The Country Doctor | Page 9

children," he went on, as he added another crown.
"Is M. Benassis' house still a long way off?" he asked, when he had
mounted his horse.
"Oh! no, sir, a bare league at most."
The commandant set out, fully persuaded that two leagues remained
ahead of him. Yet after all he soon caught a glimpse through the trees
of the little town's first cluster of houses, and then of all the roofs that
crowded about a conical steeple, whose slates were secured to the
angles of the wooden framework by sheets of tin that glittered in the
sun. This sort of roof, which has a peculiar appearance, denotes the
nearness of the borders of Savoy, where it is very common. The valley
is wide at this particular point, and a fair number of houses pleasantly
situated, either in the little plain or along the side of the mountain
stream, lend human interest to the well-tilled spot, a stronghold with no
apparent outlet among the mountains that surround it.
It was noon when Genestas reined in his horse beneath an avenue of
elm-trees half-way up the hillside, and only a few paces from the town,
to ask the group of children who stood before him for M. Benassis'
house. At first the children looked at each other, then they scrutinized
the stranger with the expression that they usually wear when they set
eyes upon anything for the first time; a different curiosity and a
different thought in every little face. Then the boldest and the merriest
of the band, a little bright-eyed urchin, with bare, muddy feet, repeated
his words over again, in child fashion.
"M. Benassis' house, sir?" adding, "I will show you the way there."

He walked along in front of the horse, prompted quite as much by a
wish to gain a kind of importance by being in the stranger's company,
as by a child's love of being useful, or the imperative craving to be
doing something, that possesses mind and body at his age. The officer
followed him for the entire length of the principal street of the country
town. The way was paved with cobblestones, and wound in and out
among the houses, which their owners had erected along its course in
the most arbitrary fashion. In one place a bake-house had been built out
into the middle of the roadway; in another a gable protruded, partially
obstructing the passage, and yet farther on a mountain stream flowed
across it in a runnel. Genestas noticed a fair number of roofs of tarred
shingle, but yet more of them were thatched; a few were tiled, and
some seven or eight (belonging no doubt to the cure, the justice of the
peace, and some of the wealthier townsmen) were covered with slates.
There was a total absence of regard for appearances befitting a village
at the end of the world, which had nothing beyond it, and no
connection with any other place. The people who lived in it seemed to
belong to one family that dwelt beyond the limits of the bustling world,
with which the collector of taxes and a few ties of the very slenderest
alone served to connect them.
When Genestas had gone a step or two farther, he saw on the mountain
side a broad road that rose above the village. Clearly there must be an
old town and a new town; and, indeed, when the commandant reached
a spot where he could slacken the pace of his horse, he could easily see
between the houses some well-built dwellings whose new roofs
brightened the old-fashioned village. An avenue of trees rose above
these new houses, and from among them came the confused sounds of
several industries. He heard the songs peculiar to busy toilers, a
murmur of many workshops, the rasping of files, and the sound of
falling hammers. He saw the thin lines of smoke from the chimneys of
each household, and the more copious outpourings from the forges of
the van-builder, the blacksmith, and the farrier. At length, at the very
end of the village towards which his guide was taking him, Genestas
beheld scattered farms and well-tilled fields and plantations of trees in
thorough order. It might have been a little corner of Brie, so hidden
away in a great fold of the land, that at first sight its existence would

not be suspected between the little town and the mountains that closed
the country round.
Presently the child stopped.
"There is the door of HIS house," he remarked.
The officer dismounted and passed his arm through the bridle. Then,
thinking that the laborer is worthy of his hire, he drew a few sous from
his waistcoat pocket, and held them out to the child, who looked
astonished at this, opened his eyes