ing always
the darker side of the road.

He was a figure of flight, a broken soldier.

Presently the road led him into a thick forest of oaks and beeches, and
so to the crest of a hill overlooking a long open valley with wooded
heights beyond. Below him was the pointed spire of some temple or
shrine, lying at the edge of the wood, with no houses near it. Farther
down he could see a cluster of white houses with the tower of a church
in the center. Other villages were dimly visible up and down the valley
on either slope. The cattle were lowing from the barnyards. The cocks
crowed for the dawn. Already the moon had sunk behind the western
trees. But the valley was still bathed in its misty, vanishing light.
Over the eastern ridge the gray glimmer of the little day was rising,
faintly tinged with rose. It was time for the broken soldier to seek
his covert and rest till night returned.

So he stepped aside from the road and found a little dell thick with
underwoods, and in it a clear spring gurgling among the ferns and
mosses. Around the opening grew wild gooseberries and golden broom and
a few tall spires of purple foxglove. He drew off his dusty boots and
socks and bathed his feet in a small pool, drying them with fern
leaves. Then he took a slice of bread and a piece of cheese from his
pocket and made his breakfast. Going to the edge of the thicket, he
parted the branches and peered out over the vale.

Its eaves sloped gently to the level floor where the river loitered in
loops and curves. The sun was just topping the eastern hills; the heads
of the trees were dark against a primrose sky.

In the fields the hay had been cut and gathered. The aftermath was
already greening the moist places. Cattle and sheep sauntered out to
pasture. A thin silvery mist floated here and there, spreading in broad
sheets over the wet ground and shredding into filmy scarves and ribbons
as the breeze caught it among the pollard willows and poplars on the
border of the stream. Far away the water glittered where the river made
a sudden bend or a long smooth reach. It was like the flashing of
distant shields. Overhead a few white clouds climbed up from the north.
The rolling ridges, one after another, infolded the valley as far as
eye could see; pale green set in dark green, with here and there an arm
of forest running down on a sharp promontory to meet and turn the
meandering stream.

"It must be the valley of the Meuse," said the soldier