box-tree garlands, while fifteen women washed their linen in the
stream. Such was a field festival in 1703; at that date Antony Watteau
would be painting similar subjects.

This was a very different camp from that of the night before in the cool
and silent pine-woods. It was warm and even stifling in the valley. The
shrill song of frogs, like the tremolo note of a whistle with a pea in
it, rang up from the riverside before the sun was down. In the growing
dusk, faint rustlings began to run to and fro among the fallen leaves;
from time to time a faint chirping or cheeping noise would fall upon my
ear; and from time to time I thought I could see the movement of
something swift and indistinct between the chestnuts. A profusion of
large ants swarmed upon the ground; bats whisked by, and mosquitoes
droned overhead. The long boughs with their bunches of leaves hung
against the sky like garlands; and those immediately above and around me
had somewhat the air of a trellis which should have been wrecked and
half overthrown in a gale of wind.

Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids; and just as I was beginning to
feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and settling densely on my mind, a
noise at my head startled me broad awake again, and, I will frankly
confess it, brought my heart into my mouth. It was such a noise as a
person would make scratching loudly with a finger-nail; it came from
under the knapsack which served me for a pillow, and it was thrice
repeated before I had time to sit up and turn about. Nothing was to be
seen, nothing more was to be heard, but a few of these mysterious
rustlings far and near, and the ceaseless accompaniment of the river and
the frogs. I learned next day that the chestnut gardens are infested by
rats; rustling, chirping, and scraping were probably all due to these;
but the puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to compose
myself for sleep as best I could, in wondering uncertainty about my
neighbours.

I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Monday, 30th September) by the
sound of footsteps not far off upon the stones, and, opening my eyes, I
beheld a peasant going by among the chestnuts by a footpath that I had
not hitherto observed. He turned his head neither to the right nor to
the left, and disappeared in a few strides among the foliage. Here was
an escape! But it was plainly more than time to be moving. The peasantry
were abroad; scarce less terrible to me in my nondescript positio