Belle Rose: A Romance of the Cloak and Sword — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

ey ey nee Pee 4 f. in he 1 ie lead lll wha nth, ee: jet ae ave Ae BELLE-ROSE. CHAPTER IL. THE FALCONER’S SON. There was, about the year 1663, at some hundred steps from St. Omer, a well-built cottage, whose door opened upon the main road to Paris. <A live hedge of hawthorn and of elder surrounded a garden in which were to be seen, confusedly mixed, flowers, goats, and children. Half a dozen hens, with their young broods, cackled in a cor- ner between the cabbages and strawberries; two or three hives, grouped under some peach trees, turned to the sun their sweet-smelling cones filled with humming bees, and here ani there, upon the branches of pear trees, weighed down with fruit, cooed some beautiful pigeon which flut- tered around its mate. The cottage had a fresh and smiling aspect which made glad the heart; grape and hop-vines covered its walls; seven or eight windows, irregularly placed, seemed to look at the landscape in a good-natured fashion; a slender thread of smoke trembled at the top of the chimney, where hung the flexible stems of the wall-wort, and at whatever hour of the day you passed before the house, you heard the joyous cries of children and the crowing of cocks. Among these children who came there from all parts of the faubourg, there were three who belonged to Guillaume Grinedal, the master of the house—Jacques, Claudine, and Pierre. Guillaume Grinedal, or Pere Guillaume, as he was familiarly called, was indeed the best falconer in all Artois; but fora long time he had had no occasion to make use of his knowledge. During the regency of Queen Anne, of Austria, Monsieur d’Assonville, his master, ruined by the wars, had been forced to sell his lands; but, before leaving the country, wishing to reward the fidelity of his old servitor, he had made him a present of the cottage and the garden. The old Grinedal, refusing to serve new mas- EOmMmIGboo S (E©) im