noon
Accordingly , directing my baggage and the numerous escort and suite that attended me to the full tale of four-score horses -- to keep the high road , I struck myself into a byway , intending to seek hospitality for the night at a house of M. de Laval 's ; and on the second evening to render myself with a good grace to the eulogia and tedious mercies of the Vitre townsfolk . I kept with me only La Font and two servants . The day was fine , and the air brisk ; the country open , affording many distant prospects which the sun rendered cheerful . We rode for some time , therefore , with the gaiety of schoolboys released from their tasks , and dining at noon in the lee of one of the great boulders that there dot the plain , took pleasure in applying to the life of courts every evil epithet that came to mind . For a little time afterwards we rode as cheerfully ; but about three in the afternoon the sky became overcast , and almost at the same moment we discovered that we had strayed from the track . The country in that district resembles the more western parts of Brittany , in consisting of huge tracts of bog and moorland strewn with rocks and covered with gorse ; which present a cheerful aspect in sunshine , but are savage and barren to a degree when viewed through sheets of rain or under a sombre sky . The position , therefore , was not without its discomforts .