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"Touch then." It was the turn of the mender of roads to say it

this time, after observing these operations. They again joined

hands.

"To-night?" said the mender of roads.

"To-night," said the man, putting the pipe in his mouth.

"Where?"

"Here."

He and the mender of roads sat on the heap of stones looking

silently at one another, with the hail driving in between them

like a pigmy charge of bayonets, until the sky began to clear

over the village.

"Show me!" said the traveller then, moving to the brow of the

hill.

"See!" returned the mender of roads, with extended finger. "You

go down here, and straight through the street, and past the

fountain--"

"To the Devil with all that!" interrupted the other, rolling his

eye over the landscape. "I go through no streets and past no

fountains. Well?"

"Well! About two leagues beyond the summit of that hill above the

village."

"Good. When do you cease to work?"

"At sunset."