Wolves

“ Those jaws should prey on nobler food,
And drink the boar's and lion's blood,
Great souls with generous pity melt,
Which coward tyrants never felt.
How harmless is our fleecy care!
Be brave, and let thy mercy spare."
"Friend," says the Wolf, "the matter weigh;
Nature designed us beasts of prey;
As such, when hunger finds a treat,
'Tis necessary Wolves should eat.
If mindful of the bleating weal,
Thy bosom burn with real zeal,
Hence, and thy tyrant lord beseech;
To him repeat the moving speech:
A Wolf eats sheep but now and then;
Ten thousands are devoured by men. ”

“ Many a woodman, many a heath-gatherer, came face to face in the thickets with the menacing white teeth of a wolf, and was either carried off and eaten, or just saved his life by the aid of his courage and his bill-hook. Guided by a human intelligence, the wolves had become organised and disciplined, and were far more formidable than a band of discontented soldiery let loose in a conquered country. ”

“ And it was here, close to a big spruce at the foot of the bluff upon the forest side, that the wolf stopped suddenly and for the first time since its appearance gave audible expression to its feelings. It sat down on its haunches, lifted its muzzle with open jaws, and gave vent to a subdued and long-drawn howl that was more like the wail of a dog than the fierce barking cry associated with a wolf. ”

“ When you are sitting quietly in the woods, and a pack of wolves pass near without noticing their one enemy, though he is in plain sight, you think that they are no more cunning than a bear or a buck; and that is true, so far as their cunning depends on what they may see or hear. Once when I was crossing a frozen lake in a snow-storm a whole pack of wolves rushed out of the nearest cover and came at me on the jump, mistaking me for a deer or some other game animal; which does not speak very highly for either their eyes or their judgment. ”

“ Dismounting from our tired horses, we loosened saddles and bridles, hobbled the two fore-legs together, and turned them adrift in the forest. Then we cached our baggage in the trees, for wolves were plentiful around, and a grey wolf has about as extensive a bill of fare in the matter of man’s clothing and appointments as any animal in creation, except perhaps a monkey. ”

“ The wolves all the while were prowling about, and sniffing in the air, to make sure I was there. Not a bit of sleep did I get that night, and when the morning came, I was thankful, for one by one the wolves slunk off and I was left alone. When all was still again and things looked safe, my thoughts turned to the monk's threat, so I got down off my perch, and crept upon my knees, searching for traces of the blood and feathers of the crow. ”

“ When the long winter nights come on and the wolves follow their meat into the lower valleys, he may be seen running at the head of the pack through the pale moonlight or glimmering borealis, leaping gigantic above his fellows, his great throat a-bellow as he sings a song of the younger world, which is the song of the pack. ”

“ For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and all that I beheld lay in another county—wild Gévaudan, mountainous, uncultivated, and but recently disforested from terror of the wolves.
Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the traveller's advance; and you may trudge through all our comfortable Europe, and not meet with an adventure worth the name. ”

“ A wolf, he saw, was licking gently at the shoulder of a great bull-moose that had been injured. And the tide receded, advanced again, once more receded, rising and falling like a living sea whose waves were animal shapes, the inhabitants of the Valley of the Beasts.
Beneath the quiet moonlight they swayed to and fro before him. They watched him, knew him, recognized him. They made him welcome.
He was aware, moreover, of a world of smaller life that formed an under-sea, as it were, numerous under-currents rather, running in and out between the great upright legs of the larger creatures. ”

“ The Shaman has spoken wisely. The Wolves have taken our women, and our men are childless. We are grown to a handful. The Wolves have taken our warm furs and given for them evil spirits which dwell in bottles, and clothes which come not from the beaver or the lynx, but are made from the grass.
And they are not warm, and our men die of strange sicknesses. I, the Fox, have taken no woman to wife; and why? Twice have the maidens which pleased me gone to the camps of the Wolf. ”

