The good hearted fellow kept talking as we drove.
One familiar scene after another! The village street of which I knew every doorstep. Ah!—a new wayside across in front of Widow Priedieu's—and the gay mast before the Captain Martinet's—the blacksmith's dusty shop—the inn-keepers' poles holding out their oval hotel-signs—the merry little cocked house where they had that famous jollification immortalized in the song:
"Au grand bal chez Boulé."
But my friends! my friends!—to see my old friends was the great enjoyment. "Holà," deliberate Pierre; and you three Jeans—gros Jean, grand Jean and petit Jean; "Monsieur le Notaire, bon jour!" the faces at the panes and the heads at the door!
And lo, the gardens,—the broad fields so generous of harvest—the
Manoir trees in the distance!
And as of yore,—driving up the road those merrymen in the carts singing that well remembered "En roulant":
"Le fils du roi s'en va chassant
En roulant, ma boule."[E]
And with sympathetic exhilaration, I swing into the old life again on the current of the jovial chorus:
"En roulant, ma boule roulant:
En roulant, ma boule!"
[Footnote E: "The Dauphin forth a hunting goes.
Roll, roll on, my rolling ball."
—OLD CHANSON.]