But it was plainly more than time to be moving. The
peasantry were abroad; scarce less terrible to me in my nondescript
position than the soldiers of Captain Poul to an undaunted Camisard. I
fed Modestine with what haste I could; but as I was returning to my sack,
I saw a man and a boy come down the hillside in a direction crossing
mine. They unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with inarticulate but
cheerful sounds, and hurried forward to get into my gaiters.
The pair, who seemed to be father and son, came slowly up to the plateau,
and stood close beside me for some time in silence. The bed was open,
and I saw with regret my revolver lying patently disclosed on the blue
wool. At last, after they had looked me all over, and the silence had
grown laughably embarrassing, the man demanded in what seemed unfriendly
tones:
'You have slept here?'
'Yes,' said I. 'As you see.'
'Why?' he asked.
'My faith,' I answered lightly, 'I was tired.'
He next inquired where I was going and what I had had for dinner; and
then, without the least transition, 'C'est bien,' he added, 'come along.'
And he and his son, without another word, turned off to the next chestnut-
tree but one, which they set to pruning. The thing had passed of more
simply than I hoped. He was a grave, respectable man; and his unfriendly
voice did not imply that he thought he was speaking to a criminal, but
merely to an inferior.
I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of chocolate and seriously
occupied with a case of conscience. Was I to pay for my night's lodging?
I had slept ill, the bed was full of fleas in the shape of ants, there
was no water in the room, the very dawn had neglected to call me in the
morning. I might have missed a train, had there been any in the
neighbourhood to catch. Clearly, I was dissatisfied with my
entertainment; and I decided I should not pay unless I met a beggar.
The valley looked even lovelier by morning; and soon the road descended
to the level of the river. Here, in a place where many straight and
prosperous chestnuts stood together, making an aisle upon a swarded
terrace, I made my morning toilette in the water of the Tarn. It was
marvellously clear, thrillingly cool; the soap-suds disappeared as if by
magic in the swift current, and the white boulders gave one a model for
cleanliness. To wash in one of God's rivers in the open air seems to me
a sort of cheerful solemnity or semi-pagan act of worship. To dabble
among dishes in a bedroom may perhaps make clean the body; but the
imagination takes no share in such a cleansing.
