IV.
One evening, seated upon a bank of the dyke commanding a view of the country, Henry de Kehlmark and Guidon Govaertz, their hands joined, were pursuing one of their ineffable conversations, interrupted by silences as eloquent and fervid as their words.
It was one of those late autumn evenings favourable to the evocation of legends, in a landscape of heather in flower and under a sky of shifting clouds, the one riding astride the other. In the distance towards Klaarvatsch, beyond the park trees, our friends' view embraced an immense stretch of verdure of the colour of winelees, to which the setting sun added a further lustre. Heaps of dry wood crackled here and there; and a scent of burning wood floated in the damp atmosphere. The weather was extremely mild and the evening air exhaled a sort of languor; the breeze seemed like a labourer's
