The father—he was becoming fatherly indeed—went to a cupboard of the salle manger already described, and brought out what I had left of the bread and cheese set before me the previous evening. Having placed this on the table, with a bottle of beer—the postulant had led me to hope for coffee and milk, but there was evidently no escape from malt liquor here—he withdrew to a little office close by where he was wont to perform the daily duty of keeping the cheese accounts of the monastery. I felt sure that when he had reckoned up a few figures he would be coming round to tear me away from the bread and cheese, so I endeavoured to hasten the consumption with as much speed as I could decently put on. I was right in my conjecture. I had not been seated five minutes, when he came back and wandered half round the table.

'J'aurai fini dans un petit moment, mon pre,' said I, as I cut off another piece of cheese. By-the-bye, nobody should call a Trappist 'monsieur,' because the monk has ceased to have even a name of his own other than his religious one, and has become a father or brother to everybody. He returned to his accounts; but he had not gone very deeply into them when he saw me standing at the door of his little den. He left his books at once, and we walked side by side where he chose to lead me. He was a rather tall man, with a face that was an enigma. The features were so like those of the late Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, that if the English Freethinker had disappeared mysteriously I might have strongly suspected him of having turned Trappist.

This father volunteered no information whatever; it had all to be drawn out of him. He spoke in a low voice, and, as it appeared to me, with something of the hesitation of a man who is recalling his mother tongue after many years of disuse. His face was large and heavy; but there was a keen light in his eyes which at times was that of gaiety well kept under. He soon let me see that even a Trappist may give out an occasional flash of humour. I was questioning him respecting the help that the monastery gave to the poor, and he told me that in addition to thirty or forty persons living in the locality who received regular assistance every day, about the same number of wanderers stopped at the gate and waited for the bread and cheese which was never refused them.

'Men looking for work?' I asked innocently.

'Yes,' replied the monk, without moving a muscle of his stolid face; 'and who pray to God that He will not give them any.'

It was evident that no sentimental illusions respecting the begging class were entertained by the community. The monk confirmed what people in the country had already told me of the help afforded by the Trappists to peasant agriculturists in difficulties. The sick were, moreover, supplied with medicines gratuitously from the small pharmacy attached to the monastery. I did not ask the question, but I concluded that at least one of the fathers had a medical diploma. The medicine that was chiefly wanted in the Double when the Trappists settled there was quinine. The demand upon it was very heavy years ago, but by removing to a great extent the cause of the fever-breeding miasma, the monks have been able to economize the drug.

Talking about these matters, we reached the refectory. A great cold room with whitewashed walls, and five long narrow tables with benches on each side, stretching from end to end, was the place where the monks took their very frugal meals. The tables were laid for the first meal. There were no cloths, and it is almost needless to add that there were no napkins, although these are considered so essential in France that even in the most wretched auberge one is usually laid before the guest. Trappists, however, have little need of them. At each place were a wooden spoon and fork, a plate, a jug of water, and another jug—a smaller one—of beer, and a porringer for soup, which is the chief of the Trappists' diet. Very thin soup it is, the ingredients being water, chopped vegetables, bread, and a little oil or butter. Until a few years ago no oily matter, whether vegetable or animal, was allowed in the soup, nor was it permissible, except in case of sickness, to have more than one meal a day; but the necessity of relaxing the rule a little was realized. Now, during the six summer months of the year, there are two meals a day, namely, at eleven and six; but in winter there is still only one that is called a meal, and this is at four. There is, however, a goter—just something to keep the stomach from collapsing—at ten in the morning. No flesh, nor fish, nor animal product, except cheese and butter, is eaten by these Trappists unless they fall ill, and then they have meat or anything else that they may need to make them well. There is, however, very little sickness amongst them. The living of each Trappist probably costs no more than sixpence a day to the community. Assuming that the money brought into the common fund by those who have a private fortune—the fathers, as a rule, are men of some independent means—covers the establishment expenses and the taxation imposed by the State, there must remain a considerable profit on the work of each individual, whether he labours in the fields or in the dairy and cheese rooms, or concerns himself with the sales and the accounts, or, like the porter at the gate, tests with an instrument the richness of the milk that is brought in by the peasants, lest they who have been befriended by the monks in sickness and penury should steal from them in return. To devote this surplus, obtained by a life of sacrifice compared to which the material misery of the beggars whom they relieve is luxury, to the lessening of human suffering, to the encouragement of the family, offering the hand of charity to the worthy and to the unworthy—expecting no honour from all this, not even gratitude—is a life that makes that of the theoretical philanthropists and humanitarian philosophers look rather barren. Let every man who lives up to an unselfish ideal have full credit for it, whether he be a Trappist or a Buddhist.

At one end of the refectory, below the line of tables, was a small wooden bench for a single person. The monk pointed to it with half a smile upon his face.

'What is it?' I asked.

'The stool of penitence,' he replied.

Here the monk who had brought upon himself some disciplinary correction sat by order of the abbot in view of everybody, and had the extra mortification of watching the others eat, while he, the penitent, had nothing to put between his teeth. I wondered if my cicerone had ever been perched there, but I was not on such terms of familiarity with him that I could ask the question.

