"That fellow knows the road well or doesn't know it at all. Either he has been over it a hundred times and knows every stone by name, or he doesn't suspect what sort of a place it is, and will find himself in a deal of trouble."
"He's a stranger and not of these parts," said a knowing individual with a judicial air. "He wouldn't listen to anything but his own head; but half an hour hence, when the storm breaks, you'll see him coming back again."
"If he doesn't break his neck first, going down the Pont des Piles," observed a third.
"Faith!" said the bystanders in chorus, "that's his business! Let's go and close our shutters, so that the hail won't break our window-panes."
And throughout the village there was a great noise of doors and windows being hastily barred, while the wind, which was beginning to moan over the moors, outstripped the breathless maid-servants, and sent back into their faces the folding leaves of the heavy shutters wherein the mechanics of the province, in conformity with the traditions of their ancestors, spared neither oak nor iron bolts. From time to time a voice could be heard from one end of the street to the other, and such remarks as these were shouted from doorway to doorway: "Is all yours in?" "Ah oua! I've got two loads still on the ground." "And I've got six standing!" "Well, I don't care, mine are all in the barn." They were talking about hay.
The traveller, riding an excellent Brenne hackney, left the clouds behind him and, quickening his pace, flattered himself that he could outstrip the storm; but, at a sudden turn in the road, he realized that he must inevitably be taken in flank. He unfolded his cloak, which was strapped to his valise, tied his cap under his chin, and, digging his spurs into his horse, galloped on once more, hoping at least to reach and cross, by daylight, the dangerous spot that had been described to him. But his hope was disappointed; the road became so difficult that he had to go at a footpace and watch his horse to keep him from falling over the rocks with which the ground was strewn. When he reached the top of the ravine of La Creuse, the storm-cloud had enveloped the whole sky; it was quite dark, and he could judge the depth of the abyss he was skirting only by the dull, muffled roar of the torrent.
With the rashness of his twenty years the young man disregarded his horse's prudent hesitation and forced him to take the chances of a descent which the docile beast found more uneven and steeper at every step. But suddenly he stopped and threw himself back on his haunches, and his rider, who was slightly startled by the shock, saw, by the light of a brilliant flash, that he was on the extreme edge of a perpendicular precipice, and that another step would infallibly have hurled him to the bottom of La Creuse.
The rain was beginning to fall, and a furious squall twisted the tops of the old chestnut trees on the level of the road. The west wind forced man and horse alike toward the stream, and the danger became so real that the traveller was obliged to dismount, in order to present less surface to the wind and to guide his horse more surely in the darkness. What the lightning flash had enabled him to see of the landscape had seemed wonderfully beautiful to him; moreover, his situation whetted the task for adventure which is characteristic of youth.
A second flash enabled him to distinguish his surroundings, and he profited by a third to familiarize himself with the objects nearest at hand. The road was not narrow, but its very width made it hard to follow. There were some half a dozen vaguely defined tracks, marked only by hoof-prints and wheel-ruts, forming divers paths, interlaced as if by chance, on the slope of a hill; and as there was neither hedge, nor ditch, nor any sign of cultivation, those who passed that way had climbed the hill wherever they happened to choose; thus with each season a new road was opened, or some old one reopened which time and nonuse had closed. Between each two of these capricious tracks were little mounds of rock or tufts of furze, which looked just alike in the darkness, and as no two of them were on the same level it was difficult to pass from one to the other without risking a fall which might well end in the abyss; for they all sloped sidewise as well as forward, so that one must lean backward and to the left. Thus no one of these winding paths was safe; for since the spring all had been trodden equally hard, the natives taking any one of them at random in broad daylight; but, on a dark night, it was of the greatest importance not to lose one's footing, and the young man, who was more careful of the knees of the horse he loved than of his own life, concluded to halt behind a rock that was high enough to shelter them both from the violence of the wind, and to wait there until the sky should brighten up a bit. He leaned against Corbeau, and, raising a corner of his waterproof cloak in such wise as to protect his companion's quarters and the saddle, he fell into a romantic reverie, as well pleased to hear the howling of the tempest as the good people of Eguzon, assuming them to be thinking of him at all at that moment, supposed him to be anxious and disappointed.
The successive flashes soon afforded him a sufficient acquaintance with the surrounding country. Directly in front of him the road climbed the opposite slope of the ravine, equally steep and presenting difficulties of the same nature. The Creuse, a clear, swift stream, flowed not very noisily at the foot of the precipice and drew its banks together to pass with a dull, never-ending roar under the arches of an old bridge that seemed in a very dilapidated condition. The view opposite was limited by the steep incline; but at the left he could catch glimpses of sloping, well-cultivated meadows, through the middle of which the stream wound; and opposite our traveller, on the crest of a hill bristling with huge boulders interspersed with rich vegetation, rose the dilapidated towers of a vast ruined manor. But, even if it had occurred to the young man to seek shelter there from the storm, it would have been difficult to find a way of reaching it; for there was no apparent communication between the road and the ruin, and another ravine, traversed by a stream that emptied into the Creuse, separated the two hills. The site was most picturesque and the pallid gleam of the lightning imparted a touch of the terrible which one would have sought in vain by daylight. Gigantic chimneys, exposed by the falling of the roofs, towered up toward the heavy clouds that hovered over the château and seemed to rend it asunder. When the sky was lighted by the swift flashes, the ruins were outlined in white against the dark background of the atmosphere, and, on the contrary, when the eyes had accustomed themselves to the succeeding darkness, they formed a dark mass against a lighter horizon. A large star, which the clouds seemed not to dare to cover, shone a long while over the haughty donjon, like a carbuncle on a giant's head. At last it disappeared, and the torrents of rain, falling with redoubled force, made it impossible for the traveller to distinguish anything except through a thick veil. The water, falling on the rocks near by and on the ground hardened by the recent extreme heat, rebounded like white foam and at times resembled clouds of dust raised by the wind.