Strona 260 z 896

Few children were to be seen, and no dogs. As to the men and

women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospect--Life on

the lowest terms that could sustain it, down in the little

village under the mill; or captivity and Death in the dominant

prison on the crag.

Heralded by a courier in advance, and by the cracking of his

postilions' whips, which twined snake-like about their heads in

the evening air, as if he came attended by the Furies, Monsieur

the Marquis drew up in his travelling carriage at the

posting-house gate. It was hard by the fountain, and the peasants

suspended their operations to look at him. He looked at them, and

saw in them, without knowing it, the slow sure filing down of

misery-worn face and figure, that was to make the meagreness of

Frenchmen an English superstition which should survive the truth

through the best part of a hundred years.