From the refectory we went to the dormitory, an oblong room with a passage down the middle, and cells on each side—about fifty altogether. They were very narrow, and were separated by lath and plaster partitions, only carried to the height of about six feet. These partitions, which had been whitewashed over, looked very fragile and dilapidated, and altogether the appearance of this great dormitory was wretched in the extreme. A glance into the interior of two or three of the cells deepened this impression. In each was a small wooden bedstead about a foot and a half high, with nothing upon it but a very thin paillasse, a black blanket (the colour of the wool), and a little bolster. Upon a nail hung a small cat-o'-nine-tails of knotted whipcord.

'How often do you administer to yourselves the discipline?' I asked.

'Every Friday,' said the monk.

To other questions that I put to him he replied that about ten members of the community were priests, and that fathers and brothers used the dormitory in common. There was no distinction between the two classes as regards the vows that were taken.

We passed into the cloisters, which were very plain, without any attempt at architectural ornament; but the garden that filled the centre of the quadrangle was carefully kept, and the many flowers there were evidently watered and otherwise tended by hands that were gentle to them. Then I asked if it was true that the members of the community, when they passed one another in their ordinary occupations, were allowed to break the rule of silence only to say, 'Remember death!'

'No,' replied the monk, 'it is a legend that originated with Chteaubriand.'

We reached the chapter-house, a plain room with benches along the walls and a case containing a small collection of books. I saw nothing of interest here excepting a genealogical tree of the order of Reformed Cistercians, called Trappists, showing its descent from the Abbey of Cteaux, and a portrait of Pre Dom Sbastien, Abbot-General of the Trappists, who was a pontifical zouave before he put on the monastic habit.

I asked to see the cemetery, and was led to an uncultivated spot a little beyond the block of convent buildings. A small grassy enclosure, with a wooden paling round it, was the monks' burying-place. About twelve had died in the twenty-five years of the monastery's existence, but most of the graves looked recent. This was explained to me by the father, who actually smiled as he said:

'We who came here at the commencement are getting old now, and are following one another to the cemetery rather quickly.'

Wearers of the white frock and wearers of the brown frock were lying in perfect equality side by side as they happened to die, each having a small cross of white wood standing in the grass of his grave. I read: 'N. Raphal, monachus——, natus——, professus——, obiit——.' The dates I took no note of. With the exception of the name and the dates, the inscription on each cross was the same. And the name, it need scarcely be said, was the one taken in religion.

'Do you know one another's family names?' I asked of the living monk by my side, who appeared to have lapsed into meditation, thinking, perhaps, how far his place would be from the last on the line.

'As a rule we do not. There are only two or three monks here whose names I know.'

Lastly, I was taken to the farm buildings, where there were about fifty cows and one hundred pigs. A young brother, a novice, was busy, with his frock hitched up, cleaning out the pigsties. He was piously plying the shovel, but his face had not yet acquired an expression of perfect resignation. He was young, however, and perhaps he had been brought up in better society than that of pigs.

I was invited with much kindness and courtesy to stay until after the eleven o'clock meal; but, grateful as I felt to the Trappists for their bread and cheese and home-brewed beer, which had enabled me to sustain life for more than twelve hours, I was quite content with what I had received in that way. My curiosity being also satisfied, I gladly went forth into the wicked world again after exchanging a cordial farewell with the genial porter, who, when he caught sight of me returning to his lodge, looked sharply to see if the jar of beer was safe, and his mind being made easy on the point, he begged me to let him pour me out a glass. Then he gazed at me with round eyes of surprise and reproach when I declined the offer.

It was only a little past eight when I left the monastery. 'Ah,' I thought, as I felt the gentle glow of the early sunshine and breathed the fresh air of the wide world, 'there is time enough for me to become a Trappist.'

I continued on the road to Montpont. It was a sad and silent land over which I passed, with frequent crosses by the wayside, telling of the influence of the monks. The words, 'O crux, ave!' met me amidst the heather and on the margin of lonely pools. I was now in the most forlorn part of the Double, where all around the eye rested upon forest, swamp, and moor. Not that I found it dismal: I drew delight from the lonesomeness, and revelled in the wildness of all things. Sunshine and flowers made the desert beautiful. The waysides were red with thyme or purple with heather, and the blooming lysimachia was like a belt of gold around the reedy pools. After walking some miles over this country, patches of maize, potatoes, and vines told me I was nearing a village. At length I came to one, and it was called St. Barthlemy. It was on the top of a bare chalky hill, and commanded an extensive view of the wasteful Double. It had a windblown, naked appearance, like many villages near the sea, although the ocean was still far from here. Moreover, there was a strange quietude—the stillness of a fever-stricken spot. The men and women looked undersized and prematurely old, and the children were pale and thin. Although the village was on a hill, the evil influence of the marshes reached it. I was told, however, that it had become much less unhealthy of late years. On the highest spot was a poor and plain little church, with a paddock-like cemetery on one side of it.

Although the hour was still early, I stopped for a meal at St. Barthlemy, for it seemed to me that I had been fasting a day or more. Choosing the only inn that looked promising, I sat down in a large room, where there were two long tables and a bed in one corner. The shutters of the windows were carefully closed to keep out the flies, and all the light that entered came through the chinks and cracks. In the South, people prefer to eat in semi-darkness rather than be tormented by flies. The only other person in the house was a young woman, and she was very uncouth. She may have held me in suspicion, for not a word would she say beyond what was rigorously necessary; but, as she cooked much better than I had expected, I thought no ill of her. She gave me, after an omelette au cerfeuil, a fricasse of chicken, with very fair wine of the district, red and white. Dessert and coffee followed, and the charge was not much over a shilling.

