of the recruits, and suddenly broke silence. The slow
advance of the Bretons had put a distance of three or four hundred feet
between themselves and their escort. Hulot's face contorted after a
fashion peculiar to himself.

"What the devil are those dandies up to?" he exclaimed in a sonorous
voice. "Creeping instead of marching, I call it."

At his first words the officers who accompanied him turned
spasmodically, as if startled out of sleep by a sudden noise. The
sergeants and corporals followed their example, and the whole company
paused in its march without receiving the wished for "Halt!" Though the
officers cast a first look at the detachment, which was creeping like an
elongated tortoise up the mountain of La Pelerine, these young men,
all dragged, like many others, from important studies to defend their
country, and in whom war had not yet smothered the sentiment of art,
were so much struck by the scene which lay spread before their eyes that
they made no answer to their chief's remark, the real significance of
which was unknown to them. Though they had come from Fougeres, where the
scene which now presented itself to their eyes is also visible (but with
certain differences caused by the change of perspective), they could not
resist pausing to admire it again, like those dilettanti who enjoy all
music the more when familiar with its construction.

From the summit of La Pelerine the traveller's eye can range over the
great valley of Couesnon, at one of the farthest points of which, along
the horizon, lay the town of Fougeres. From here the officers could see,
to its full extent, the basin of this intervale, as remarkable for the
fertility of its soil as for the variety of its aspects. Mountains of
gneiss and slate rose on all sides, like an ampitheatre, hiding their
ruddy flanks behind forests of oak, and forming on their declivities
other and lesser valleys full of dewy freshness. These rocky heights
made a vast enclosure, circular in form, in the centre of which a meadow
lay softly stretched, like the lawn of an English garden. A number
of evergreen hedges, defining irregular pieces of property which were
planted with trees, gave to this carpet of verdure a character of its
own, and one that is somewhat unusual among the landscapes of France; it
held the teeming secrets of many beauties in its various contrasts,
the effects of which were fine enough to arrest the eye of the most
indifferent spectator.

At th