"I have heard of robbers," he thought to himself, "and of wily cheats and cutthroats--what if yonder fellow be a murderer, and this old rascal his decoy duck! I will be on my guard--they will get little by me but good Scottish knocks." While he was thus reflecting, they came to a glade, where the large forest trees were more widely separated from each other, and where the ground beneath, cleared of underwood and bushes, was clothed with a carpet of the softest and most lovely verdure, which, screened from the scorching heat of the sun, was here more beautifully tender than it is usually to be seen in France.

The trees in this secluded spot were chiefly beeches and elms of huge magnitude, which rose like great hills of leaves into the air.

Amidst these magnificent sons of the earth there peeped out, in the most open spot of the glade, a lowly chapel, near which trickled a small rivulet.

Its architecture was of the rudest and most simple kind; and there was a very small lodge beside it, for the accommodation of a hermit or solitary priest, who remained there for regularly discharging the duty of the altar.

In a small niche over the arched doorway stood a stone image of Saint Hubert, with the bugle horn around his neck, and a leash of greyhounds at his feet.