As I left the village, I noticed upon a low building these words in large letters, 'Dpt de Sangsues,' and concluded that catching leeches in the pools about here was a local industry. On inquiring, however, I was told that such was not the case, but that a man here had had a quantity of leeches sent from Bordeaux to supply the district.

'But what is the meaning of this great liking for leeches?' I asked.

'Well,' replied my informant, 'I should tell you that the people about here always used to be bled when they had anything the matter with them. But the doctors will do it no longer, consequently we do it ourselves.'

The sad-looking peasants, with pale dark faces, whom I saw reaping their meagre wheat on the outskirts of the village, seemed, like many more I had met since I left Riberac, to be in much greater need of blood than leeches. Women, wearing straw-bonnets of the coal-scuttle shape, were reaping with men in the noonday heat. Upon all the burden of life appeared to press very heavily. The chalky soil produced miserable crops of wheat, maize, and potatoes that yielded no just return for the labour expended. The luxuriance of the young vines, planted where the old ones had perished from the phylloxera, showed that the hillsides here are better suited for wine-growing than for anything else.

As I went on, the country became more sombre from the increasing number of pines bordering the road and mingling with the distant forest. Very weird pines these were, chiefly covered with closely-packed dead foliage, with a living tuft of dark green at the end of each branchlet. A living death seemed to be their lot, and they moaned without moving as the light wind passed on its way.

But the descent towards the valley of the Isle had now begun. Huts built of brick and mud and wood became frequent, with hedges of quince bordering the gardens or little fields. Quite unexpectedly the river shone beneath me, and by following its course downward I soon came to a large block of scarcely connected buildings with high Mansard roofs. This was a monastery of the Carthusians. I did not recognise it at once as the conventual establishment well known in the district as the Chartreuse de Vauclaire, nor did I show any better understanding as regards a certain human form hoeing in a field beside the road with back towards me.

Wishing for information, I hailed this fellow-being as 'Madame!' The figure straightened itself immediately and turned towards me a head covered with a broad-brimmed straw hat, such as women wear in the fields; but the face ended in a long, grizzly beard. Then I noticed that what I had taken for a brown stuff dress was a monk's frock.

It was a Carthusian Brother whom I had addressed as 'Madame!' As he gave no sign to indicate what his feelings were with regard to this mistake, I thought it better not to make excuses, but asked him if I was on the road to Montpont Learning that I was, I went on, and having reached the convent, which I now recognised for what it was, I pulled the bell of the porter's lodge. I was at once admitted to the presence of a tall and meagre Carthusian father, with a long, coal-black beard and very dark eyes, with a fixed expression that expressed nothing that I could be sure about. What I fancied that I read in them was doubtfulness as to my motives, and the necessity of being cautious.

By far the greater number of visitors who call here ask for food. I wished to see the monastery. After a little hesitation, this father, who before I left him was so communicative as to tell me he was a Spaniard, made a sign to me to follow him. He showed me the church—which contains some interesting carvings—the cloisters, and the cemetery; but every bit of information had to be drawn from him as if it were a tooth. This was the kind of conversation that passed between us:

'Are there many monks here?'

'Not a small number.'

'Do you make cheese?'

'Yes.'

'For sale?'

'No.'

'Do you make the liqueur?'

'Oh no.'

He would have allowed me to leave with the impression that the Carthusians of Vauclaire did nothing beyond observing the canonical hours; but I learnt from the peasants of the country that, like the Trappists, they laboured industriously in clearing and draining the desert.

My walk across the Double ended at Montpont, a small agricultural centre on the banks of the Isle, offering no charm to the traveller, unless he be a commercial one. It was a little fortified town of some importance in the Middle Ages. In 1370 the Bretons in garrison at Prigueux besieged it, and it was surrendered without a struggle by the baron, Guillaume de Montpont, an English partisan. The Duke of Lancaster then hurried up and besieged the place with one hundred men-at-arms and five hundred archers. For eleven weeks the little band of Bretons held out, but a breach having been made in the wall, Montpont again fell into the power of the English.



A CANOE VOYAGE ON THE DRONNE.

Before starting upon a long-thought-of voyage down the Dronne, I resolved to make the canoe look as beautiful as possible, so that it might produce a favourable impression upon the natives of the regions through which it was going to pass. I had learnt from experience that when one can take the edge off suspicion by giving one's self or one's belongings a respectable appearance, that does not cost much, it is well to do it.

Therefore I sent the bare-footed Hlie, who always helped me when I had any dirty work on hand, to buy some paint. Having first puttied up all the cracks and crevices, we laid the paint on, and as the colour chosen was a very pale green, the effect was anything but vulgar. When the boat was put on the water again it looked like a floating willow-leaf of rather uncommon size.

Now, between the river Isle, where I was, and the Dronne, where I wished to be, there was an obstacle in the shape of some twelve miles of hilly country. A light cart was accordingly hired to convey the canoe and ourselves (I was accompanied on this adventure by an English boy named Hugh, sixteen years old, and just let loose from school) to the point at which I had decided to commence the voyage down-stream. We left at five in the morning, when the sun was gilding the yellow tufts and the motionless long leaves of the maize-field. When we were fairly off—the boat, in which we were seated, stretching many feet in the rear of the very small cart—the most anxious member of the party was the horse, for he had never carried such a queer load as this before, and the novelty of the sensation caused by the weight far behind completely upset his notions of propriety. His conduct was especially strange while going up-hill, for then he would stop short from time to time and make an effort to look round, as if uncertain whether it was all a hideous dream, or whether he was really growing out behind in the form of a crocodile.

