ell, nor the abrupt gesture that accompanied it,
could turn the honest peasant from his purpose. There was something
that interested him in this very disregard of life, as well as in the
personal appearance of the sufferer, and, without further colloquy, he
lifted the half-fainting form into the cart, and disposing the straw
comfortably on either side of him, set out homeward. The wounded man was
almost indifferent to what happened, and never spoke a word nor raised
his head as they went along. About three hours' journey brought them to
a large old-fashioned chateau beside the Sambre, an immense straggling
edifice which, with a facade of nearly a hundred windows, looked out
upon the river. Although now in disrepair and neglect, with ill-trimmed
alleys and grass-grown terraces, it had been once a place of great
pretensions, and associated with some of the palmiest days of Flemish
hospitality. The Chateau d'Overbecque was the property of a certain rich
merchant of Antwerp, named D' Aerschot, one of the oldest families of
the land, and was, at the time we speak of, the temporary abode of his
only son, who had gone there to pass the honeymoon. Except that they
were both young, neither of them yet twenty, too people could not easily
be found so discrepant in every circumstance and every quality. He
the true descendant of a Flemish house, plodding, commonplace, and
methodical, hating show and detesting expense. She a lively, volatile
girl, bursting with desire to see and be seen, fresh from the restraint
of a convent at Bruges, and anxious to mix in all the pleasures and
dissipations of the world. Like all marriages in their condition, it
had been arranged without their knowledge or consent. Circumstances of
fortune made the alliance suitable; so many hundred thousand florins on
one side were wedded to an equivalent on the other, and the young people
were married to facilitate the 'transaction.'

That he was not a little shocked at the gay frivolity of his beautiful
bride, and she as much disappointed at the staid demureness of her
stolid-looking husband, is not to be wondered at; but their friends knew
well that time would smooth down greater discrepancies than even these.
And if ever there was a country, the monotony of whose life could subdue
all to its own leaden tone, it was Holland in old days. Whether engaged
in the active pursuit of gain in the great cities, or enjoying the
luxurious repose of chateau life, a dull, dre