luding everything, from the colour of my hair and complexion to my
height, age, birth and domicile. On the back of this important piece of
paper I read as follows:

That the permit must be produced at the demand of all agents authorized
by law. That it is prohibited to shoot without it, or upon lands without
the consent of the proprietor having the right--or outside of the season
fixed by the laws of the prefets.

Furthermore:

The father--the mother--the tutor--the masters, and guardians are
civilly responsible for the misdemeanours committed while shooting by
their infants--wards--pupils, or domestics living with them.

And finally:

That the hunter who has lost his permit cannot resume again the exercise
of the hunt until he has obtained and paid for a new one, twenty-eight
francs and sixty centimes.

To-morrow, then, the jolly season opens.

"_Vive la Republique!_"

It is a season, too, of crisp twilights after brilliant days, so short
that my lost village is plunged in darkness as early as seven, and goes
to bed to save the candle--the hour when the grocer's light gleaming
ahead of me across the slovenly little public square becomes the only
beacon in the village; and, guided by it, I pick my way in the dark
along the narrow thoroughfare, stumbling over the laziest of the village
dogs sprawled here and there in the road outside the doorways of the
fishermen.

Across one of these thresholds I catch a glimpse to-night of a tired
fisher girl stretched on her bed after her long day at sea. Beside the
bed a very old woman in a white cotton cap bends over her bowl of soup
by the wavering light of a tallow dip.

"_Bonsoir_, monsieur!" croaks a hoarse voice from the dark. It is
Marianne. She has fished late.

At seven-thirty the toy train rumbles into Pont du Sable, stops for a
barefooted passenger, and rumbles out again through the
village--crawling lest it send one of the laziest dogs yelping to its
home. The headlight on the squat locomotive floods the way ahead,
suddenly illumining the figure of a blinking old man laden with nets
and three barelegged children who scream, "_Bonsoir_, monsieur," to the
engineer.

What glorious old days are these! The wealth of hedged fields---the lush
green grass, white with hoar frost at daybreak--the groups of mild-eyed
cows and taciturn young bulls; in all this brilliant clearness of sea
air, sunshine and Norman country spreading its richness down to the very
edge of