The peasants whom we met on the road stood still and gazed with eyes and mouths wide open until we were out of sight. They had never seen people travelling in a boat before on dry land. When they heard we were English all was explained: 'Ces diables d'Anglais sont capables de tout.'

While crossing the country in this fashion we passed a spot on the highroad where a man was getting ready to thresh his wheat. He had prepared the place by spreading over it a layer of cow-dung, and levelling it with his bare feet until it was quite smooth and hard. It is in this way that the threshing-floors are usually made.

'You see that type?' said the young man who was driving, and who balanced himself on the edge of a board.

'Yes.'

'Well, he owns more land than any other peasant about here, and is rich, and yet, rather than turn a bit of his ground into a threshing-floor, he brings his corn where you see him and threshes it upon the road.'

I said to myself that this man was not the first to discover that one way to get on is to trespass as much as possible upon the rights of that easy-going neighbour called the Public.

The hills between the two valleys were, for the most part, wooded with natural forest, with a dense undergrowth of heather and gorse. As soon as we began to descend towards the Dronne, the great southern broom, six or eight feet high, was seen in splendid flower upon the roadside banks. We found the Dronne at the village of Tocane St. Apre, and we launched the boat below the mill about half a mile farther down-stream. Then, having put on board a knapsack containing clothes, a valise filled chiefly with provisions, several bottles of wine, one of rum (a safer spirit in France than some others), and another of black coffee, made very strong, so that it should last a long time, we took our first lunch in the boat, in the cool shade of some old alders.

The wine had been already heated by the sun during the journey, but the means of cooling it somewhat was near at hand. We hitched a couple of bottles to the roots of the alders, with their necks just out of the water. The young peasant who had driven us was invited to share our meal, and the horse was left at the mill with a good feed of oats to comfort him and help him to forget all the horrible suspicions that the boat had caused him. The meal was simple enough, for we had brought no luxurious fare with us; but the feeling of freedom and new adventure, the low song of the stream running over the gravel in the shallows, the peace and beauty of the little cove under the alders, made it more delightful than a sumptuous one with other surroundings.

Everything went as smoothly as the deep water where the boat was chained, until the spirit-lamp was lighted for warming the coffee. Then it was discovered that the little saucepan had been forgotten. This was trying, for when you have grown used to coffee after lunch you do not feel happy without it, so long as there is a chance of getting it. It is exasperating when you have the coffee ready made, but cannot warm it for want of a small utensil. The peasant went to the mill to borrow a saucepan, and he brought back one that was just what we wanted; at least, we thought so until the coffee began to run out through a hole in the bottom. In vain we tried to stop the leak with putty, which was brought in case the boat should spring one; but after awhile it stopped itself—quite miraculously. Thus good fortune came to our aid at the outset, and it looked like a fair omen of a prosperous voyage.

We did not linger too long over this meal, for I had not come prepared to pass the night either in the boat or on the grass, and I hoped to reach Riberac in the evening. The bottles were put away in the locker, and what was not eaten was returned to the valise. Then we parted company with the young peasant, whose private opinion was that we should not go very far. But he was mistaken; we went a long way, after encountering many serious obstacles, as will be seen by-and-by.

The chain being pulled in, the boat glided off like the willow-leaf to which I have already compared it. I sat on my piece of sliding board about the middle, and Hugh sat on his piece of wood—which was the top of the locker—in the stern. We both used long double-bladed paddles. In a few seconds we were in the current, and in a few more were aground. Although the canoe was flat-bottomed, it needed at least three inches of water to float comfortably with us and the cargo. We were in a forest of reeds that hid the outer world from us, and we had left the true current for another that led us to the shallows. But this little difficulty was quickly overcome, and I soon convinced myself that, notwithstanding the dearth of water after the long drought, it was quite possible to descend the Dronne from St. Apre in a boat such as mine.

Now, as there was no wager to make me hurry, and my main purpose in giving myself all the trouble that lay before me was to see things, I put my paddle down, and leaving Hugh to work off some of his youthful ardour for navigation, I gave myself up for awhile to the spell of this most charming stream. Its breadth and its depth were constantly changing, and in a truly remarkable manner. Now it was scarcely wider than a brook might be, and was nearly over-arched by its alders and willows; now it widened out and sped in many a flashing runnel through a broad jungle of reeds where the blistering rays of the sun beat down with tropical ardour; then it slept in pools full of long green streamers that waved slowly like an Undine's hair. Here and there all about stood the waxen flowers of sagittaria above the barbed floating leaves, cool and darkly green. Close to the banks the tall and delicately branching water-plantains, on which great grasshoppers often hang their shed skins, were flecked with pale-pink blooms-flowers of biscuit-porcelain on hair-like stems.

The splashing of a water-wheel roused me from my idle humour. We had reached—much too quickly—our first mill-dam. It was a very primitive sort of dam, formed of stakes and planks, but chiefly of brambles, dead wood and reeds that had floated down and lodged there. Then began the tugging, pushing, and lifting, to be continued at irregular intervals for several days. The canoe was less than three feet wide in the middle, but it was more than six yards long, and this length, although it secured steadiness and greatly reduced the risk of capsizing in strong rapids or sinister eddies, brought the weight up to about 170 lb., without reckoning the baggage, which was turned out upon the grass or on the stones at each weir. After passing the first obstacle, we floated into one of those long deep pools which lend a peculiar charm to the Dronne. Usually covered in summer with white or yellow lilies—seldom the two species together—these and other plants that rejoice in the cool liquid depths show their scalloped or feathery forms with perfect distinctness far below the surface of the limpid water.

