All this gave me matter for thought, and now the stream and the tank were not sufficient for me. I must walk far away into the woods: and I fancy that my long absence, even in my play hours, gave some uneasiness to the good priest. He was fond of taking me with him through the streets of the town, and thus detaining me from my solitary walks, when at length he began to doubt whether the town or the country was the best school for my leisure hours. I remember on one occasion, when he went to visit a man of the parish, who was lying sick, though not mortally ill, he made me go with him, and after keeping me some ten minutes in the house, we took our way back again, passing across the market-square. A number of men with bare arms were busily engaged in the middle of the open space erecting a curious-looking instrument, consisting of a little platform, and some raised pieces of timber, the use of which I could not conceive. A little crowd of men, women, and boys were gathered together round—and I would fain have stood and gazed likewise. But Father Bonneville hurried silently on, with his eyes bent upon the ground. It was not till I plucked him by the _soutane_, and pointing to the spot, asked what that could mean, that he took any notice of what was going on. I could see his face turn a shade paler, and he gave a slight shudder as he replied, “mean, my son?—that is the guillotine.” Without another word he pursued his way, and I accompanied him. On the following day I heard from good Jeanette, that a man was to be executed at noon; and I confess I had the strongest inclination in the world to go and see. The desire arose from no cruelty of disposition—no taste for blood—but it arose in mere curiosity. Youth very seldom attaches any definite idea to death. It is an acquired dread that death inspires. Others tell us about its being terrible, till we become convinced it is so; and the sight of the dying or the dead fixes the gloomy terror forever in our minds. No one had ever talked to me about death at this time; and in wishing to go to the execution, it was with no desire to see a man die, and still less suffer. I only looked upon him as a person about to exhibit himself in new and strange circumstances, and a rope-dancer or a conjuror would have answered my purpose quite as well—perhaps better. However, I was not destined that day to see one or the other. Long before noon, Father Bonneville ordered the windows to be shut up, as if there were a death in the house. He staid at home himself, and passed the time in prayer, in which Jeanette and I joined him; after which he read two penitential sermons as soon as he thought the execution was over, and then ordered the windows to be opened again, after a new rush of feet past the house had announced to us that the blood-loving populace were going down to the suburbs at the foot of the hill.