o the garret, which was lighted
by one round window. Under this rustic stairway opened a cellar built of
Burgundy brick, containing several casks of wine.

Though the kitchen utensils of the peasantry are usually only two,
namely, a frying-pan and an iron pot, with which they manage to do all
their cooking, exceptions to this rule, in the shape of two enormous
saucepans hanging beneath the mantle-shelf and above a small portable
stove, were to be seen in this cottage. In spite, however, of this
indication of luxury, the furniture was in keeping with the external
appearance of the place. A jar held water, the spoons were of wood or
pewter, the dishes, of red clay without and white within, were scaling
off and had been mended with pewter rivets; the heavy table and chairs
were of pine wood, and for flooring there was nothing better than the
hardened earth. Every fifth year the walls received a coat of white-wash
and so did the narrow beams of the ceiling, from which hung bacon,
strings of onions, bundles of tallow candles, and the bags in which
a peasant keeps his seeds; near the bread-box stood an old-fashioned
wardrobe in walnut, where the scanty household linen, and the one change
of garments together with the holiday attire of the entire family were
kept.

Above the mantel of the chimney gleamed a poacher's old gun, not worth
five francs,--the wood scorched, the barrel to all appearances never
cleaned. An observer might reflect that the protection of a hovel with
only a latch, and an outer gate that was only a paling and never closed,
needed no better weapon; but still the wonder was to what use it was
put. In the first place, though the wood was of the commonest kind, the
barrel was carefully selected, and came from a valuable gun, given in
all probability to a game-keeper. Moreover, the owner of this weapon
never missed his aim; there was between him and his gun the same
intimate acquaintance that there is between a workman and his tool. If
the muzzle must be raised or lowered the merest fraction in its aim,
because it carries just an atom above or below the range, the poacher
knows it; he obeys the rule and never misses. An officer of artillery
would have found the essential parts of this weapon in good condition
notwithstanding its uncleanly appearance. In all that the peasant
appropriates to his use, in all that serves him, he displays just the
amount of force that is needed, neither more nor less; he attends to