Here, O idle water-wanderer, let your boat glide with the scarcely moving current, and gaze upon the leafy groves of the sub-aqueous wilderness lit up by the rays of the sun, and watch the fish moving singly or in shoals at various depths—the bearded barbel, the spotted trout, the shimmering bream, and the bronzen tench. Watch, too, the speckled water-snakes gliding upon the gravel or lurking like the ancient serpent in mimic gardens of Eden. Mark all the varied life and wondrous beauty of nature there. Above all, do not hurry, for little is seen by those who hasten on.

At a weir of sticks and stones forming a rather wide dam, overgrown by tall hemp-agrimony now in flower, we met with our first difficulty. There was no overflow to help us, for in this time of drought the mill-wheel needed all the stream to turn it; so the boat had to be lifted over the stakes and stones. Into the water we had to go, and boots and socks, being now put aside, were not worn again for five days, except when we went ashore in the evening, and had to make an effort to look respectable.

The dam being passed, the boat shot down a rapid current; then, as the bed widened out and the water stilled, we were hidden from the world by reeds, through which we had to force a way while the sun smote us and frizzled us. Countless dragonflies flashed their brilliant colours as they whirled and darted, green frogs plunged at our approach from their diving-boards of matted rush, or quirked defiance from the banks where they were safe; and now and again a startled kingfisher showed us the blue gleam of a wing above the brown maces of the bulrushes and the high-hanging tassels of the sedges.

The bell of an unseen church a long way off sounded the mid-day angelus, and told that we had not drifted so far as it appeared from the peopled world. Leaving the reeds, we passed again into the shade of alders that stretched their gnarled, fantastic roots far over the babbling or dreaming water, and thence again amongst the sunny reeds. And so the hours went by, and there were no villages, or even houses, to be seen, but the little rough mills beside the slowly toiling wheel, which in most cases seemed to be the only living thing there. Once, however, there was a naked child, very brown, and as round as a spider between the hips and the waist, playing upon a flowery bank above the mother, who wore a brilliant-coloured kerchief on her head, and who knelt beside the water as she rinsed the little elfs shirt. I thought the picture pretty enough to make a note of it. This caused some contemptuous surprise to my companion in the back of the boat—not yet alive to the innocent cunning of the artist and writer, for he asked me, in the descriptive language of the British schoolboy:

'Are you going to stick down that?'

On we went, turning and turning, gliding into nooks that seemed each more charming than the other, and having a constant succession of delightful surprises, interrupted only by the mill-dams, which were distressingly frequent.

The hot hours stole away or passed into the mellowness of evening, and the marsh-mallows that fringed the stream were looking coolly white when we drew near to Riberac. The water widened and deepened, and we met a pleasure-boat, vast and gaudy, recalling some picture of Queen Elizabeth's barge on the Thames. Under an awning sat a bevy of ladies in bright raiment, pleasant to look at, and in front of them were several young men valiantly rowing, or, rather, digging their short sculls into the water, as if they were trying to knock the brains out of some fluvial monsters endeavouring to capture the youth and loveliness under the awning.

Having reached that part of the river which was nearest Riberac, I had to find a place where the boat could be left, and where it would be safe from the enterprise of boys—a bad invention in all countries. It is just, however, to the French boy to say that he is not quite so fiendish out of doors as the English one; but he makes things even by his conduct at home, where he conscientiously devotes his animal spirits to the destruction of his too-indulgent parents.

My difficulty was solved by a kind butcher, whose garden ran down to the water. He let me chain the boat to one of his trees, and he took our fowl, which was intended for lunch next day, and put it into his meat-safe—an excellent service, for the drainage of his slaughter-house, emptying into the river by the side of the boat, was enough to make even a live fowl lose its freshness in a single night. We were soon settled in a comfortable inn that prided itself, not without reason, upon its cuisine. Here we had a friture of gudgeons from the Dronne, which is famous throughout a wide region for the quality of these and other fish.

The next morning I bought a saucepan, a melon, and grapes—which were already ripe, although the date was the 9th August. Thus laden, we returned to the boat and to the kindly butcher, who gave us our fowl wrapped up, not in a newspaper as we had left it, but in a sheet of spotless white paper. Having refilled our bottles, some with water, others with wine, we parted from our hospitable acquaintance with pleasant words, and were afloat again before the hour of eight. We had a serious wetting at the first weir, but were dry again before we stopped to lunch. This time we landed, and chose our spot in a beautiful little meadow, where an alder cast its shade upon the bank. It was far from all habitations, but had the case been otherwise, there would have been no danger of our being disturbed by a voice from behind saying: 'You have no right to land here,' or, 'You are trespassing in this field.'

Now, this little meadow was, except where the river ran by it, enclosed by a high hedge, just as one in England might be, and although it was some four hundred miles south of Paris, and the season had been exceptionally dry, the grass was brightly green. Just below us was the clear river, fringed with sedges, sprinkled all over with yellow lilies; beyond this were other meadows, and then rose towards the cloudless sky the line of wooded hills. There was a great quietude that nothing broke, save the splash of a rising fish and the chorus of grasshoppers in the sunny herbage. Here we stayed a good hour and warmed our coffee tranquilly in the new saucepan, which afterwards proved very useful for baling purposes. Then I smoked the pipe of peace, and felt tempted to tarry in this pleasant place; but Hugh roused me to action by talking of fishing.

