We are as merry
as ever when the trap sets forth again, and say farewell noisily to
all the good folk going farther. Then, as we are far enough from
thoughts of sleep, we visit Blank in his quaint house, and sit an
hour or so in a great tapestried chamber, laid with furs, littered
with sleeping hounds, and lit up, in fantastic shadow and shine, by
a wood fire in a mediaeval chimney. And then we plod back through
the darkness to the inn beside the river.
How quick bright things come to confusion! When we arise next
morning, the grey showers fall steadily, the trees hang limp, and
the face of the stream is spoiled with dimpling raindrops.
Yesterday's lilies encumber the garden walk, or begin, dismally
enough, their voyage towards the Seine and the salt sea. A sickly
shimmer lies upon the dripping house-roofs, and all the colour is
washed out of the green and golden landscape of last night, as
though an envious man had taken a water-colour sketch and blotted
it together with a sponge. We go out a-walking in the wet roads.
But the roads about Grez have a trick of their own. They go on for
a while among clumps of willows and patches of vine, and then,
suddenly and without any warning, cease and determine in some miry
hollow or upon some bald knowe; and you have a short period of
hope, then right-about face, and back the way you came! So we draw
about the kitchen fire and play a round game of cards for ha'pence,
or go to the billiard-room, for a match at corks and by one consent
a messenger is sent over for the wagonette--Grez shall be left to-
morrow.
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