In the meantime, his clerk, who had just come in from an errand, and who was lunching on a glass of cider and a piece of buttered bread, offered to show us the castle.

He put his napkin down, sucked his teeth, lighted his pipe, took a bunch of keys from the wall and started ahead of us through the village.
After following a long wall, we entered through an old door into a silent farm-yard.

Silica here and there shows through the beaten ground, on which grows a little grass soiled by manure.

There was nobody around and the stable was empty.

In the barns some chickens were roosting on the poles of the wagons, with their heads under their wings.