the pleasures of the eye; and judging, in spite of himself, by what he
saw, he could not help feeling a distrust of his character.

In the mean time the farmer returned from the stables, and made him
enter the house.

The inside of the farmhouse corresponded to its outside. The whitewashed
walls had no other ornament than a row of guns of all sizes; the massive
furniture hardly redeemed its clumsy appearance by its great solidity.
The cleanliness was doubtful, and the absence of all minor conveniences
proved that a woman's care was wanting in the household concerns. The
young clerk learned that the farmer, in fact, lived here with no one but
his two sons.

Of this, indeed, the signs were plain enough. A table with the cloth
laid, that no one had taken the trouble to clear away, was left near the
window. The plates and dishes were scattered upon it without any order,
and loaded with potato-parings and half-picked bones. Several empty
bottles emitted an odor of brandy, mixed with the pungent smell of
tobacco-smoke.

After seating his guest, the farmer lighted his pipe, and his two sons
resumed their work by the fireside. Now and then the silence was just
broken by a short remark, answered by a word or an exclamation; and then
all became as mute as before.

"From my childhood," said the old cashier, "I had been very sensible to
the impression of outward objects; later in life, reflection had taught
me to study the causes of these impressions rather than to drive them
away. I set myself, then, to examine everything around me with great
attention.

"Below the guns, I had remarked on entering, some wolftraps were
suspended, and to one of them still hung the mangled remains of a wolf's
paw, which they had not yet taken off from the iron teeth. The blackened
chimneypiece was ornamented by an owl and a raven nailed on the wall,
their wings extended, and their throats with a huge nail through each;
a fox's skin, freshly flayed, was spread before the window; and a larder
hook, fixed into the principal beam, held a headless goose, whose body
swayed about over our heads.

"My eyes were offended by all these details, and I turned them again
upon my hosts. The father, who sat opposite to me, only interrupted his
smoking to pour out his drink, or address some reprimand to his
sons. The eldest of these was scraping a deep bucket, and the bloody
scrapings, which he threw into the fire every instant, filled the room
with a disag