a soldier. He had got up in the night, and dropped into the village
street from the loft in which he slept with another man; and he had done
it so quietly, that his companion and fellow-labourer had heard no
movement when he was awakened in the morning, and they said, "Louis,
where is Henri?" They looked for him high and low, in vain, and gave him
up. Now, outside this Inn, there stood, as there stood outside every
dwelling in the village, a stack of firewood; but the stack belonging to
the Inn was higher than any of the rest, because the Inn was the richest
house, and burnt the most fuel. It began to be noticed, while they were
looking high and low, that a Bantam cock, part of the live stock of the
Inn, put himself wonderfully out of his way to get to the top of this
wood-stack; and that he would stay there for hours and hours, crowing,
until he appeared in danger of splitting himself. Five weeks went
on,--six weeks,--and still this terrible Bantam, neglecting his domestic
affairs, was always on the top of the wood-stack, crowing the very eyes
out of his head. By this time it was perceived that Louis had become
inspired with a violent animosity towards the terrible Bantam, and one
morning he was seen by a woman, who sat nursing her goitre at a little
window in a gleam of sun, to catch up a rough billet of wood, with a
great oath, hurl it at the terrible Bantam crowing on the wood-stack, and
bring him down dead. Hereupon the woman, with a sudden light in her
mind, stole round to the back of the wood-stack, and, being a good
climber, as all those women are, climbed up, and soon was seen upon the
summit, screaming, looking down the hollow within, and crying, "Seize
Louis, the murderer! Ring the church bell! Here is the body!" I saw
the murderer that day, and I saw him as I sat by my fire at the Holly-
Tree Inn, and I see him now, lying shackled with cords on the stable
litter, among the mild eyes and the smoking breath of the cows, waiting
to be taken away by the police, and stared at by the fearful village. A
heavy animal,--the dullest animal in the stables,--with a stupid head,