beautiful landscape, with the corn bright in it, but not

abundant. Patches of poor rye where corn should have

been, patches of poor peas and beans, patches of most

coarse vegetable substitutes for wheat. On inanimate nature, as on

the men and women who cultivated it, a prevalent tendency

towards an appearance of vegetating unwillinglya dejected

disposition to give up, and wither away.

Monsieur the Marquis in his travelling carriage (which might

have been lighter), conducted by four post-horses and two

postilions, fagged up a steep hill. A blush on the countenance of

Monsieur the Marquis was no impeachment of his high breeding;

it was not from within; it was occasioned by an external

circumstance beyond his controlthe setting sun.

The sunset struck so brilliantly into the travelling carriage

when it gained the hill-top, that its occupant was steeped in

crimson. “It will die out,” said Monsieur the Marquis, glancing at

his hands, “directly.”

In effect, the sun was so low that it dipped at the moment.

When the heavy drag had been adjusted to the wheel, and the

carriage slid down hill, with a cinderous smell, in a cloud of dust,

the red glow departed quickly; the sun and the Marquis going

down together, there was no glow left when the drag was taken off.

But there remained a broken country, bold and open, a little

village at the bottom of the hill, a broad sweep and rise beyond it,

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a church-tower, a windmill, a forest for the chase, and a crag with

a fortress on it used as a prison. Round upon all these darkening

objects as the night drew on, the Marquis looked, with the air of

one who was coming near home.

The village had its one poor street, with its poor brewery, poor

tannery, poor tavern, poor stable-yard for relays of post-horses,

poor fountain, all usual poor appointments. It had its poor people

too. All its people were poor, and many of them were sitting at

their doors, shredding spare onions and the like for supper, while

many were at the fountain, washing leaves, and grasses, and any

such small yieldings of the earth that could be eaten. Expressive

signs of what made them poor, were not wanting; the tax for the

state, the tax for the church, the tax for the lord, tax local and tax

general, were to be paid here and to be paid there, according to

solemn inscription in the little village, until the wonder was, that

there was any village left unswallowed.

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

women, their choice on earth was stated in the prospectLife 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

postilion’s 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