rom Speed, whose uniform was to be reckoned with by all
station-masters, and ten minutes later we stood swaying in a
cattle-car, huddled close to our horses to keep warm, while the
locomotive tore eastward, whistling frantically, and an ocean of black
smoke poured past, swarming with sparks. Crossing the Aune trestle
with a ripping roar, the train rushed through Chateaulin, south, then
east, then south.

Toward noon, Speed, clinging to the stall-bars, called out to me that
he could see Quimper, and in a few moments we rolled into the station,
dropped two cars, and steamed out again into the beautiful Breton
country, where the winter wheat was green as new grass and the gorse
glimmered, and the clear streams rushed seaward between their thickets
of golden willows and green briers, already flushing with the promise
of new buds.

Rosporden we passed at full speed; scarcely a patch of melting snow
remained at Bannalec; and when we steamed slowly into Quimperle, the
Laita ran crystal-clear as a summer stream, and I saw the faint blue
of violets on the southern slope of the beech-woods.

Some gendarmes aided us to disembark our horses, and a sub-officer
respectfully offered us hospitality at the barracks across the square;
but we were in our saddles the moment our horses' hoofs struck the
pavement, galloping for Paradise, with a sweet, keen wind blowing,
hinting already of the sea.

This was that same road which led me into Paradise on that autumn day
which seemed years and years ago. The forests were leafless but
beautiful; the blackthorns already promised their scented snow to
follow the last melting drift which still glimmered among the trees in
deep woodland gullies. A violet here and there looked up at us with
blue eyes; in sheltered spots, fresh, reddish sprouts pricked the
moist earth, here a whorl of delicate green, there a tender spike,
guarding some imprisoned loveliness; buds on the beeches were
brightening under a new varnish; naked thickets, no longer dead gray,
softened into harmonies of pink and gold and palest purple.

Once, halting at a bridge, above the quick music of the stream we
heard an English robin singing all alone.

"I never longed for spring as I do now," broke out Speed. "The
horror of this black winter has scarred me forever--the deathly
whiteness, month after month; the freezing filth of that ghastly city;
the sea, all slime and ice!"

"Gallop," I said, shuddering. "I can smell the moors