Said the Baron Rene du Treilles to me:
“Will you come and open the hunting season with me at my farm at Marinville? I shall be delighted if you will, my dear boy. In the first place, I am all alone. It is rather a difficult ground to get at, and the place I live in is so primitive that I can invite only my most intimate friends.”
I accepted his invitation, and on Saturday we set off on the train going to Normandy. We alighted at a station called Almivare, and Baron Rene, pointing to a carryall drawn by a timid horse and driven by a big countryman with white hair, said:
“Here is our equipage, my dear boy.”
The driver extended his hand to his landlord, and the baron pressed it warmly, asking:
“Well, Maitre Lebrument, how are you?”
“Always the same, M'sieu le Baron.”
We jumped into this swinging hencoop perched on two enormous wheels, and the young horse, after a violent swerve, started into a gallop, pitching us into the air like balls. Every fall backward on the wooden bench gave me the most dreadful pain.
The peasant kept repeating in his calm, monotonous voice:
“There, there! All right all right, Moutard, all right!”