The day has scarcely dawned ere the wood-cutters' wives, in their red petticoats, with brown jugs on their heads, come to fill them there, or to wash their vegetables; the cows to drink, the children to play at ducks and drakes, or the men to water the horses. But a little before nightfall all this going and coming, this trampling of heavy _sabots_, the bellowings, oaths, and cracking of whips subside, and cease, as if by magic, when the sun is down. The poultry and the peasants are equally silent, their huts are closed, their beds are gained, and their dogs, stretched motionless behind the door, snore and sleep soundly with open ear, and every leaf without is still. The _chasseur à l'affût_, if inexperienced or not acquainted with the country, while reconnoitring the spot during the last few minutes of the twilight that remain, would never imagine that he was near an inhabited spot; not a bark, not a sound, not one twinkling light in a cottage window, not one wreath of ascending smoke is to be heard or seen. Thinking therefore that he has made a grand discovery, he rubs his hands with no little satisfaction, squats down at the foot of some tree, or in the temporary shed on the bank, and believes he is going to kill a dozen wolves at least. But, alas! it is in vain for him to open his eyes and his ears; nothing is to be seen but one or two hideous bats, which flap their wings in his face, and frighten him in the midst of a reverie. Nothing is on the move; no newt or tadpole is playing in the water, and nothing can be descried there but the rays of the moon, as she moves slowly o'er its surface; nor is anything to be heard except the wind whistling through the trees, or an occasional shot from the rifle of a brother sportsman, who, more happy, more clever, and better placed than himself, may be heard in the distance. I should not have thought of mentioning the _Mares_ No. 2, so little do they deserve attention, if one of them had not been the scene of a very strange adventure of which I was witness; and as the description of it will give me an opportunity of speaking of the _Mares_ No. 3, and of the third mode of taking woodcocks, I shall profit by the circumstance to relate it. One day a _millionnaire_, a Lucullus, a rich banker of Paris, found himself dreadfully ill: his body grew larger every twenty-four hours; his neck sunk into his shoulders, his breathing became difficult, and three or four times in the course of a week he was within a little of being suffocated; as many times in the course of a month the gout, which in the morning had been tearing his toes and his heels as if with hot pincers, in the evening twisted his calves and his knees as if they were being made into ropes. What was to be done under these circumstances? The best physicians consulted together, and recommended him to order a pair of hob-nailed shoes from a country shoemaker, and instantly leave the capital.