end a few weeks; you must enjoy the barren sand-plain which extends
all the way from this to St. Omer. How picturesque are those pollards
scattered along the road, with here and there a superannuated windmill,
looking like an ogre with three arms and no legs: then, to relieve the
dreariness of the place, you have multitudes of miserable cabins,
grouped into more miserable villages, to say nothing of the chateaux of
dingy red, in which painters of the brick-dust school so much delight.
Really, Mr. Belcher, you will have a capital field here!"

My new acquaintance shook his head a little seriously, as if deprecating
further pleasantry.

"You are like the rest of them, I fear," he remarked, "a surface
traveller; at least you will force me to believe so if you go on in this
way. But come," he continued, "the storm threatens to last the morning;
if you wish, I will help to make away with part of it, by recounting a
little adventure which happened to me hard by those very pollards, which
you are pleased to abuse so freely."

It is needless to add that I joyfully assented to the proposal, and was
soon seated in Mr. Belcher's room before a cheerful fire--for he had
managed even in Calais to procure one--when he commenced as follows:

"I think it was during the first season I was on the continent, that I
visited St. Omer. After spending a day or two in that place, I concluded
to walk to Calais, and set out one morning accordingly.

"The weather was fine; but after I had been a few hours on the road, the
wind began to blow directly in my face, and soon enveloped me in a cloud
of sand from which there seemed no escape, and which threatened actually
to suffocate me. To avoid this I left the highway, but keeping what I
supposed to be in the general direction of the road, I struck out into
the adjacent fields. There was nothing for a considerable distance to
repay me for this _detour_, except that I thus was rid of the sand. The
country was barren and uninteresting, the cottages little better than
hovels, and the whole scene uninviting. But I pushed on, not a whit
discouraged; indeed my spirits rose as the prospect darkened, and like a
valiant general invading a country for the purpose of conquering a
peace, I resolved in some way to force an adventure before I reached
Calais. I trudged along for hours, stopping occasionally for a draught
of sour wine and a bit of bread. I made no inquiry about the main road,
for I preferred to k