clock strikes half-past three, and the watchman puts out his lantern,
and goes to sleep. The morning is breaking on Pont Audemer, and it is
the time for surprises--for the sudden appearance of a gable-end, which
just now was shadow, for the more gradual, but not less curious,
formation of a street in what seemed to be space; for the sudden
creation of windows in dead walls, for the turning of fantastic shadows
into palpable carts, baskets, piles of wood, and the like; and for the
discovery of a number of coiled-up dogs (and one or two coiled-up men)
who had weathered the night in sheltered places.

But the grey light is turning fast to gold, the warmer tints begin to
prevail, the streets leading eastward are gleaming, and the hills are
glistening in their bright fresh green.[9] The sweet morning air
welcomes us as we leave the streets and its five thousand sleepers, and
pass over another bridge and out by the banks of the Rille, where the
fish are stirring in the swollen stream, and the lilies are dancing on
the water. The wind blows freshly through the trees, and scatters the
raindrops thickly; the clouds, the last remnant of the night's storm,
career through a pale blue space, the birds are everywhere on the wing,
cattle make their appearance in the landscape, and peasants are already
to be seen on the roads leading to the town.

Suddenly--with gleams of gold, and with a rushing chorus of insect life,
and a thousand voices in the long grass on the river's bank--the day
begins.[10] It is market-morning, and we will go a little way up the
hill to watch the arrivals--a hill, from which there is a view over town
and valley; the extent and beauty of which it would be difficult to
picture to the reader, in words. Listen! for there is already a
cavalcade coming down the hill; we can see it at intervals through the
trees, and hear men's voices, the laughter of women, the bleating of