Explore "The Illustrious Dr. Mathéus" by Erckmann-Chatrian on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Maître Frantz and his disciple passed quickly through the town. The little houses scattered along the roadsides rapidly succeeded one another, with their barns, stables, and wooden steps with washing hanging upon them-ruddy-faced children asked alms, and old inquisitive women put their nodding heads out of the upper windows. At the end of a quarter of an hour they were in the country, breathing the free air, passing between two rows of chestnut-trees, listening to the song of the birds, and thinking still of the worthy Pastor Schweitzer, by whom they had been so well received-of soft-hearted little Gredel, who had wept so freely at seeing them depart.
When the smoky roofs of Saverne and the weathercock of the church had disappeared behind the mountain, Coucou Peter at length shook off the deep reverie in which he had been indulging, and after two or three times clearing his voice, he gravely chanted the old ballad of ‘The Count of Geroldsek: ' the yellow dwarf keeping watch on the highest tower, the deliverance of the fair Itha, held captive at Haut-Bârr. There was something melancholy in Coucou Peter's voice, for he was thinking of his little Gredel. Bruno's step was in cadence; and to the mind of Mathéus, listening to this old language, returned dim and vague memories. After the last verse Coucou Peter took breath, and cried-