When one has crossed the brook and climbed an upward slope into the
meadow beyond it, one enters a thick fir-wood full of fragrant shadow;
at the end is a bank, green and high, crowned by a hedge, and all at
once the quiet of the place has fled.
Such a variety of sounds come down the green bank! A cock is crowing
loudly, and there is the bleat of a young calf; pigs are squeaking one
against another, and in the midst of the din a dog begins to bark. At
the farther corner, where the hedge retreats from its encroachments on
the meadow, a grey house comes into view, with a signboard across its
upper part announcing that here the tired traveller may get dinner and a
bed.
Before the cock has done crowing--and really he goes on so long that it
is a wonder he is not hoarse--another voice mingles with the rest.
It is a woman's voice, and, although neither hoarse nor shrill, it is no
more musical than the crow of the other biped, who struts about on his
widely-spread toes in the yard, to which Christina Fasch has come to
feed the pigs. There are five of them, pink-nosed and yellow-coated, and
they keep up a grunting and snarling chorus within their wooden
enclosure, each struggling to oust a neighbour from his place near the
trough while they all greedily await their food.
[Sidenote: "Come, Anna!"]
"Come, Anna, come," says the hard voice; "what a slow coach you are! I
would do a thing three times over while you are thinking about it!"
* * * * *
The farmyard was bordered by the tall hedge, and lay between it and the
inn.
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