knights, by which name the inter, lal senate of this province is designated, appointed a reward of five roubles for every pair of ears brought to the magistrate of the district. This worked some change, and, in proportion as the wolves have fallen off, the Ritterschaft has dropped its price, though an opposite policy would perhaps have been more politic, and now a pair of ears, generally secured from the destruction of a nest of young ones, does not fetch more than a silver rouble, or three roubles and a half.* An old plan to attract them was to tie a pig in a sack, squeaking of course, upon a cart, and drive him rapidly through a wood or morass. Any cry of an animal