got his tools together

and all things ready to go down into the village, roused him.

“Good!” said the sleeper, rising on his elbow. “Two leagues

beyond the summit of the hill?”

“About.”

“About. Good!”

The mender of roads went home, with the dust going on before

him according to the set of the wind, and was soon at the fountain,

squeezing himself in among the lean kine brought there to drink,

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and appearing even to whisper to them in his whispering to all the

village. When the village had taken its poor supper, it did not

creep to bed, as it usually did, but came out of doors again, and

remained there. A curious contagion of whispering was upon it,

and also, when it gathered together at the fountain in the dark,

another curious contagion of looking expectantly at the sky in one

direction only. Monsieur Gabelle, chief functionary of the place,

became uneasy; went out on his house-top alone, and looked in

that direction too; glanced down from behind his chimneys at the

darkening faces by the fountain below, and sent word to the

sacristan who kept the keys of the church, that there might be

need to ring the tocsin by-and-by.

The night deepened. The trees environing the old chateau,

keeping its solitary state apart, moved in a rising wind, as though

they threatened the pile of buildi