nning to wet the young clerk through; he seemed afraid of the
distance he had still to go, and the horseman, who saw his hesitation,
invited him to come into the farmhouse.

It had something of the look of a fortress. Surrounded by a pretty high
wall, it could not be seen except through the bars of the great gate,
which was carefully closed. The farmer, who had got off his horse, did
not go near it, but, turning to the right, reached another entrance
closed in the same way, but of which he had the key.

Hardly had he passed the threshold when a terrible barking resounded
from each end of the yard. The farmer told his guest to fear nothing,
and showed him the dogs chained up to their kennels; both were of an
extraordinary size, and so savage that the sight of their master himself
could not quiet them.

A boy, attracted by their barking, came out of the house and took the
farmer's horse. The latter began questioning him about some orders he
had given before he left the house, and went toward the stable to see
that they had been executed.

Thus left alone, our clerk looked about him.

A lantern which the boy had placed on the ground cast a dim light over
the courtyard. All around seemed empty and deserted. Not a trace was
visible of the disorder often seen in a country farmyard, and which
shows a temporary cessation of the work which is soon to be resumed
again. Neither a cart forgotten where the horses had been unharnessed,
nor sheaves of corn heaped up ready for threshing, nor a plow overturned
in a corner and half hidden under the freshly-cut clover. The yard was
swept, the barns shut up and padlocked. Not a single vine creeping up
the walls; everywhere stone, wood, and iron!

He took up the lantern and went up to the corner of the house. Behind
was a second yard, where he heard the barking of a third dog, and a
covered wall was built in the middle of it.

Our traveller looked in vain for the little farm garden, where pumpkins
of different sorts creep along the ground, or where the bees from the
hives hum under the hedges of honeysuckle and elder. Verdure and
flowers were nowhere to be seen. He did not even perceive the sight of a
poultry-yard or pigeon-house. The habitation of his host was everywhere
wanting in that which makes the grace and the life of the country.

The young man thought that his host must be of a very careless or a very
calculating disposition, to concede so little to domestic enjoyments and