"Je dis—moi!" shouted the new comer, in violent wrath; "que c'est abominable ce que vous faites là Père Grignon." A murmur of suppressed laughter went through the group. Père Grignon looked considerably taken aback, and the speaker aimed a hearty kick at Niniche, who dodged away round the stove. It was evident that he was no other than the injured and maligned Tetard himself. Instantly he broke into loud objurgations. He knew how that atrocious old Père Grignon had taught his dog to malign him, the bête misérable! But as for it, he would poison it—shoot it—drown it; and as for Père Grignon, who ought to have more sense, all the quartier knew what he was—an imbécile, who was always running about carrying tales, and making mischief. But he would appeal to the authorities; he would lay his complaint before the commisary of the quartier; he would—he would—. At this moment the excited orator caught sight of the offending poodle slipping to the door, and instantly sprung vigorously after him:—
"Tenez-tenez; don't touch Niniche—it's not his fault!" exclaimed the poodle's proprietor. But the dog had bolted, with Tetard in hot chase of his imitator, and vowing that he should be écraséd and abiméd as soon as caught. There was, of course, great laughter at the whole proceeding; and then the group betook themselves to the marble slabs and dominoes—the instructor of the offending quadruped coolly lighting his pipe, as he muttered that old Tetard was, after all, a bon enfant, and that over a petit verre he would always listen to reason.
At length the tedious hour and a half wore away, and I entered the terminus—a roughly built wooden shed. The train consisted of a first, second, and third-class carriage; but there were no first-class passengers, only one solitary second-class, and about a dozen third-classes, with whom I cast my lot. Miserable as the freight was, the locomotive whistled as loud and panted as vehemently as if it were yoked to a Great Western express; and off we went through the broad belt of nursery gardens, which encircles every French town, and where the very best examples of the working of the small proprietary system are to be seen. A rapid run through the once greatly famed and still esteemed vineyards of Hautbrion, and we found ourselves scurrying along over a negative sort of country—here a bit of heath, there a bit of vineyard—now a bald spot of sand, anon a plot of irregularly-cut stubble; while a black horizon of pine-wood rose gradually on the right and left. On flew the train, and drearier grew the landscape; the heath was bleaker—the pines began to appear in clumps—the sand-stretches grew wider—every thing green, and fertile, and riant disappeared. He, indeed, who enters the Landes, appears to have crossed a French frontier, and left the merry land behind. No more bright vineyards—no more rich fields of waving corn—no more clustered villages—no more chateau-turrets—no more tapering spires. You look up to heaven to see whether the sky has not changed, as well as the land. No; all there is blue and serene as before, and the keen, hot sun glares intensely down upon undulating wastes of marsh, fir, and sand, among which you may travel for leagues without seeing a man, hearing a dog bark, or a bird sing. At last we were fairly among the woods, shooting down what seemed an eternal straight tunnel, cleft by lightning through the pines. The trees stood up stark and stiff, like cast-iron; the fir is at once a solemn and a rigid tree—the Puritan of the forest; and down the side of each Puritan I noticed a straight, yellowish gash, running perpendicularly from the spread of the branches almost to the earth, and turned for explanation to an intelligent-looking man, evidently a citizen of Bordeaux, opposite me.
"Ah!" he said, "you are new to our Landes."
I admitted it.
"And these gashes down the trees—these, monsieur, give us the harvest of the Landes."
"The harvest! What harvest?"
"What harvest? Resin, to be sure."
"Ay, resin," said an old fellow with a blouse and a quick eye; "resin, monsieur; the only harvest that man can grow in sand."
"Tenez," said my first interlocutor; "the peasants cut that gash in the tree; and at the root they scoop a little hollow in the ground. The resin perspires out of the wood, flows slowly and glutinously down the gash, and in a month or so, according to the heat of the weather, the hole is full, and the man who rents the trees takes up the sticky stuff, like soup, with a ladle."