“I had been shooting over the waste land in the heart of Brittany for a week, which borders on the Black Mountain.  It is a desolate and wild country, but it abounds in game.  One can walk for hours without meeting a human being, and when one meets anybody, it is just the same as if one had not, for the people are absolutely ignorant of French, and when I got to an inn at night, I had to employ signs to let the people know that I wanted supper and bed.

“As I happened to be in a melancholy frame of mind at the time, that solitude delighted me, and my dog’s companionship was quite enough for me, and so you may guess my irritation when I perceived one morning that I was being followed, absolutely followed, by another sportsman who seemed to wish to enter into conversation with me.  The day before, I had already noticed him obstructing the horizon several times, and I had attributed it to the chances of sport, which brought us both to the same likely spots for game, but now I could not be mistaken!  The fellow was evidently following me, and was stretching his little pair of compasses as much as he could, so as to keep up with my long strides, and took short cuts, so as to catch me up at the half circle.

“As he seemed bent upon the matter, I naturally grew obstinate also, and he spent his whole day in trying to catch me up, while I spent mine in trying to baffle him, and we seemed to be playing at hide-and-seek; the consequences were, that when it was getting dark, I had completely lost myself in the most deserted part of the moor.  There was no cottage near, and not even a church spire in the distance.  The only land-mark, was the hateful outline of that cursed man, about five hundred yards off.

“Of course he had won the game!  I should have to put a good face on the matter, and allow him to join me, or rather I should have to join him myself, if I did not wish to sleep in the open air and with an empty stomach, and so I went up to him, and asked my way in a half-surly manner.

“He replied very affably, that there was no inn in the neighborhood, as the nearest village was five leagues off, but that he lived only about an hour’s walk off, and that he considered himself very fortunate in being able to offer me hospitality.

“I was utterly done up, and how could I refuse?  So we went off through the heather and furze; I walking slowly because I was so tired, and he went tripping along merrily with his legs like a basset hound’s, which seemed untirable.

“And yet he was an old man, and not strongly built, for I could have knocked him over by blowing on him; but how he could walk, the beast!

“But he was not a troublesome companion, as I imagined he would have been, and he did not at all seem to wish to enter into conversation with me, as I feared he would.  When he had given his invitation, and I had accepted it and thanked him in a few words, he did not open his lips again, and we walked on in silence, and only his glances worried me, for I felt them on me, as if he wished to force me into an intimacy, which my closed lips refused.  But on the whole, his tenacious looks, which I noticed furtively, appeared sympathetic and even admiring—­yes; really admiring!