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Article THE LUCKY INHERITANCE. ← Page 11 of 19 →
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The Lucky Inheritance.
singing , the bustle , the noise , which make a French marketplace an epitome of French life , there was spread out before me a broad , dull , stony , lifeless expanse , set round Avith grimlooking houses , and overAvhelmed , as it Avere , by a gloomy , heavy church , Avhich rose from amidst them . Lifeless it seemedalthough three or four persons Avere visible ; but these
, Avere only an old cripple on crutches , who stood at the church door watching for charity , and tAvo or three women in fruitstalls , who might as well have been inside the church , for their prayer-books were open before them , and they Avere evidently at their devotions : as for objects in motion there Avere none ; not even a stray dog . The houses which surrounded the
market-place well deserved the epithet which I have bestowed upon them ; and they were not only grim , but grimy , black Avith age , and discoloured by the dirt of centuries . Some rested on pillars , forming broken arcades , others Avere entered at once from the street , and all had high projecting gables . Such of the shops as could be descried Avere small and IOAV , their most
conspicuous feature being the board on which the name and style of the occupant were written , and in some instances blazoned . That Cesar might be able to show that there was " stuff in him " before we quite finished our journey , Jannik gave him a smart cut Avith his whip , which put him into a trot , and made
the old market-place re-echo Avith the rattle of the Avheels of the patache ; but the sound awakened no curiosity on the part of the inhabitants—though in any other part of France it would have brought out the whole population—and in by no means a triumphant manner we pulled up at the sign of the " Pelican . " Innkeepers have a common nature , and , even at Guerande ,
they are not without a touch of that Avhich connects the paternity all the world over , and I found aAvelcome reception , a thing Avhich the desolate aspect of the toAvn had nearly made me despair of . It was chiefly noticeable for the sober gravity with Avhich Monsieur Penhoen , the landlord , proffered it , as if the arrival of a traveller Avere far too serious a matter to be treated lightly .
III . THE MILL-STONE . HOAVEVER great the temptation to enter into an arclneological dissertation on the antiquities of Guerande , it is not my intention to cumber these pages Avith any further local description ; and it must suffice for the present if I say that , during the re-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
The Lucky Inheritance.
singing , the bustle , the noise , which make a French marketplace an epitome of French life , there was spread out before me a broad , dull , stony , lifeless expanse , set round Avith grimlooking houses , and overAvhelmed , as it Avere , by a gloomy , heavy church , Avhich rose from amidst them . Lifeless it seemedalthough three or four persons Avere visible ; but these
, Avere only an old cripple on crutches , who stood at the church door watching for charity , and tAvo or three women in fruitstalls , who might as well have been inside the church , for their prayer-books were open before them , and they Avere evidently at their devotions : as for objects in motion there Avere none ; not even a stray dog . The houses which surrounded the
market-place well deserved the epithet which I have bestowed upon them ; and they were not only grim , but grimy , black Avith age , and discoloured by the dirt of centuries . Some rested on pillars , forming broken arcades , others Avere entered at once from the street , and all had high projecting gables . Such of the shops as could be descried Avere small and IOAV , their most
conspicuous feature being the board on which the name and style of the occupant were written , and in some instances blazoned . That Cesar might be able to show that there was " stuff in him " before we quite finished our journey , Jannik gave him a smart cut Avith his whip , which put him into a trot , and made
the old market-place re-echo Avith the rattle of the Avheels of the patache ; but the sound awakened no curiosity on the part of the inhabitants—though in any other part of France it would have brought out the whole population—and in by no means a triumphant manner we pulled up at the sign of the " Pelican . " Innkeepers have a common nature , and , even at Guerande ,
they are not without a touch of that Avhich connects the paternity all the world over , and I found aAvelcome reception , a thing Avhich the desolate aspect of the toAvn had nearly made me despair of . It was chiefly noticeable for the sober gravity with Avhich Monsieur Penhoen , the landlord , proffered it , as if the arrival of a traveller Avere far too serious a matter to be treated lightly .
III . THE MILL-STONE . HOAVEVER great the temptation to enter into an arclneological dissertation on the antiquities of Guerande , it is not my intention to cumber these pages Avith any further local description ; and it must suffice for the present if I say that , during the re-