e hour
and place to be appointed, ad if possible to bring Veronique.

Eating a piece of rye-bread as she went, Eustacie, in her gray cloak,
rode under Martin's guardianship along the deep lanes, just budding with
spring, in the chill dewiness before sunrise. She was silent, and just
a little sullen, for she had found stout shrewd Martin less easy to talk
over than the admiring Blaise, and her spirit was excessively chafed by
the tardiness of her retainers. But the sun rose and cleared away all
clouds of temper, the cocks crew, the sheep bleated, and fresh morning
sounds met her ear, and seemed to cheer and fill her with hope; and in
some compunction for her want of graciousness, she thanked Martin,
and praised his ass with a pretty cordiality that would have fully
compensated for her displeasure, even if the honest man had been
sensible of it.

He halted under the lee of a barn, and gave a low whistle. At the sound,
Lucette, a brown, sturdy young woman with a red handkerchief over her
head, and another over her shoulders, came running round the corner of
the barn, and whispered eagerly under her breath, 'Ah! Madame, Madame,
what an honour!' kissing Eustacie's hand with all her might as she
spoke; 'but, alas! I fear Madame cannot come into the house. The
questing Brother Francois--plague upon him!--has taken it into his head
to drop in to breakfast. I longed to give him the cold shoulder, but it
might have brought suspicion down.'

'Right, good woman,' said Martin; 'but what shall Madame do? It is broad
way, and no longer safe to run the lanes!'

'Give me a distaff,' said Eustacie, rising to the occasion; 'I will go
to that bushy field, and herd the cows.'

Madame was right, the husband and wife unwillingly agreed. There, in her
peasant dress, in the remote field, sloping up into a thick wood, she
was unlikely to attract attention; and though the field was bordered on
one side by the lane leading to the road to Paris, it was separated from
it by a steep bank, crowned by one of the thick hedgerows characteristic
of the Bocage.

Here, then, they were forced to leave her, seated on a stone beneath a
thorn-bush, distaff in hand, with bread, cheese, and a pitcher of milk
for her provisions, and three or four cows grazing before her. From
the higher ground below the wood of ash and hazel, she could see the
undulating fields and orchards, a few houses, and that inhospitable
castle of her own.

She had spent many a drea