orse
in the stall.'

He saw that it was no good, turned the sorrel slowly round, and began
to lead it across the village street. There was a shed behind the inn,
which I had already marked, and taken for the stable, I was surprised
when I found that he was not going there, but I made no remark, and in
a few minutes saw the horse made comfortable in a hovel which seemed to
belong to a neighbour.

This done, the man led the way back to the inn, carrying my valise.

'You have no other guests?' I said, with a casual air. I knew that he
was watching me closely.

'No,' he answered.

'This is not much in the way to anywhere, I suppose?'

'No.'

That was so evident, that I never saw a more retired place. The hanging
woods, rising steeply to a great height, so shut the valley in that I
was puzzled to think how a man could leave it save by the road I had
come. The cottages, which were no more than mean, small huts, ran in
a straggling double line, with many gaps--through fallen trees and
ill-cleared meadows. Among them a noisy brook ran in and out, and the
inhabitants--charcoal-burners, or swine-herds, or poor devils of the
like class, were no better than their dwellings. I looked in vain for
the Chateau. It was not to be seen, and I dared not ask for it.

The man led me into the common room of the tavern--a low-roofed, poor
place, lacking a chimney or glazed windows, and grimy with smoke and
use. The fire--a great half-burned tree--smouldered on a stone hearth,
raised a foot from the floor. A huge black pot simmered over it, and
beside one window lounged a country fellow talking with the goodwife. In
the dusk I could not see his face, but I gave the woman a word, and sat
down to wait for my supper.

She seemed more silent than the common run of her kind; but this might
be because her husband was present. While she moved about getting my
meal, he took his place against the door-post and fell to staring at
me so persistently that I felt by no means at my ease. He was a tall,
strong fellow, with a shaggy moustache and brown beard, cut in the mode
Henri Quatre; and on the subject of that king--a safe one, I knew, with
a Bearnais--and on that alone, I found it possible to make him talk.
Even then there was a suspicious gleam in his eyes that bade me abstain
from questions; so that as the darkness deepened behind him, and the
firelight played more and more strongly on his features, and I thought
of the leagues of woodland