Bressant

One warm afternoon in June--the warmest of the season thus

far--Professor Valeyon sat, smoking a black clay pipe, upon the broad

balcony, which extended all across the back of his house, and overlooked

three acres of garden, inclosed by a solid stone-wall. All the doors in

the house were open, and most of the windows, so that any one passing in

the road might have looked up through the gabled porch and the

passage-way, which divided the house, so to speak, into two parts, and

seen the professor's brown-linen legs, and slippers down at the heel,

projecting into view beyond the framework of the balcony-door.

Indeed--for the professor was an elderly man, and, in many respects, a

creature of habit--precisely this same phenomenon could have been

observed on any fine afternoon during the summer, even to the exact

amount of brown-linen leg visible.

Why the old gentleman's chair should always have been so placed as to

allow a view of so much of his anatomy and no more is a question of too

subtle and abstruse conditions to be solved here. One reason doubtless

lay in the fact that, by craning forward over his knees, he could see

down the passage-way, through the porch, and across the grass-plot which

intervened between the house and the fence, to the road, thus commanding

all approaches from that direction, while his outlook on either side,

and in front, remained as good as from any other position whatsoever. To

be sure, the result would have been more easily accomplished had the

chair been moved two feet farther forward, but that would have made the

professor too much a public spectacle, and, although by no means

backward in appearing, at the fitting time, before his fellow-men, he

enjoyed and required a certain amount of privacy.

Moreover, it was not toward the road that Professor Valeyon's eyes

were most often turned. They generally wandered southward, over the

ample garden, and across the long, winding valley, to the range of

rough-backed hills, which abruptly invaded the farther horizon. It was

a sufficiently varied and vigorous prospect, and one which years had

endeared to the old gentleman, as if it were the features of a friend.

Especially was he fond of looking at a certain open space, near the

summit of a high, wooded hill, directly opposite. It was like an oasis

among a desert of trees. Had it become overgrown, or had the surrounding

timber been cut away, the professor would have taken it much to heart. A

voluntary superstition of this kind is not uncommon in elderly gentlemen

of more than ordinary intellectual power. It is a sort of half-playful

revenge they wreak upon themselves for being so wise. Probably Professor

Valeyon would have been at a loss to explain why he valued this small

green spot so much; but, in times of doubt or trouble, be seemed to

find help and relief in gazing at it.