The Pond 



sports for our broods? In summer, we have 

 hardly water to drink! 



Near the house, in a freestone recess, a 

 scanty source trickles into a basin made in the 

 rock. Four or five famihes have, hke our- 

 selves, to draw their water there with copper 

 pails. By the time that the schoolmaster's 

 donkey has slaked her thirst and the neigh- 

 bours have taken their provision for the day, 

 the basin is dry. We have to wait for four- 

 and-twenty hours for it to fill. No, this is not 

 the hole in which the ducks would delight nor 

 indeed in which they would be tolerated. 



There remains the brook. To go down to 

 it with the troop of ducklings is fraught with 

 danger. On the way through the village, we 

 might meet cats, bold ravishers of small poul- 

 try; some surly mongrel might frighten and 

 scatter the little band; and it would be a hard 

 puzzle to collect it in its entirety. We must 

 avoid the traffic and take refuge in peaceful 

 and sequestered spots. 



On the hills, the path that climbs behind the 

 chateau^ soon takes a sudden turn and widens 

 into a small plain beside the meadows. It 

 skirts a rocky slope whence trickles, level with 



'The Chateau de Saint-Leons, standing just outside 

 and above the village of Saint-Leons, where the author 

 was born in 1833. — Translator's Note. 



167 



