Towards noon the count’s carriage drove up to convey me to the château; and having taken an affectionate farewell of my kind host, I set out for Rochepied. The wicker conveniency in which I travelled, all alone, albeit not the thing for Hyde Park, was easy and pleasant in its motion; the fat Flemish mares, with their long tails tastefully festooned over a huge cushion of plaited straw on their backs, went at a fair, steady pace; the road led through a part of the forest abounding in pretty vistas of woodland scenery; and everything conspired to make me feel that even an affair with a gang of smugglers might not be the worst thing in life, if it were to lead to such pleasant results afterwards. As we jogged along, I learned from the fat Walloon coachman that the château was full of company; that the count had invited numerous guests for the opening of the _chasse_, and that there were French and Germans and English, and for aught he knew Chinese expected to ‘assist’ at the ceremony. I confess the information considerably damped the pleasure I at first experienced. I was in hopes to see real country life, the regular course of château existence, in a family quietly domesticated on their own property. I looked forward to a peep at that _vie intime_ of Flemish household, of which all I knew was gathered from a Wenix picture, and I wanted to see the thing in reality. The good vrow, with her high cap and her long waist, her pale features lit up with eyes of such brown as only Van Dyck ever caught the colour of; the daughters, prim and stately, with their stiff, quaint courtesy, moving about the terraced walks, like figures stepping from an ancient canvas, with bouquets in their white and dimpled fingers, or mayhap a jess-hawk perched upon their wrist; the Mynheer Baron, a large and portly Fleming, with a slouched beaver and a short trim moustache, deep of voice, heavy of step, seated on a grey Cuyp-like horse, with a flowing mane and a huge tassel of a tail, flapping lazily his brawny flanks, or slapping with heavy stroke the massive jack-boots of his rider--such were my notions of a Dutch household. The unchanged looks of the dwellings, which for centuries were the same, in part suggested these thoughts. The quaint old turrets, the stiff and stately terraces, the fosse, stagnant and sluggish, the carved tracery of the massive doorway, were all as we see them in the oldest pictures of the land; and when the rind looks so like, it is hard to imagine the fruit with a different flavour. It was then with considerable regret I learned that I should see the family _en gala_; that I had fallen upon a time of feasting and entertainment. Had it not been too late, I should have beaten my retreat, and taken up my abode for another day with the curé of Givet; as it was, I resolved to make my visit as brief as possible, and take to the road with all convenient despatch.