three
or four, died away in marshy hollows, and began again sporadically on
hillsides or at the borders of a wood.

There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it was no easy affair to make
a passage in this uneven country and through this intermittent labyrinth
of tracks. It must have been about four when I struck Sagnerousse, and
went on my way rejoicing in a sure point of departure. Two hours
afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a lull of the wind, I issued
from a fir-wood where I had long been wandering, and found, not the
looked-for village, but another marish bottom among rough-and-tumble
hills. For some time past I had heard the ringing of cattle-bells ahead;
and now, as I came out of the skirts of the wood, I saw near upon a
dozen cows, and perhaps as many more black figures, which I conjectured
to be children, although the mist had almost unrecognisably exaggerated
their forms. These were all silently following each other round and
round in a circle, now taking hands, now breaking up with chains and
reverences. A dance of children appeals to very innocent and lively
thoughts; but, at nightfall on the marshes, the thing was eerie and
fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough read in Herbert Spencer,
felt a sort of silence fall for an instant on my mind. The next, I was
pricking Modestine forward, and guiding her like an unruly ship through
the open. In a path, she went doggedly ahead of her own accord, as
before a fair wind; but once on the turf or among heather, and the brute
became demented. The tendency of lost travellers to go round in a circle
was developed in her to the degree of passion, and it took all the
steering I had in me to keep even a decently straight course through a
single field.

While I was thus desperately tacking through the bog, children and
cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of girls remained behind.
From these I sought direction on my path. The peasantry in general were
but little disposed to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply retired
into his house, and barricaded the door on my approach; and I might beat
and shout myself hoarse, he turned a deaf ear. Another, having given me
a direction which, as I found afterwards, I had misunderstood,
complacently watched me going wrong without adding a sign. He did not
care a stalk of parsley if I wandered all night upon the hills! As for
these two girls, they were a pair of impudent sly sluts, with not a
thought but mischie