resting against the wall of the house, led up to the garret, which was
lighted by one round window. Under this rustic stairway opened a
cellar built of Burgundy brick, containing several casks of wine.

Though the kitchen utensils of the peasantry are usually only two,
namely, a frying-pan and an iron pot, with which they manage to do all
their cooking, exceptions to this rule, in the shape of two enormous
saucepans hanging beneath the mantle-shelf and above a small portable
stove, were to be seen in this cottage. In spite, however, of this
indication of luxury, the furniture was in keeping with the external
appearance of the place. A jar held water, the spoons were of wood or
pewter, the dishes, of red clay without and white within, were scaling
off and had been mended with pewter rivets; the heavy table and chairs
were of pine wood, and for flooring there was nothing better than the
hardened earth. Every fifth year the walls received a coat of
white-wash and so did the narrow beams of the ceiling, from which hung
bacon, strings of onions, bundles of tallow candles, and the bags in
which a peasant keeps his seeds; near the bread-box stood an
old-fashioned wardrobe in walnut, where the scanty household linen,
and the one change of garments together with the holiday attire of the
entire family were kept.

Above the mantel of the chimney gleamed a poacher's old gun, not worth
five francs,--the wood scorched, the barrel to all appearances never
cleaned. An observer might reflect that the protection of a hovel with
only a latch, and an outer gate that was only a paling and never
closed, needed no better weapon; but still the wonder was to what use
it was put. In the first place, though the wood was of the commonest
kind, the barrel was carefully selected, and came from a valuable gun,
given in all probability to a game-keeper. Moreover, the owner of this