e as could be found by the roadside. In the church
and at the Cross, a kneeling figure or two; attendant on the latter
prayers, the led cow, trying for a breakfast among the weeds at its
foot.

The chateau awoke later, as became its quality, but awoke gradually and
surely. First, the lonely boar-spears and knives of the chase had been
reddened as of old; then, had gleamed trenchant in the morning sunshine;
now, doors and windows were thrown open, horses in their stables looked
round over their shoulders at the light and freshness pouring in at
doorways, leaves sparkled and rustled at iron-grated windows, dogs
pulled hard at their chains, and reared impatient to be loosed.

All these trivial incidents belonged to the routine of life, and the
return of morning. Surely, not so the ringing of the great bell of the
chateau, nor the running up and down the stairs; nor the hurried
figures on the terrace; nor the booting and tramping here and there and
everywhere, nor the quick saddling of horses and riding away?

What winds conveyed this hurry to the grizzled mender of roads, already
at work on the hill-top beyond the village, with his day's dinner (not
much to carry) lying in a bundle that it was worth no crow's while to
peck at, on a heap of stones? Had the birds, carrying some grains of it
to a distance, dropped one over him as they sow chance seeds? Whether or
no, the mender of roads ran, on the sultry morning, as if for his life,
down the hill, knee-high in dust, and never stopped till he got to the
fountain.

All the people of the village were at the fountain, standing about
in their depressed manner, and whispering low, but showing no other
emotions than grim curiosity and surprise. The led cows, hastily brought
in and tethered to anything that would hold them, were looking stupidly
on, or lying down chewing the cud of nothing particularly repaying their
trouble, which they had picked up in their interrupted saunter. Some of
the people of the chateau, and some of those of the posting-house, and
all the taxing authorities, were armed more or less, and were crowded
on the other side of the little street in a purposeless way, that was
highly fraught with nothing. Already, the mender of roads had penetrated
into the midst of a group of fifty particular friends, and was smiting
himself in the breast with his blue cap. What did all this portend,
and what portended the swift hoisting-up of Monsieur Gabelle behind
a servant