s familiarly called by the country
people Mederi, started at the usual hour from the posthouse at
Rouy-le-Tors. Having passed through the little town with his big strides
of an old trooper, he first cut across the meadows of Villaumes in order
to reach the bank of the Brindelle, which led him along the water's edge
to the village of Carvelin, where his distribution commenced. He went
quickly, following the course of the narrow river, which frothed,
murmured, and boiled along its bed of grass, under an arch of
willow-trees. The big stones, impeding the flow, had around them a
cushion of water, a sort of cravat ending in a knot of foam. In some
places, there were cascades, a foot wide, often invisible, which made
under the leaves, under the tendrils, under a roof of verdure, a big
noise at once angry and gentle; then, further on, the banks widened out,
and you saw a small, placid lake where trouts were swimming in the midst
of all that green vegetation which keeps undulating in the depths of
tranquil streams.

Mederic went on without a halt, seeing nothing, and with only this
thought in his mind: "My first letter is for the Poivron family, then I
have one for M. Renardet; so I must cross the wood."

His blue blouse, fastened round his waist by a black leathern belt moved
in a quick, regular fashion above the green hedge of the willow-trees;
and his stick of stout holly kept time with the steady movement of his
legs.

Then, he crossed the Brindelle over a bridge formed of a single tree
thrown lengthwise, with a rope attached to two stakes driven into the
river's banks as its only balustrade.

The wood, which belonged to M. Renardet, the Mayor of Carvelin, and the
largest landowner in the district, consisted of a number of huge old
trees, straight as pillars, and extending for about half a league along
the left-bank of the stream which served as a boundary for this immense
arch of foliage. Alongside the water there were large shrubs warmed by
the sun; but under the trees you found nothing but moss, thick, soft,
plastic moss, which exhaled into the stagnant air a light odor of loam
with withered branches.

Mederic slackened his pace, took off his black cap adorned with red
lace, and wiped his forehead, for it was by this time hot in the
meadows, though it was not yet eight o'clock in the morning.

He had just recovered from the effects of the heat, and resumed his
accelerated pace when he noticed at the foot of a tree