A few minutes later we were again on our voyage. Not far below was another mill-dam of sticks and stones, and when this was passed the river widened so that it flowed round a little island covered with alders and purple loosestrife, and girt by a broad belt of white water-lilies. At the next weir, which was troublesome, we were helped by the miller and his brother, while a pretty young woman of about twenty, who stood with bare feet, short skirt, uncovered stays, open chemise, and a linen sun-bonnet of the pattern known in England, looked on with a fat baby in her arms. These helpful people refilled our water-bottles, and watched us with interest until we were out of sight.

Reeds again—innumerable reeds—through which we had to drag the canoe, for we had somehow lost the current. Arrow-head and prickly bur-reed, great rushes and sedges—a joy to the marsh botanist by the variety of their species—stood against us in serried phalanxes, saying: 'Union is strength; we are weak when alone, but altogether we will give you some work that you will remember.' And they did so before we left them behind. Now, above the lily-spotted water, deep and clear, showed a little cluster of houses on a low cliff, and below these, close to the river, an old pigeon-house with pointed roof.

To finish the picture, a narrow wooden bridge supported by poles stretching downward at all angles, like the legs of an ungainly insect, had been thrown across the stream. And here a great flock of geese, horrified at so unwonted an apparition as the pale green boat and the paddles in fantastic movement, were holding a hasty council of war, which we broke up before they came to a decision.

The flow of water in the river had been perceptibly increased by tributaries, and now, after each mill, the current was strong enough to take us down for a mile or two at a quick rate. The little boat danced gaily in the rapids. The great heat of the day had gone, and the light was waning, when we mistook an arm of the river for the main stream, and found ourselves at length in a little gully, very dim with overarching foliage, and where the sound of rushing water grew momentarily louder.

It was all one to Hugh whether he got turned out or not, but I had lived long enough not to like the vision of a roll in the stream at the end of the day, with baggage swamped, if not lost. Therefore I chained up the boat, and went to examine the rapids. I found the stream in great turmoil, where it rushed over hidden rocks, and in the centre was a wave about three feet high, that rose like a curve of clear green glass, but turned white with anger, and broke into furious foam, as it fell into the basin below. Having ascertained that the rock was sufficiently under water, I decided that we would take our chance in the current after turning out the baggage.

We kept right in the centre. It was an exciting moment as we touched the wave. The canoe made a bound upwards, then plunged into the boiling torrent below. A moment more and we were out of all risk. So swift was the passage that scarcely a gallon of water was taken in. Having put the baggage back, we continued our voyage towards the unknown, for I knew not whither this stream was going to take us. About a mile or two farther down, however, it joined the river, which here seemed very wide. It was marvellous to find that the brook of yesterday had grown to this; a circumstance to be explained, however, by the number of springs that rise in its bed.

The scene was beyond all description beautiful. The wooded banks, the calm water, the islands of reeds and sedges, the pure white lilies that scented the air and murmured softly as the boat brushed their snowy petals, were all stained with the blood of the dying sun. For a moment I saw the upper rim of the red disc between the trunks of two trees far away that seemed to grow taller and more sombre; then came the twilight with its purple tones.

The colours faded, darkness crept over the valley, and the water, losing its transparency, looked unfathomably deep, and mirrored with tenfold power all the fantastic gloom of the leaning alders, and the weird forms of the hoary willows. And there was no light or sound from any town or village, nor even from a lonely cottage. I had expected to reach at sundown the little town of Aubeterre, in the department of the Charente, but all ideas of distance based upon a map are absurdly within the mark when one follows the course of a winding river, and the information of the inhabitants is equally misleading, for they always calculate distances by the road.

When we reached the next weir there was very little light left, so, without attempting to pass it, we paddled down to the mill. It was kept by three brothers, who treated us with much kindness and attention. I learnt that we were not far from the village of Nabinaud in the Charente, where there was a small inn at which it would be possible to pass the night.

Aubeterre was still some miles off by water, and there were weirs to overcome. Tired out, with legs and feet scraped and scratched by stones and stumps, and smarting still more from sun-scorch, we were glad enough to find a sufficient reason for getting out of the boat here.

One of the brothers carried politeness so far—I saw from the importance of the mill that remuneration was not to be thought of—as to walk about a mile uphill in order to show the inn and to see us settled in it. Then he left, for I could not prevail upon him to sit down and chink glasses. It was but a cottage-inn on the open hillside, and I doubt if the simple-minded people who kept it would have accepted us for the night but for the introduction. Husband and wife gave up their room to us, and where they went themselves I could not guess, unless it was to the loft or fowl-house. They were surprised, almost overcome, by the invasion, the like of which had never happened to them before; but they showed plenty of goodwill.

All that could be produced in the way of dinner was an omelet, some fried ham, very fat and salt, and some grillons-a name given to the residue that is left by pork-fat when it has been slowly boiled down to make lard. The people of Guyenne think much of their grillons or fritons. I remember a jovial-faced innkeeper of the South telling me that he and several members of his family went to Paris in a party to see the Exhibition of 1889, and that they took with them grillons enough to keep them going for a week, with the help of bread and wine, which they were compelled to buy of the Parisians, Had they done all that their provincial ideas of prudence dictated, they would have taken with them everything that was necessary to the sustenance of the body during their absence from home.

