So the worthy chronicler was going to Haslach on the 3rd of July, 1835,
to examine with his own eyes a little bronze Mercury recently unearthed
in the old cloister of the Augustins.
He trotted on with a tolerably elastic stop under a burning sun.
Mountains succeeded mountains, valleys sank into other valleys, the
footpath went up, then went down again, turned, now to the right, now to
the left, until Maitre Hertzog began to wonder how it was that he had not
caught sight of the village spire an hour ago.
The fact was that after leaving Saverne he had inclined to the right, and
was now penetrating into the Dagsberg woods with juvenile energy. At the
rate he was going, in five or six hours he would have reached Phramond,
eight leagues from his destination. But night was coming on apace, and
the path was now becoming fainter, and under the tall trees only an
indistinct track appeared.
The approach of night among the mountains is a melancholy sight; the
shadows lengthen in the valleys, the sun withdraws, one by one, his rays
from the darkening foliage, the silence deepens every minute. You look
behind you; the groups and clumps of trees assume colossal proportions;
a blackbird at the summit of a tree bids farewell to the parting day,
then silence covers all like a funeral pall.
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