rles awoke with a start, suddenly
remembered the broken leg, and tried to call to mind all the fractures
he knew. The rain had stopped, day was breaking, and on the branches
of the leafless trees birds roosted motionless, their little feathers
bristling in the cold morning wind. The flat country stretched as far as
eye could see, and the tufts of trees round the farms at long intervals
seemed like dark violet stains on the cast grey surface, that on the
horizon faded into the gloom of the sky.

Charles from time to time opened his eyes, his mind grew weary, and,
sleep coming upon him, he soon fell into a doze wherein, his recent
sensations blending with memories, he became conscious of a double
self, at once student and married man, lying in his bed as but now, and
crossing the operation theatre as of old. The warm smell of poultices
mingled in his brain with the fresh odour of dew; he heard the iron
rings rattling along the curtain-rods of the bed and saw his wife
sleeping. As he passed Vassonville he came upon a boy sitting on the
grass at the edge of a ditch.

"Are you the doctor?" asked the child.

And on Charles's answer he took his wooden shoes in his hands and ran on
in front of him.

The general practitioner, riding along, gathered from his guide's talk
that Monsieur Rouault must be one of the well-to-do farmers.

He had broken his leg the evening before on his way home from a
Twelfth-night feast at a neighbour's. His wife had been dead for two
years. There was with him only his daughter, who helped him to keep
house.

The ruts were becoming deeper; they were approaching the Bertaux.

The little lad, slipping through a hole in the hedge, disappeared;
then he came back to the end of a courtyard to open the gate. The
horse slipped on the wet grass; Charles had to stoop to pass under
the branches. The watchdogs in their kennels barked, dragging at their
chains. As he entered the Bertaux, the horse took fright and stumbled.

It was a substantial-looking farm. In the stables, over the top of the
open doors, one could see great cart-horses quietly feeding from new
racks. Right along the outbuildings extended a large dunghill, from
which manure liquid oozed, while amidst fowls and turkeys, five or six
peacocks, a luxury in Chauchois farmyards, were foraging on the top of
it. The sheepfold was long, the barn high, with walls smooth as your
hand. Under the cart-shed were two large carts and four ploughs, with
t