Although his features were common, they showed much penetration and intelligence. His little, piercing, changing black eyes constantly moved from the recorder to the clerk with an expression by turns ironical and compassionate. When Master Isnard had finished conversation by his coarse witticism on asses, he contracted his eyebrows into a severe frown, and seemed about to speak, but whether he feared the recorder, or was afraid of saying too much, he remained silent. “Tell me, clerk,” cried the recorder, stopping short before a post, painted with a coat of arms, which marked a division of the road, “is not this the route to Des Anbiez?” “Yes, Master Isnard, but we must leave the shore. This is the road to Maison-Forte; it is about two hundred steps from here; this rock hides it from you,” answered the clerk, as he pointed to a sort of little promontory which thrust itself into the sea, and thus interfered with a view of the castle. “Then, clerk, go on before,” said the recorder, checking his own horse, and giving a blow of his switch to the scribe’s mule. The clerk rode on in advance, and the little band ventured into a precipitous road which wound its way across the rocks on the coast. After a quarter of an hour’s travel, the road became level, and wooded hills, vines, olive-trees, and sown fields succeeded the rocks. Master Isnard at last saw, to his great joy, the imposing pile of Maison-Forte. It stood out at the end of an immense avenue, planted with six rows of beeches and sycamores, which conducted to the vast court of which we have spoken. “Eh, eh!” said the recorder, expanding his nostrils, “it is about midday; it ought to be the dinner-hour of Raimond V., for these country lords follow the old Provençal custom: they take four meals; every four hours,--breakfast at eight o’clock, dine in the middle of the day, lunch at four o’clock, and sup at eight.” “Indeed, then they must eat nearly all day long,” said the clerk, with a sigh of envy, “for they often sit three or four hours at table.” “Eh, eh! you are licking your lean lips already, clerk; but do you not see a thick smoke on the side of the kitchens?” “Master Isnard, I do not know where the kitchens are,” said the clerk. “I have never been inside Maison-Forte, but I do see a thick smoke above the tower which looks toward the west.” “And you do not detect the odour of fish-soup, or roast? On my oath, in the house of Raimond V. it ought to be Christmas every day. Come, can’t you scent something, man?” The clerk held his nose in the air like a dog on the scent, and replied, with a shake of the head: “Master, I scent nothing.” When the recorder had arrived a few steps from the court of Maison-Forte, he was astonished to see no one outside of this large habitation, at an hour when domestic duties always require so much commotion. As we have said, the court formed a sort of parallelogram. At the farther end of this parallelogram rose the main dwelling.