Belle-Rose — page 322: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

OVER HILLS AND ACROSS VALLEYS. 311 that for people who go on an expedition we are not very well armed, you with a switch and myself with a hazel branch. I have concluded a little affair just now.’’- ‘What affair?’ ‘A younger son who is going, | know not whGee has lost this very night all his ready money at lansquenet: I have offered him twenty pistoles for his outfit, which he has turned over to me at once, and here it is; it contains a sword and pistols; as to myself, 1 have taken the valet’s old clothes.’’ | Belle-Rose slipped the sword in his belt, placed the pis- tols in the holsters, and they entered the forest of Ivelines. In an hour they had traversed the wood of la Selle, which borders on- the wood of Rochefort. It was almost ten o'clock when they saw the first houses of the burg scat- tered in the fields. A little boy was loitering along a hedge, gathering wild mulberries. “*Hey! my friend!’’ Belle-Rose cried to him, ‘‘indicate to me, if you please, the dwelling of old Simon, the guard; you shall have a pistole for your trouble.’’ ‘Follow me and keep your pistole,’’ replied the child, turning in the direction of Belle-Rose. It was a beautiful child, proud and smiling; his eyes large and soft, his cheeks fresh and embrowned. by the sun, his mouth red like a cherry. He shook his head with its silken curls, and took a path through the meadows. From time to time the little fellow turned back to see if the two strangers were following him, and his pearly teeth were seen to shine in a smile. After a quarter of an hour’s walk through the fields, they reached a cottage whose front was ornamented with honeysuckle, which formed for it a gay and green cuirass; the swallows had their nests in © the window corners, and the gcilliflowers, mixed with bind- weed and wall- wort, flourished on the edge of the thatch roof. There were some willows behind the cottage, a little meadow in front of which two or three cows were feeding, and at one side a garden filled with fruit trees. When they reached the door they saw the old guard standing in it. ‘‘Here, father,’’ said the child, “‘are two strangers who desire to speak to you.’’ The guard approached and saluted Belle-Rose. ““What can I do for you, my gentleman?’’ said he. Belle-Rose threw his horse’s bridle to Déroute, and asked Simon to follow him within the cottage. ‘The affair which brings me,’’ he replied, ‘‘has some we (E(@) (e(oAnikel eveve),<S