The roads followed hedges that were as compact and thick as walls; we
climbed up and we climbed down; meanwhile, it was growing dark, and the
country was settling into the deep silence characteristic of midsummer
evenings.
As we failed to meet anybody who could show us the way, the few peasants
we had questioned having responded by unintelligible cries, we produced
our map and our compass, and, locating ourselves by the setting sun, we
resolved to head straight for Daoulas. Instantly our vigour returned,
and we started across the fields, vaulting fences and ditches, and
uprooting, tearing and breaking everything in our way, without giving a
thought to the stiles we left open or the damaged crops.
At the top of a slope, we discovered the village of l'Hopital lying in a
meadow watered by a stream. A bridge spans the latter and on this bridge
is a mill; beyond the meadow is a hill, which we started to climb
nimbly, when suddenly we saw, by a ray of light, a beautiful yellow and
black salamander creeping along the edge of a ditch with its slender
tail dragging in the dust and undulating with every motion of its
speckled body. It had come from its retreat under a big stone covered
with moss, and was hunting insects in the rotten trunks of old
oak-trees.
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