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Children, with cheeks as red as the apples in the orchards, bobbed curtsies to us at the cottage-doors.
An antique mouldering village, with quaint little church, its grey lichen-marked stones brightened by the warm sunshine of a September day, and the straggling vines drooping their pale dusty leaves over the cottage-doors, made a welcome variety in the monotonous landscape. How hazy yet cheerful was the brightness in which the poor mean houses seemed to sleep!
Soon they came to the village, which looked so strange and quiet by the early morning light, with the cottage-doors all shut, and the windows closed and the blinds drawn. Humpty jumped down to open the gate leading up the drive, and there on the doorstep were mummie and daddy, looking so white and ill, who had come out of the house at the sound of the wheels on the gravel to greet them.
The cottage-doors were closed, no one was astir, and even if he had shouted aloud, 'Look, gospodarze, the Germans are here! no one would have been alarmed. The string of noisy people now began to file past Slimak's cottage. The tired horses were walking slowly, the cows could scarcely lift their feet, the pigs squeaked and stumbled.
Where we stood, the cowherd's long whoop at intervals, and, in answer to his call, the faint low of cattle, could be heard; and, from some cottages beyond the city walls, the bark of dogs, and noise of faggots being hewn, were interrupted only by the loud jests of fishermen, who sat at the cottage-doors, unravelling their nets; while the dewy mist of evening kept rising till it reached the elm-tree tops, then hung there, like a girdle of thin white gauze.
However, as they neared the low, flat, sandy shore, a few red caps peeped out at the cottage-doors, and then, apparently gaining confidence from the survey, some wiry, active figures appeared, and were hailed by Hobbs.
This acquaintance spread the fact of his errand along the road as he went; and therefore, though Hope took care to choose his time, so as not to ride past the cottage-doors while the labourers were at dinner, his visit was not more private or agreeable than on the preceding occasion.
Were there not three dogs, two carts, a maid carrying pails of water, and several groups of frolicking children in the street not to mention live ducks, and a glimpse of grazing geese on the common? There were also two mothers at their cottage-doors, each with a baby in her arms. I knew they were babies, although I had never seen a baby before.
In this way, Raoul learned to love the same airs that had charmed Christine's childhood. They also both had the same calm and dreamy little cast of mind. They delighted in stories, in old Breton legends; and their favorite sport was to go and ask for them at the cottage-doors, like beggars: "Ma'am ..." or, "Kind gentleman ... have you a little story to tell us, please?"
Men in distant gardens, women in orchards and at cottage-doors, shepherds on remote hills, turnip-hoers in blue-green enclosures miles away, captains with spy-glasses out at sea, were regarding the picture keenly.
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