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HARD WICKE 'S S CIENCE- G O SSIP. 



is set before us. The dainty resembles a cockle, 

 but is indeed very distinct, and an awkward pause 

 hereupon ensues, when the village beauty with 

 thickly-pencilled eye-lashes, dark eyes and ancestral 

 cheek-bones comes forward, and wiping a knife on 

 her apron she watches them hiss and splutter and 

 protrude their syphons in delightful anticipation. 

 The next moment she is bolting them like a cod- 

 fish, and exclaiming, "Just as if they are not 

 good." 



The concluding portion of our walk lies through a 

 pine clearing, along whose ferny borders the scarce 

 swallow-tail butterfly is poising and floating, but it 

 is yet a good league to the point, and the tide is 

 quickly mounting and severing the Goat's Island 

 from the mainland, so that we shall Lave recourse to 

 the boat. The ferryman when we arrive is cooling 

 himself on the floor of his cottage and drinking milk, 

 and as we walk down to the quay he tells us that 

 owing to our ignorance of the short cuts we have 

 walked too far. He then takes us out in his flat- 

 bottomed punt to his wherry ; a light zephyr sits in 

 the flapping sail, and as we glide over the cerulean 

 water the big tumulus behind the white cottages 

 insensibly draws near. An avenue of wind-swept 

 elms, some twelve feet high, leads up from the shore, 

 which nevertheless he tells us has been planted these 

 fifty years, for the dreamy shade of the elm does not 

 increase like that of the aromatic conifer, and trans- 

 form the scenes of our infancy : let us here find 

 reason to pause and observe this minute ground- 

 beetle, Aristtcs capita, that carries its prodigious head 

 like a hippopotamus, its eyes too, seem placed at a 

 disadvantage, and it is a puzzle to know what use it 

 makes of its brains. But the tumulus where they 

 tell us our grand-parents had a fairy grotto among 

 the blooming furze is likewise a puzzle, it would seem. 

 "Round about," exclaims a short, stout man, ap- 

 proaching with a tallow dip and a match-box, "hats ! " 

 By Saint Pol a not unnecessary warning, for it must 

 have been with looks demure that the buried dolmen 

 was entered. The match is struck and the light is 

 paraded round the stony walls, revealing a kind of 

 hatching, similar to the tatoo of the Pacific islanders, 

 upon the slabs, which in the eyes of innocence 

 might have presented the appearance of the ripple on 

 the pebbles or the lines of nacre ; the jade instruments 

 too, that chased it are also so faithfully represented 

 that we suppress a tear, and then there are some 

 zigzags. But what evidence is there that these lithe 

 and nimble beings dwelt here ? we ask in breathless 

 expectation. The short and stout man hereupon 

 points to three coalescent holes suitable to hold a 

 scent-bottle or wash the tips of your fingers, directly 

 above which there is a blink of the blue sky, and he 

 explains how they made use of these footings and 

 crept in and out of the crevice like rabbits, for this 

 was their only entry. Here it was then that the 

 happy lovers lived, and here they were buried in right 



and possession of the Goat's Island, we exclaim half- 

 convinced, with a romantic sigh. 



The wind blows fair and it is a straight course 

 across the misty river of Auray to Locmariaquer, The 

 huge stones that stood there as a landmark are fallen 

 and lie broken, but the dolmens remain, and the 

 village children are waiting to show us where they 

 lie hid among the blue-bottles and springing corn. 

 As is often the case, a mound or tumulus directs us to 

 the dolmens, and the children instinctively teach us 

 how to creep in and show us where are the carvings. 

 One resembles a turnip-top, but the hieroglyphics 

 are with little doubt a hoax, like the Hebrew L. D. 

 wanting an S. to be found somewhere. 



Agam we are on a straight glaring road with 

 taverns at intervals, hearkening to the chirping of 

 the field-crickets. Who can count the grains of sand 

 and who can count the harpists here disclosed by the 

 tepid spring ? but merry as they are on their native 

 heaths, these musicians when imprisoned in a town, 

 after a time cease to rejoice at the passing wheels, 

 and remain mute until they die at the expiration of 

 June. Whilst listening to the crickets we have 

 passed by several dolmens that we might have 

 visited, and we are now in the ferry-boat crossing the 

 river of Orach, where tiles are made and converted 

 into oyster cots. A fishing-boat with blue sails is 

 coming in, coasting along the mud flats, and the two 

 garreted cottages on the high banks recall the 

 Scottish Highlands, and bring to mind the labours 

 of an archeologist from the north country whose 

 museum at Oarnac we are desirous to visit, were it 

 only for the sake of seeing the shapely stone hammer- 

 head there exhibited. Reluctantly we leave this 

 peaceful spot, and the same straight sandy road 

 leads us onward until we come upon a shallow inlet 

 parted into oyster-beds, and fringed with tamerisks. 

 Here we mount the declivity on the right and skirt 

 the dusky pine wood, but lost in the gloom we turn 

 down a vista where a canopy of creepers veils the 

 heraldry of a castle gateway. The sunlight idly 

 slumbers on the white walls, extinguisher spires, and 

 parterres within, and were the gardener to be seen 

 we might enquire concerning the corkscrew variety 

 of the garden snail, here to be looked for, as on the 

 coast at Deal. But perhaps some of the dependants 

 are about who will direct us to the standing stones of 

 Oarnac ; let us see. Cave canem ! here they are to 

 be sure, the bouncing mastiff with clenched teeth and 

 prodigious howl in front, the spotted dog with bull- 

 dog snout just behind, and all the rough-coated 

 favourites with cocked-up ears bringing up the rear. 



A backward retreat and a scurry down into a dell 

 brings us upon the desired stones, standing up in 

 long parallel lines like skittles, and we track them 

 up a hillock crowned with a chess-board tower and 

 over the smooth heath, and as we advance they 

 increase in size until they rise about eight feet. 

 We leave them behind after a hasty glance, and 



