ks, to return to their home
in Brittany, three riders, accompanied by a footman, were one evening
painfully climbing one of the steep hills of the ridge of the Black
Mountains, that raise their rugged ribs to the southwest of Armorica.
When, having reached the top of the rocky pile over which the path wound
its way, the travelers looked below, they saw at their feet a long chain
of plains and hillocks, some covered with rye and wheat ready for the
harvesters, others running northward like vast carpets of heather. Here
and yonder, vast moors also were perceived stretching out as far as the
eye could follow. A few straggling villages, reached by an avenue of
trees, raised the roofs of their houses in the midst of impassible bogs
that served for natural defences. The panorama was enlivened by herds of
black sheep that browsed over the ruddy heath or the green valleys,
watered by innumerable running streams. Among the green were also seen
steers and cows, and especially a large number of horses of the Breton
stock, strong for the plow, fiery in war.

The three riders, preceded by the footman, now proceeded to descend the
further slope of the rugged hill. One of the three, clad in
ecclesiastical robes, was Witchaire, considered one of the richest
abbots of Gaul. The vast lands of his almost royal abbey bordered on the
frontiers of Armorica. His two companions, on horseback like himself,
were monks belonging to his dependency, and both wore the garb of the
religious Order of St. Benoit. The two monks rode behind the abbot at a
little distance, leading between them a packsaddle mule loaded with the
baggage of their superior, a man of short stature, sharp eye, and a
smile that was at times pious, at other times cunning. The mountain
guide, a robust, thick-set man in the vigor of life, wore the antique
costume of the Breton Gauls--wide breeches of cloth held at the waist by
a leather belt, a jacket of wool, and, hanging from his shoulders on the
same side with his wallet, a cloak of goat-skin, although the season was
summer. His hair, only partly covered with a woolen cap, fell over his
shoulders. From time to time he leaned upon his _pen-bas_, a long staff
made of holly and terminating in a crook.

The burning August sun, now at its hottest, darted its rays upon the
guide, the two monks and Abbot Witchaire. Reining in his horse, the
latter said to the guide:

"The heat is suffocating; these granite rocks radiate it upon us as