The best part of our meal must not be forgotten; it was salad, fresh-plucked from the little garden enclosed by a paling, well mixed with nut-oil, wine-vinegar, and salt. Then for dessert there was abundance of grapes and peaches.

The little room in which we slept, or, to speak more correctly, where I tried to sleep, had no ornament except the Sunday clothes of the innkeeper and his wife hanging against the walls. Next to it was the pigsty, as the inmates took care to let me know by their grunting. Had I wished to escape in the night without paying the bill, nothing would have been easier, for the window looked upon a field that was about two feet below the sill.

I opened this window wide to feel the cool air, and long after Hugh went to sleep, with the willingness of his sixteen years, I sat listening to the crickets and watching the quiet fields and sky, which were lit up every few seconds by the lightning flash of an approaching storm—still too far away, however, to blur even with a cloudy line the tranquil brilliancy of the stars.

Leaving the window open, I lay down upon the outer edge of the bed, but to no purpose. In the first place, I am never happy on the edge of a narrow bed, and then sleep and I were on bad terms that night. The lightning, growing stronger, showed my host's best trousers hanging against the whitewashed wall, and from the pigsty came indignant snorts in answer to the deepening moan of the thunder; but the crickets of the house sang after their fashion of the hearth and home, and those outside of the great joy of idleness in the summer fields. From a bit of hedge or old wall came now and then the clear note of a fairy-bell rung by a goblin toad.

I lit the candle again, and elfish moths, with specks of burning charcoal for eyes, dashed at me or whirled and spun about the flame. One was a most delicately-beautiful small creature, with long white wings stained with pink. Thus I spent the night, looking at the sights and listening to the sounds of nature; which is better than to lie with closed eyes quarrelling with one's own brain.

We left with a boy carrying a basket of grapes and peaches, also wine to refill the empty bottles in the boat. On my way down the hill, I stopped at the ruin of a mediaeval castle that belonged to Poltrot de Mr, the assassin of the Due de Guise. All this country of the Angoumois, even more than Prigord, is full of the history of the religious wars of the sixteenth century. The whole of the southwestern region of France might be termed the classic ground of atrocities committed in the name of religion. Simon de Montfort's Crusaders and the Albigenses, after them the Huguenots and the Leaguers, have so thickly sown this land with the seed of blood, to bear witness through all time to their merciless savagery, that the unprejudiced mind, looking here for traces of a grand struggle of ideals, will find little or nothing but the records of revolting brutality.

There is nothing left of Poltrot de Mr's stronghold but a few fragments of wall much overgrown with ivy and brambles. In order to get a close view of these I had to ask permission of the owner of the land—an elderly man, who looked at me with a troubled eye, and while he wished to be polite, considered it his duty to question me concerning my 'quality' and motives. I knew what was in his mind: a foreigner, a spy perchance, was going about the country, taking notes of fortified places.

It was true that this fortress, nearly hidden by vegetation, was no longer in a state to withstand a long siege, but who could tell what importance it might have in the eyes of a foreign Power traditionally credited with a large appetite for other people's property? However, he was not an ill-natured man, and when I had talked to him a bit, he moved his hand towards the ruin with quite a noble gesture, and told me that I was free to do there anything I liked. Had I been a snake-catcher, I might have done a good deal there.

We were afloat again before the sun had begun to warm an apple's ruddy cheek; but already the white lips of the water-lilies were wide-parted, as the boat slid past or through their colonies upon the reedy river. We glided under brambled banks, overtrailed with the wild vine; then the current took us round and about many an islet of reeds and rushes where the common phragmites stood ten or twelve feet high; and now by other banks all tangled with willow-herb, marsh-mallow, and loose-strife. Over the clear water, and the wildernesses of reeds and flowers, lay the mild splendour of the morning sunshine. But the blissful minutes passed too quickly; all the tones brightened to brilliancy, and by ten o'clock the rays were striking down again with torrid ardour.

We had lunched amongst the reeds under a clump of alders, and were paddling on again, when the massive walls and tower of a vast fortress of old time appeared upon the top of a steep hill, rising above all other hills that were visible, and at the foot of the castle rock were many red roofs of houses that seemed to be nestled pleasantly in a spacious grove of trees. Above all was the dazzling blue of the sky. A truly southern picture, flaming with shadeless colour, and glittering with intense whiteness. We were reaching Aubeterre.

We beached the canoe beside a meadow, opposite a spot where about twenty women were washing clothes, their noses very near the water. They were mightily surprised to see us suddenly arrive in our swift boat. All the heads came up together, and the rest went down.

We walked into a riverside inn, and there I made friends with the innkeeper over one or two bottles of beer—there was an innocent liquor so called on sale at Aubeterre. The aubergiste was rather down on his luck, for some mill at which he had been employed had gone wrong financially, and the wheels thought it no longer worth while to turn round. He therefore undertook to show us the way to everything that ought to be seen at Aubeterre.

He led us up a steep winding road where the sun smote furiously, where there was no shade, and where the dust was so hot that it might have roasted an egg, if the person waiting for it was in no great hurry. We had gone a very little way, when Hugh proposed to return and mount guard over the boat, for whose safety he had become unreasonably anxious. On reaching the steep little town there was more shade, because the streets were narrow, but the rough pitching of cobble-stones was very bad for feet so sore as ours, and so swollen that the boots into which we managed to force them before leaving the river were now several sizes too small.

