It contained miles of walks, and each
walk so like the others, that a stranger might wander there for a week
without knowing that he had retraversed the same ground, were it not
that he could not fail to recognize the quaint groups of figures which
met him at every turn. A few of these were of stone, rudely sculptured,
but by far the greater number were of painted wood, and, like the
shepherds and shepherdesses in the drawing-room, displayed every action
of rural life. You would suddenly come upon a rosy-coloured gentleman,
with a gun to his shoulder, in the act of shooting game--then a girl
with a basket of huge cabbages--an old man in a fit of the cholic; the
same rosy gentleman violently kissing a violet-coloured young lady; and,
at the next turn, you would find the violet-coloured young lady fast
asleep upon a bank. You would meet a fat cure a dozen times in
half-an-hour, and always well employed. He would be saying his
prayers--drinking beer--blessing a young maiden, and cudgelling a mule
that wouldn't stir a step for him, till the large yellow drops of sweat
were falling from his face.
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