The neighbourhood also furnished capital
fishing and shooting, besides other out-door
pleasures to which I had been accustomed at
home. I engaged a French master, studied
with respectable assiduity, and had the
satisfaction of discovering, at the end of a month
or two, that I was leading a rational,
independent, and economical life.

From the very first week of my residing
abroad, I always retained one Cambridge
habit; which was, to make long walks
succeed the morning's book-work; nor were they
always companionless. Amongst other French
acquaintances, I had contracted an intimacy
with a Dr. Lemaire, a young medical man,
who had lately established himself in the
town, and who was fast rising into good
practice. He spoke no English, and could
only comprehend a few words of that
language; which was all the more fortunate for
my improvement. He was well read, full of
unhackneyed information; several years'
service in Algeria had rendered him singularly
free from prejudice. We got on exceedingly
well together without exactly knowing why
or wherefore.

One bright Monday afternoon at the
end of June, he called to say that he was
going to visit a patient in the marshes
close by; would I like to accompany him? I
gladly consented. We were soon outside the
walls of the town. A discussion respecting
the merits of Richard's MÅ“urs Arabes
beguiled our way along the footpath through
the rising corn-fields and the blossoming
beans; a debate on the beauties of Nodier's
novels led us down from the arable upland,
by a grass-grown road, flanked on each side
by broad ditches, wherein floated snowy lilies
and shining patches of dark green foliage.
For indescribable beauty, and multitude both
of animal, vegetable, and insect life, you must
betake yourself in early summer to the wide-
spread marsh. There bloom the loveliest and
the most fragile flowers—there glance the
most brightly-gilded flies—there dart the
resplendent reptile and the silvery fish. The
song of birds amongst the reeds soon
interrupted our literary gossip. Butterflies
diverted our thoughts, and made us feel like
a couple of children. The air was perfumed
by the scent of mint crushed beneath our
tread. We crossed two or three wooden
bridges; then a single rough-hewed beam;
were obliged to walk carefully, in Indian file,
over black boggy ground, which trembled
beneath us, and only made passable by a
slight stratum of sticks and straw thrown
over its surface.

"We are going," said my companion, "to a
place which is called the English Folly.
It once belonged to a compatriot of yours,
who seems to have made use of it as a country
box for fishing and wild-duck shooting. My
patient, old Father Boisson, whom I guess to
be past hope, somehow obtained possession of
it, and it now will fall to the inheritance of
his only child André, the son. Here we are.
We have only to cross this narrow plank,
which serves as a drawbridge entrance. You
will come too? The people will like to see
you."

"No," I replied; "I will amuse myself till
you have finished your visit, with watching the
proceedings of those workmen yonder."

He disappeared behind the corner of the
cottage, which was larger and more substantially
built than any of those near to it,
though erected on exactly the same plan;
namely, a wooden framework filled up with
clay, standing on a low basement of bricks,
the whole habitable portion being on the
ground-floor, with a granary or miscellaneous
store-house, in the tile-covered roof. It stood
on an isolated square patch of ground, at
least an acre in extent, on the side nearest to
the ditch which my friend had crossed by the
plank. The other sides of the Island Folly
were washed by a deep lake, or hole, of
several acres, which had been entirely
excavated in the process of raising turf. The
surface, at its further corner, was studded
with some half-dozen wooden ducks, fixed on
stakes that were driven into the bottom of
the pond. Amongst these, at certain seasons,
living call-ducks are fastened by the leg.
Thus tethered, they quack so loud to their
freer comrades, that on calm evenings the
sound is audible a long way off. The wild-
fowl, alighting on the lake to ascertain the
cause of the hubbub, are then shot at with a
mighty gun by the sportsman, who is
concealed in a rude hut on the shore, partly
excavated in the earth, and partly covered
with branches and reeds, to represent, in the
eyes of the birds an accidental heap of drift-
wood and rubbish. For many winters past,
the Boissons, father and son, had derived a
good little income from their hut and their
call-ducks, besides the weekly produce in
spring, of eel-traps, pike-lines, tench-baskets,
and perch-nets.

The workmen, whose task I went to inspect,
had seen me arrive with Dr. Lemaire; they
therefore received me with civility; otherwise
my presence, in all probability, would
have been repulsed with bluntness. A man
—it was Boisson, the son, himself—and,
apparently, two stout lads and a younger
boy were busily employed in making or
moulding turf for fuel. Most turf is simply
cut from its natural bed, and left to dry, no
other preparation being necessary; but here,
a large quantity is fished up in iron scoops, in.
a semi-liquid and puddley state, from the
bottom of the holes, and thrown like a heap
of mud on the opposite bank. André Boisson
stood spade in hand by the side of the mud-
heap at the water's edge, while his young
assistants in turn held out to him, with both
hands, a flat iron tray, or mould, into which
he put a shovel-full of the black paste; the
foremost lad, on receiving the precious gift,
ran quickly towards the spot where I was