no doubt
to this farm. These fields were like bowers, separated by banks which
were planted with trees. The road which led to them was barred by the
trunk of an old, half-rotten tree,--a Breton method of enclosure the
name of which may furnish, further on, a digression which will complete
the characterization of this region. Between the stairway cut in the
schist rock and the path closed by this old tree, in front of the marsh
and beneath the overhanging rock, several granite blocks roughly hewn,
and piled one upon the other, formed the four corners of the cottage and
held up the planks, cobblestones, and pitch amalgam of which the walls
were made. The fact that one half of the roof was covered with furze
instead of thatch, and the other with shingles or bits of board cut into
the form of slates, showed that the building was in two parts; one half,
with a broken hurdle for a door, served as a stable, the other half was
the dwelling of the owner. Though this hut owed to the neighborhood of
the town a few improvements which were wholly absent from such buildings
that were five or six miles further off, it showed plainly enough the
instability of domestic life and habits to which the wars and customs of
feudality had reduced the serf; even to this day many of the peasants of
those parts call a seignorial chateau, "The Dwelling."

While examining the place, with an astonishment we can readily conceive,
Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed here and there in the filth of the
courtyard a few bits of granite so placed as to form stepping-stones
to the house. Hearing the sound of musketry that was evidently coming
nearer, she jumped from stone to stone, as if crossing a rivulet, to ask
shelter. The house was closed by a door opening in two parts; the lower
one of wood, heavy and massive, the upper one a shutter which served as
a window. In many of the smaller towns of France the shops have the
same type of door though far more decorated, the lower half possessing a
call-bell. The door in question opened with a wooden latch worthy of the
golden age, and the upper part was never closed except at night, for it
was the only opening through which daylight could enter the room. There
was, to be sure, a clumsy window, but the glass was thick like the
bottom of a bottle, and the lead which held the panes in place took so
much room that the opening seemed intended to intercept the light
rather than admit it. As soon as Mademoiselle de Verneui