darkness with the cracking of
whips and jingling of bells, and sleep and silence settle down again.
At night he is back to supper with tales of big game multitudinous as
Laban's flocks, and a bag unaccountably empty. That same evening he is
away to desk or counter or studio in Brussels, Antwerp, or Liege, and
Janenne falls back into its normal peace.

It was mid-December, and the snow was falling in powdery flakes, when
a sportsman alighted at the Hotel des Postes, and at the first glance
I knew him for a countryman. He was a fine, frank, free-hearted young
fellow, one of the most easily likable of youngsters, and we were on
friendly terms together before the first evening was over. He knew a
number of people in the neighbourhood, had received a dozen invitations
to shoot, or thereabouts, and meant to put up three weeks at Janenne,
so he told me, shooting when sport was to be had, and on other days
tramping about the country. He was accompanied by a bull-terrier, who
answered to the name of Scraper, a handsome creature of his kind, with
one eye in permanent mourning.

'Of course he's no good,' said the young fellow, in answer to an
observation of mine, 'but then he's perfectly tamed, and therefore he's
no harm. He'll stay where he's told; and I believe the poor beggar would
break his heart if I left him behind. Wouldn't you, old chap?'

The young sportsman went away to the chase next morning, taking his
bull-terrier with him, and returning at night reported Scraper's perfect
good behaviour. In the course of that evening's talk I spoke of certain
peculiarities I had noticed in the formation of the country, and my new
acquaintance proposed that on an idle day of his next week we should
take a walk of exploration. When the day came we started together, and I
showed him some of the curiosities of nature I had noticed.

Round and about Janenne the world is hollow. The hills are mere bubbles,
and the earth is honeycombed with caverns. By the side of the road which
leads to Houssy a river accompanies the traveller's steps, purling and
singing, and talking secrets (as shallow pebbly-bedded streams have a
way of doing), and on a sudden the traveller misses it. There, before
him, is a river bed, wide, white, and stony, but where is the river? If
he be a curious traveller he will retrace his steps, and will find the
stream racing with some impetuosity towards a bend, where it dwindles by
apparent miracle into nothing. The curio