“ Nor in all the records of human violence is there to be found anything more tremendous than the deadly patience with which the trooped wolves pursue their victims, or the fierce élan with which they launch themselves from the forest depths upon the passing prey. A party of eighty Russian soldiers, fully armed, were moving in mid-winter from one post to another, when, just as the shades of evening were closing round them, an immense pack of wolves — scouring the black countryside for food — came suddenly across their line of march. ”

“ Their nightly prowling, their quiet, untiring perseverance in pursuit, their skulking disposition, their artful stratagems, all impart a mystery to them which has been heightened by fear, and the natural proneness of man to magnify tales of horror.
Wolves are too suspicious to be often taken in traps; and when pursued they run with their noses almost touching the ground, their eyes glowing like fire, the hair of their head and neck bristled up, their tail drawn close to their legs. ”

“ The answer was instant.
Something rumbled within the den, deep down, like a geyser.
The white wolf whined again, and sprang aside just as the bear, maddened with the pain of a .450-caliber rifle bullet in his stomach, and seeking a sacrifice, hurled out of the dark and up over the tree-trunk, striking, with appalling nail-strokes, right and left; and the quickness of those strokes was only a less astonishment than the agility of the wolves getting out of the way of them. But—but he had come out to abolish one wolf, that bear; not one hundred and twenty-nine. ”

“ And wolves, too, in hardness of heart; in the hard, dark, horrible, unjust doctrines, which they preach with a smile upon their lips, not merely in sermons, but in books and tracts innumerable, making out the Heavenly Father, the God whose name is Love and Justice, to be even such a one as themselves. Wolves, too, in their habit of hunting in packs, each keeping up his courage by listening to the howl of his fellows. ”

“ Then the Wolves went up and carried the dead goats back to their people, and much ashamed they were that the dog had slain them all and they, the noted hunters, had got nothing.
'Men will speak ill of us if they know of this day's work,' said the Wolves, whispering together. 'How can we get the better of this son of Fire-drill?'
Now one, cleverer than the rest, thought of a plan, and he bade the others cut a quantity of the long stringy creepers that grow on the mountains, and make them into hoops. ”

“ Good heavens! It sat there with the pose, the attitude, the gesture in repose of something almost human. And then, with a second shock of biting wonder, it came to him like a revelation. The wolf sat beside that camp-fire as a man might sit.
Before he could weigh his extraordinary discovery, before he could examine it in detail or with care, the animal, sitting in this ghastly fashion, seemed to feel his eyes fixed on it. It slowly turned and looked him in the face, and for the first time Hyde felt a full-blooded, superstitious fear flood through his entire being. ”

“ Whoever remains behind, or goes reluctantly, is scourged by another with an iron whip till the blood flows, and his traces are left in blood. The human form vanishes, and the whole multitude become wolves. ”

“ O brothers! the Fire-Bringer has whispered messages to thy Shaman; the same shall ye hear. Let the young men take the young women to their lodges; let them fly at the throat of the Wolf; let them be undying in their enmity! Then shall their women become fruitful, and they shall multiply into a mighty people! And the Raven shall lead great tribes of their fathers and their fathers' fathers from out of the North; and they shall beat back the Wolves till they are as last year's camp-fires ”

“ A large wolf, a she-wolf, lay fast asleep under the shade of a spreading pine, and around her gambolled a whole family of little wolves, amongst which was a small form which Ivan first of all took to be a lieshui, or wood-spirit, but soon decided could be none other than a human child. ”

“ The wolves now surround him as he stands; but hesitate in advancing to the attack. This race of wolves are in the habit of retreating from the presence of man, unless in extreme want; but now it is night; they are in great numbers; their appetite has been stimulated by the taste of blood; there is but one man—and they come nearer. ”

“ I will not deny, however, but the horses cowered when I passed them, as though they scented the wolves; and a wolf is a beast that is apt to hover about an Indian ambushment, craving the offals of the deer the savages kill."
"You forget the buck at your feet! or, may we not owe their visit to the dead colt? ”

