Mademoiselle de Verneuil hoped to
be able to pass a few hours in this retreat until it was possible for
her to return to Fougeres without danger. According to all appearance
Hulot was to triumph. The Chouans were retreating so rapidly that she
heard firing all about her, and the fear of being shot made her hasten
to the cottage, the chimney of which was her landmark. The path she
was following ended at a sort of shed covered with a furze-roof,
supported by four stout trees with the bark still on them. A mud wall
formed the back of this shed, under which were a cider-mill, a flail
to thresh buckwheat, and several agricultural implements. She stopped
before one of the posts, unwilling to cross the dirty bog which formed
a sort of courtyard to the house which, in her Parisian ignorance, she
had taken for a stable.
The cabin, protected from the north wind by an eminence towering above
the roof, which rested against it, was not without a poetry of its
own; for the tender shoots of elms, heather, and various rock-flowers
wreathed it with garlands. A rustic staircase, constructed between the
shed and the house, enabled the inhabitants to go to the top of the
rock and breathe a purer air. On the left, the eminence sloped
abruptly down, giving to view a series of fields, the first of which
belonged no doubt to this farm.
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