November — A Shepherd Lad. ly 



chiefly of a valley, with a stream at the bottom, in 

 character so precisely like the Val Ste. Veronique that 

 I concluded it to be the same rivulet, and therefore, of 

 course, the most reliable of guides. On one side of the 

 clearing passed a road of the kind common in these 

 forests, so narrow in parts that an ox-cart would graze 

 the trees on both sides, and then suddenly widening 

 with verdant margins of pasture to the right hand or to 

 the left. In one of these places, huddled in a coarse 

 striped cloak and spinning from her distaff, stood the 

 first human being we met with in these solitudes, a shep- 

 herdess with a flock of the tiny Morvan sheep, and a 

 wolfish dog to guard them. The dog rushed at us as if 

 we had been wild animals ; the girl threw her sabots at 

 him, and hit him rather severely, uttering violent excla- 

 mations in a language entirely unintelligible by us. I 

 asked her whither the road led, pointing before me, and 

 she answered ' a la foret ' (pronounced fooret) ; then I 

 inquired whither the road led in the other direction, and 

 she answered ' a la pdture' (pronounced paatiire). These 

 two words comprised her entire conception of geography. 

 In vain I mentioned the names of the Val Ste. Veronique, 

 of the villages I knew, of the nearest market town, — all 

 these were utterly unknown to her. Forest and pasture ! 

 could we not see them with our eyes ? 



We followed the road for about a mile, and met a 

 lad of sixteen with two curs after him. Here, at last, 

 was a reliable guide. We asked him whither the road 

 led, and got for answer 'a la fooret ;' then we asked him 

 where it came from, and he answered ' de la p&ature* 



