the gamekeepers and the boys. In the spacious dining-room
kitchen, Hautot Senior and Hautot Junior, M. Bermont, the tax-collector,
and M. Mondaru, the notary were taking a pick and drinking a glass
before going out to shoot, for it was the opening day.

Hautot Senior, proud of all his possessions, talked boastfully
beforehand of the game which his guests were going to find on his lands.
He was a big Norman, one of those powerful, sanguineous, bony men, who
lift wagon-loads of apples on their shoulders. Half-peasant,
half-gentleman, rich, respected, influential, invested with authority he
made his son Cesar go as far as the third form at school, so that he
might be an educated man, and there he had brought his studies to a stop
for fear of his becoming a fine gentleman and paying no attention to the
land.

Cesar Hautot, almost as tall as his father, but thinner, was a good
son, docile, content with everything, full of admiration, respect, and
deference, for the wishes and opinions of his sire.

M. Bermont, the tax-collector, a stout little man, who showed on his red
cheeks a thin network of violet veins resembling the tributaries and the
winding courses of rivers on maps, asked:

"And hares--are there any hares on it?"

Hautot Senior answered:

"As much as you like, especially in the Puysatier lands."

"Which direction are we to begin at?" asked the notary, a jolly notary
fat and pale, big paunched too, and strapped up in an entirely new
hunting-costume bought at Rouen.

"Well, that way, through these grounds. We will drive the partridges
into the plain, and we will beat there again."

And Hautot Senior rose up. They all followed his example, took their
guns out of the corners, examined the locks, stamped with their feet in
order to feel themselves firmer in their boots which were rather hard,
not having as yet been rendered flexible by the heat of the blood. Then
they went out; and the dogs, standing erect at the ends of their lashes,
gave vent to piercing howls while beating the air with their paws.

They set forth for the lands referred to. They consisted of a little
glen, or rather a long undulating stretch of inferior soil, which had on
that account remained uncultivated, furrowed with mountain-torrents,
covered with ferns, an excellent preserve for game.

The sportsmen took up their positions at some distance from each other,
Hautot Senior posting himself at the right, Hautot Junior at the left,
and th