446 PRÆTERITA-II

either to the greater vineyards or open courts, like this one, of hospitable houses. Stableyard, I should have said, not courtyard; no palatial pride of seclusion, like M. Dessein’s,¹ but a mere square of irregular stable,-not even coachhouse, though with room for a carriage or two: but built only for shelter of the now unknown char-à-banc, a seat for three between two pairs of wheels, with a plank for footing, at a convenient step from the ground. The fourth side of the yard was formed by the front of the inn, which stood with its side to the road, its back to the neglected garden and incorrigible streamlet: a two-storied building of solid grey stone, with gabled roof and garrets; a central passage on the second floor giving access to the three or four bedrooms looking to back and front, and at the end to an open gallery over the road. The last room on the left, larger than the rest, and with a window opening on the gallery, used to be my father’s and mother’s; that next it, with one square window in the solid wall, looking into the yard, mine. Floors and partitions all of rough-sawn larch; the planks of the passage floor uncomfortably thin and bending, as if one might easily fall through; some pretence of papering, I think, in the old people’s state room. A public room, about the size of my present study, say twelve paces by six within its cupboards, and usually full of flies, gave us the end of its table for meals, and was undisturbed through the day, except during the hour when the diligence dined.

217. I should have said that my square window looked over, rather than into the yard, for one could scarcely see anything going on there, but by putting one’s head out: the real and prevalent prospect was first into the leaves of the walnut tree in the corner; then of the mossy stable roofs behind them; then of the delicately tin-mailed and glittering spire of the village church; and beyond these, the creamy, curdling, overflowing seas of snow on the Mont

¹ [For this famous hostelry at Calais, see above, p. 416.]

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