but faithful description.

The inn-keeper himself was a man of from forty to fifty-five
years of age, tall, strong, and bony, a perfect specimen of
the natives of those southern latitudes; he had dark,
sparkling, and deep-set eyes, hooked nose, and teeth white
as those of a carnivorous animal; his hair, like his beard,
which he wore under his chin, was thick and curly, and in
spite of his age but slightly interspersed with a few
silvery threads. His naturally dark complexion had assumed a
still further shade of brown from the habit the unfortunate
man had acquired of stationing himself from morning till eve
at the threshold of his door, on the lookout for guests who
seldom came, yet there he stood, day after day, exposed to
the meridional rays of a burning sun, with no other
protection for his head than a red handkerchief twisted
around it, after the manner of the Spanish muleteers. This
man was our old acquaintance, Gaspard Caderousse. His wife,
on the contrary, whose maiden name had been Madeleine
Radelle, was pale, meagre, and sickly-looking. Born in the
neighborhood of Arles, she had shared in the beauty for
which its women are proverbial; but that beauty had
gradually withered beneath the devastating influence of the
slow fever so prevalent among dwellers by the ponds of
Aiguemortes and the marshes of Camargue. She remained nearly
always in her second-floor chamber, shivering in her chair,
or stretched languid and feeble on her bed, while her
husband kept his daily watch at the door -- a duty he
performed with so much the greater willingness, as it saved
him the necessity of listening to the endless plaints and
murmurs of his helpmate, who never saw him without breaking
out into bitter invectives against fate; to all of which her
husband would calmly return an unvarying reply, in these
philosophic words: --

"Hush, La Carconte. It is God's pleasure that things should
be so."

The sobriquet of La Carconte had been bestowed on Madeleine
Radelle from the fact that she had been born in a village,
so called, situated between Salon and Lambesc; and as a
custom existed among the inhabitants of that part of France
where Caderousse lived of styling every person by some
particular and distinctive appellation, her husband had
bestowed on her the name of La Carconte in place of her
sweet and euphonious name of Madeleine, which, in all
probability, his rude gutteral language would not have
enabled him to pronounce. Still, let it not be supposed that
amid this affected resignation to the will of Providence,
the unfortunate inn-keeper did not writhe under the double
misery of seeing the hateful canal carry off his customers
and his profits, and the daily infliction of his peevish
partner's murmurs and lamentations.

Like other dwellers in the south, he was a man of sober
habits and moderate desires, but fond of external show,
vain, and addicted to display. During the days of his
prosperity, not a festivity took place without himself and
wife being among the spectators. He dressed in the
picturesque costume worn upon grand occasions by the
inhabitants of the south of France, bearing equal
resemblance to the style adopted both by the Catalans and
Andalusians; while La Carconte displayed the charming
fashion prevalent among the women of Arles, a mode of attire
borrowed equally from Greece and Arabia. But, by degrees,
watch-chains, necklaces, parti-colored scarfs, embroidered
bodices, velvet vests, elegantly worked stockings, striped
gaiters, and silver buckles for the shoes, all disappeared;
and Gaspard Caderousse, unable to appear abroad in his
pristine splendor, had given up any further participation in
the pomps and vanities, both for himself and wife, although
a bitter feeling of envious discontent filled his mind as
the sound of mirth and merry music from the joyous revellers
reached even the miserable hostelry to which he still clung,
more for the shelter than the profit it afforded.

Caderousse, then, was, as usual, at his place of observation
before the door, his eyes glancing listlessly from a piece
of closely shaven grass -- on which some fowls were
industriously, though fruitlessly, endeavoring to turn up
some grain or insect suited to their palate -- to the
deserted road, which led away to the north and south, when
he was aroused by the shrill voice of his wife, and
grumbling to himself as he went, he mounted to her chamber,
first taking care, however, to set the entrance door wide
open, as an invitation to any chance traveller who might be
passing.

At the moment Caderousse quitted his sentry-like watch
before the door, the road on which he so eagerly strained
his sight was void and lonely as a desert at mid-day. There
it lay stretching out into one interminable line of dust and
sand, with its sides bordered by tall, meagre trees,
altogether presenting so uninviting an appearance, that no
one in his senses could have imagined that any traveller, at
liberty to regulate his hours for journeying, would choose
to expose himself in such a formidable Sahara. Nevertheless,
had Caderousse but retained his post a few minutes longer,
he might have caught a dim outline of something approaching
from the direction of Bellegarde; as the moving object drew


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