And throughout the village there was a great noise of doors and windows being hastily barred, while the wind, which was beginning to moan over the moors, outstripped the breathless maid-servants, and sent back into their faces the folding leaves of the heavy shutters wherein the mechanics of the province, in conformity with the traditions of their ancestors, spared neither oak nor iron bolts. From time to time a voice could be heard from one end of the street to the other, and such remarks as these were shouted from doorway to doorway: "Is all yours in?" "_Ah oua!_ I've got two loads still on the ground." "And I've got six standing!" "Well, I don't care, mine are all in the barn." They were talking about hay. The traveller, riding an excellent Brenne hackney, left the clouds behind him and, quickening his pace, flattered himself that he could outstrip the storm; but, at a sudden turn in the road, he realized that he must inevitably be taken in flank. He unfolded his cloak, which was strapped to his valise, tied his cap under his chin, and, digging his spurs into his horse, galloped on once more, hoping at least to reach and cross, by daylight, the dangerous spot that had been described to him. But his hope was disappointed; the road became so difficult that he had to go at a footpace and watch his horse to keep him from falling over the rocks with which the ground was strewn. When he reached the top of the ravine of La Creuse, the storm-cloud had enveloped the whole sky; it was quite dark, and he could judge the depth of the abyss he was skirting only by the dull, muffled roar of the torrent. With the rashness of his twenty years the young man disregarded his horse's prudent hesitation and forced him to take the chances of a descent which the docile beast found more uneven and steeper at every step. But suddenly he stopped and threw himself back on his haunches, and his rider, who was slightly startled by the shock, saw, by the light of a brilliant flash, that he was on the extreme edge of a perpendicular precipice, and that another step would infallibly have hurled him to the bottom of La Creuse. The rain was beginning to fall, and a furious squall twisted the tops of the old chestnut trees on the level of the road. The west wind forced man and horse alike toward the stream, and the danger became so real that the traveller was obliged to dismount, in order to present less surface to the wind and to guide his horse more surely in the darkness. What the lightning flash had enabled him to see of the landscape had seemed wonderfully beautiful to him; moreover, his situation whetted the task for adventure which is characteristic of youth.