“ Wolves are likewise hunted all the year round, with dogs, by gentlemen, in the neighbourhood of the forest. But this sport is very fatiguing and weary work, if that animal alone is employed; for nothing is so difficult as to get up with a cunning old wolf, whose sinewy limbs never tire, and whose wind never fails—who goes straight ahead, ten or fifteen miles, without looking behind him; if he meets with a Mare, or stream of water on his road, then your chance is indeed up,—for into it he plunges, and makes off again, quite as fresh as he was when he left his lair. ”

“ But in that instant of bright illumination he saw clearly what his unwelcome visitor was. A big timber wolf sat on its hindquarters, staring steadily at him through the firelight. He saw its legs and shoulders, he saw its hair, he saw also the big hemlock trunks lit up behind it, and the willow scrub on each side. It formed a vivid, clear-cut picture shown in clear detail by the momentary blaze. To his amazement, however, the wolf did not turn and bolt away from the burning log, but withdrew a few yards only, and sat there again on its haunches, staring, staring as before. ”

“ We have no wolves in the settled portions of our country, for the whites hunted and killed them all, because they were such troublesome and dangerous neighbors. But in the western country,96 and among the forests and mountains, they are still pretty plenty. Wolves go about in large packs, or companies, and having scented their prey, pursue it like a pack of hounds, uttering the most dismal and ferocious cries. ”

“ But they were at one in this, that the wolves were huge and fierce beyond measure, and such as any man might fear. But at last John spake and said: Well, master, it is as they say down the Dale, that this is no lucky house; meseems ye are beset with no common wolves, but with skinchangers who have taken the shape of wolves, whether they be Land-wights or Dwarfs, or ride-a-nights of the outlaws. ”

“ Although I had frequently seen wolves evince their disregard to fires, by coming within a few feet of them to seize upon any scraps of meat which might be left exposed, I had never seen or heard of one approaching so close as to warm his body, and for that purpose alone. ”

“ A legion of ravenous wolves were already gorging upon them. At our approach they reluctantly drew off, skulking with a caitiff look to the distance of a few hundred yards, and there awaiting our departure, that they might return to their banquet. ”

“ Did I tell you that there are troops of wolves among these mountains? In the winter they descend into the vallies, which the snow occupies six months of the year, and devour every thing that they can find out of doors. A wolf is more powerful than the fiercest and strongest dog. There are no bears in these regions. We heard, when we were at Lucerne, that they were occasionally found in the forests which surround that lake. ”

“ There are those who would gloss over the wolfs crimes by declaring it to be the brother of the dog, and it may be true enough that wolves learn to bark when fostered by canine mothers, that the dogs of the Arctic regions are in reality only wolves, and that till the white man came the Red Indian had no quadruped companion but the wolf. ”

“ The peasants of Asturias are convinced that in every litter of wolves there is one dog, which is killed by the mother because, otherwise, as he grew up, he would devour the other little ones.
Give to this dog-son of a wolf a human face, and the result will be Javert. ”

“ To-day sank out of sight. The moon shone pale with terror and delight on Yesterday. [307]
7
Across this altered world a faint new sound now reached his ears, as though a human wail of anguished terror trembled and changed into the cry of some captured helpless animal. He thought of a wolf apart from the comfort of its pack, savage yet abject. The despair of a last appeal was in the sound. It floated past, it died away. The woman moved closer suddenly.
“All is prepared,” she said, in the same low, silvery voice; “we must not tarry. The equinox is come, the tide of power flows. ”

“ Wolves on the prairie were too common45 to excite remark, and at night they would approach close to the Indian camps.” ... The Pawnee starting off on the warpath usually carried a robe made of wolf skins, or in later times a white blanket or a white sheet; and, at night, wrapping himself in this, and getting down on his hands and knees, he walked or trotted here and there like a wolf, having thus transformed himself into a common object of the landscape. This disguise was employed by day as well, for reconnoissance.... ”