These fields were like bowers,
separated by banks which were planted with trees. The road which led
to them was barred by the trunk of an old, half-rotten tree,--a Breton
method of enclosure the name of which may furnish, further on, a
digression which will complete the characterization of this region.
Between the stairway cut in the schist rock and the path closed by
this old tree, in front of the marsh and beneath the overhanging rock,
several granite blocks roughly hewn, and piled one upon the other,
formed the four corners of the cottage and held up the planks,
cobblestones, and pitch amalgam of which the walls were made. The fact
that one half of the roof was covered with furze instead of thatch,
and the other with shingles or bits of board cut into the form of
slates, showed that the building was in two parts; one half, with a
broken hurdle for a door, served as a stable, the other half was the
dwelling of the owner. Though this hut owed to the neighborhood of the
town a few improvements which were wholly absent from such buildings
that were five or six miles further off, it showed plainly enough the
instability of domestic life and habits to which the wars and customs
of feudality had reduced the serf; even to this day many of the
peasants of those parts call a seignorial chateau, "The Dwelling."
While examining the place, with an astonishment we can readily
conceive, Mademoiselle de Verneuil noticed here and there in the
filth of the courtyard a few bits of granite so placed as to form
stepping-stones to the house.
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