And What
Although Now And Then A Drop Of Blood Should Appear On Modestine's Mouse-
Coloured Wedge-Like Rump?
I should have preferred it otherwise, indeed;
but yesterday's exploits had purged my heart of all humanity.
The
perverse little devil, since she would not be taken with kindness, must
even go with pricking.
It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cavalcade of stride-legged
ladies and a pair of post-runners, the road was dead solitary all the way
to Pradelles. I scarce remember an incident but one. A handsome foal
with a bell about his neck came charging up to us upon a stretch of
common, sniffed the air martially as one about to do great deeds, and
suddenly thinking otherwise in his green young heart, put about and
galloped off as he had come, the bell tinkling in the wind. For a long
while afterwards I saw his noble attitude as he drew up, and heard the
note of his bell; and when I struck the high-road, the song of the
telegraph-wires seemed to continue the same music.
Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the Allier, surrounded by rich
meadows. They were cutting aftermath on all sides, which gave the
neighbourhood, this gusty autumn morning, an untimely smell of hay. On
the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept mounting for miles to the
horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn landscape, with black blots of fir-
wood and white roads wandering through the hills.
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