frost and musical to the sabots of peasants and the iron-shod feet of horses. The hills and fields were covered with a powdery snow that threw their grays into a dark relief, and the air was so still that I could hear the bell-like tinkle of chisel and stone from the quarry nearly a mile away. We entered the Bois de Janenne together, and wandered through its branchy solitudes by many winding pathways. There is a main road running through this wood, cut by order of the commune for the pleasure of visitors, and the middle of this road was white with a thin untrodden snow. On either side this ribbon of white lay a narrower ribbon of gold where the pines had shed their yellow needles and the overhanging boughs had guarded them from the falling snow. The ground ivy was of all imaginable colours, but only yielded its secrets on a close examination, and did not call upon the eye like some of the louder reds and yellows which still clung to the trees. Here and there the fusain burned like a flame with its vivid scarlet berries—chapeau de curé the country people call them, though the colour is a little too gay for less than a cardinal's wearing. For the most part the undergrowth was bare, and the branches were either purple or of the tone of a ripe filbert, so that the atmosphere, with the reflected dull golds and bluish-reds and reddish-blues, was in a swimming maze like that of a sunset distance, though the eye could scarcely pierce twenty yards into the thick-grown tangle.

Schwartz and I rambled along, now and then exchanging a sign of friendly interest, and in a while we left the main path and wandered where we would. Suddenly Schwartz began to hunt and sniff and bark on what I supposed to be the recent trace of a rabbit or a hare, and I stood still to watch him. He worried industriously here and there until he disappeared behind a clump of brushwood, and then I heard a sudden 'Yowk!' of unmistakable terror. After this there was dead silence. I called, but there was not even the rustle of a leaf in answer. I waited a while and called again, but still no answer came. Not in the least guessing what had befallen the dog, I mounted the hillside and came to the clump of bushes behind which he had disappeared. There I found a hole some three feet wide and two in height, a hole with sides of moist earth, formed like an irregularly-shaped funnel, and affording at its farther end little more than room enough for a creature of Schwartz's size to pass. At the narrow end the earth was freshly disturbed.

I shouted down this reversed trumpet of a hole. I listened after every call I explored the place so far as I could with a six-foot wand cut from a near tree. I heard no movement, no whine of distress, and I touched nothing with the wand except the roof of the cavern into which poor Schwartz had fallen. At length I gave him up for dead, remembering the adventure of the day before, the terrible space of time which had elapsed before the echo of the fallen boulder came booming from the abyss, and thinking it as likely as not that Schwartz had fallen to an equal depth. When I got back to the hotel I told the tale as well as I could, and one of the servants took the news to Schwartz's master.

When once this lamentable accident had happened, it became surprising to learn how frequently its like had happened before. There was scarcely a sportsman in the village who had not his story of some such disappearance of a dog whilst out shooting. The poor beast would become excited in pursuit of game, would dash headlong into a set of bushes and emerge no more. Then a moment's examination would reveal the fatal cave. I am certain that I heard a good half-score of such histories. The cave, by the way, was not always fatal, for I heard of cases in which the dog had been known to find his way out of the underground labyrinth, and return home dreadfully thin and hungry, but otherwise undamaged. These cases gave me some faint hope for Schwartz, but as day after day went by the hope faded, and I made up my mind that I had seen the last of him. I was sorry to think so, for he had been very much a friend and a companion.

IV

It was curious to notice how that unquestioning allegiance and admiration which the missing Schwartz had been used to bestow on Lil was now bestowed by her on the new-comer who answered to the name of Scraper, and how in answer to all her advances and endearments Scraper remained scornful and unreceptive. One knows a hundred poems and legends in which this form of vengeance is taken upon the cruel fair; in which the proud lady who has scorned the humble and faithful heart lives to be scorned in turn. Scraper, probably unconscious of his mission as avenger, fulfilled it none the less on that account.

His master, being an Englishman, had the common English reverence for the Sunday, and would not shoot on that day, though by his conscientious abstention he missed, undoubtedly, the best battue the country-side afforded. We had a brief discussion as to the morality and propriety of the procession, and I pointed out to him that notwithstanding the military element by which it was so strongly marked, it was purely sacerdotal in origin and pious in intent, but he merely replied that as a form of religious exercise for a Sunday it struck him as being jolly rum. He added shortly afterwards that whether he looked at it or not the coves would do it, and that he therefore felt at liberty to watch them.

Scraper displayed the profoundest interest in the business, and took upon himself the organisation of the whole affair, barking with so much authority, and careering about the cavalry squadron with such untiring energy that he threw Lil's efforts in that way into the shade, and in the course of a mere half-hour had superseded her. Then, just as Schwartz had been used, with every evidence of faith, to follow Lil, regarding her as the very mainspring of the military movement, Lil followed Scraper. Mr. Herbert Spencer has shown that, in spite of the apparent unreasonableness of the fact, humbug and credulity are sworn companions. The savage mystery man, who knows what a humbug he himself is, is the first to yield allegiance and faith to the abler humbug, who has more tricks or bolder invention than he. So, Lil's groundless pretensions of a week ago did not seem in the least to prevent her from being imposed upon by the groundless pretensions of Scraper, much as one might have thought her own career of imposture would have set her upon her guard. She had caught that very fawning method of appeal for a kind regard which had once distinguished Schwartz, and it was obvious that Scraper could make no claim to which she would not be ready to give adhesion. It is in the very nature of poetical justice that it satisfies the emotions, and I was not displeased to see affairs take this sudden turn, to view the hard and despiteful heart thus humbled.

It was on a Friday that Schwartz's chase had ended so disastrously. It was on the following Sunday that Lil laid down the honours of command at the feet of the new-comer. It was on the Sunday following, the ninth day clear from the date of the mischance, that the great event of the seven years took place. My young acquaintance had two or three days free of engagements, and he spent these in watching the preparations for the procession. He spoke French with a fluency and purity which excited my envy, and he spent most of his spare time among the village people, who talked and thought and dreamed of nothing but the procession. Wherever he went Scraper accompanied him, and wherever Scraper went Lil was to be seen following in fascinated admiration.

For a whole week the drum had known but little rest. I never learned the purpose of the proceeding, but every day and all day, from long before daylight till long after dark, somebody marched about the village and rattled unceasingly upon the drum. It could not possibly have been one man who did it all,