We stopped at the parish church, but not so long as I should have, had I been a lonely wayfarer without anybody to guide me. It is a delightful example of a Romanesque style that is found much repeated in Prigord, Angoumois, and the Bordelais. The great interest lies in the faade, which dates from the eleventh century. Here we have a large central portal, and on each side of it, what the architectural design supposes to be a smaller one, but which in reality is only a sham doorway. The slender columns of the jambs, and the archivolts filled in with little figures, sacred, fantastic, and grotesque, are there, as in connection with the central arch; but all this has only an ornamental purpose. The spectator who is at all interested in ecclesiastical architecture will examine with much delight the elaborate mouldings and the strangely-suggestive forms of men, beasts, birds, shapes fantastic and chimerical, which ornament these Romanesque doorways.

But this church has not the interest of singularity which belongs to another at Aubeterre—that of St. John. It is, or was, truly a church, and yet it is not an edifice. Like one at St. milion, it is monolithic in the sense that those who made it worked upon the solid rock with pick, hammer, and chisel; in which way they quarried out a great nave with a rough apse terminating in the very bowels of the hill. On one side of the nave, enough has been left of the rock to form four immense polygonal piers, whose upper part is lost to sight in the gloom, until the eye grows somewhat reconciled to the glimmer of day, which, stealing in through openings in the cliff, is drowned in darkness before it reaches the hollow of the apse. On the opposite side is a high gallery cut in the rock in imitation of the triforium gallery. The row of piers separates the church proper from what was for centuries the cemetery of Aubeterre: a vast burrow made by the living for the reception of the dead, where they were plunged out of the sunlight teeming with earthly illusion and phantasy, to await the breaking of the great dawn.

Not a spring violet nor a gaudy flower of summer gave to the air the perfume, or to the earth the colour of sweet life, to soothe and lighten the dreariness of the dead: such thoughts in the Middle Ages would have been almost pagan. Then the darkness of death was like the darkness of night here in this necropolis hewn in the side of the ancient rock, whose very substance is made up chiefly of other and older forms of life. Moreover, the hope that was then so firmly fixed beyond the grave was the hope of rest—everlasting repose—after so much tossing and battling upon the sea of life. The palmer dying of weariness by the wayside, and the Crusader of his wounds upon the blood-soaked sand, could imagine no more blessed reward from the 'dols sire Jhsu' for all their sacrifice of sleep, and other pain endured for their souls' sake, than a 'bed in paradise.' To me it seemed that had I lived seven centuries ago, I should, when dying, have been so weak as to beg my friends not to lay my body in the awful gloom of this sepulchral cavern, there to remain until the end of time. But the mediaeval mind, having better faith, appeared to be moved by no such solicitude for the lifeless body.

If there are ghostly people who haunt the earth, and have their meeting-places for unholy revel, what a playground this must be for them at the witching hour! It is enough to make one's hair stand on end to think of what may go on there when the sinking moon looks haggard, and the owls hoot from the abandoned halls open to the sky of the great ruin above. The burying went on within the rock until thirty years ago, and the skulls that grin there in the light of the visitor's candle, and all the other bones that have been dug up and thrown in heaps, would fill several waggons. It was with no regret that I went out into the hot and brilliant air, and left for ever these gloomy vaults, with their dismal human relics and that penetrating odour of the earth that once moved and spoke, which dwells in every ancient charnel-house.

Now we climbed to the top of the calcareous and chalky hill and made the round of the castle wall. We could not enter, because by ill-luck the owner had gone away, and had not left the keys with anybody. This was especially disappointing to me, because my imagination had been worked upon by the stories I had heard of the subterranean passages leading from this fifteenth-century stronghold far under the hill, and which had not been thoroughly explored since the castle was abandoned. The innkeeper assured me that during an exploration that was being made in one of them the candles went out, and that nobody had attempted again to reach the end of the mysterious gallery.

I may observe here that people in this part of France have such a strong horror of passages underground, which they commonly believe to be inhabited by snakes and toads—an abomination to them—that it is just possible the candles of which the aubergiste spoke may have been put out by the superior brilliancy of the meridional imagination.

The time spent in this interesting little town that lies quite off all beaten tracks made the prospect of arriving that night at St. Aulaye, the next place by the river, look rather doubtful. We re-started, however, with the knowledge that we had still several hours of daylight before us. The voyage now became more exciting, and likewise more fatiguing. Mills were numerous, and the weirs changed completely in character. The simple dam of sticks and stones, with a drop of only two or three feet on the lower side, disappeared, and in its place we had a high well-built weir, with a fall of eight or ten feet. Fortunately, there was generally enough water running over to help us, and not enough to threaten shipwreck. The manoeuvre, however, had to be quite altered. The boat had to be thrust or drawn forward until it hung several feet over the edge of the weir, then a quick push sent it down stern first into the water, while I held the chain, which was fastened to the other end. Then Hugh, saucepan in hand, let himself down by the chain, sometimes in a cascade, and baled out the water taken in. Finally, when all the traps had been collected from the dry places where they had been laid and were handed down, I had to get into the boat and bring the chain with me. It was a movement that had to be learnt before it could be done gracefully and surely, and at the second weir of this kind, where there was a considerable rush of water, in stepping on board I lost my balance, and rolled into the river. It was, however, not the first bath that I had received in my clothes since starting upon this expedition, and the inconvenience of being wet to the skin was now one that troubled neither of us much. We were dry again in two hours, if no similar misadventure happened in the meantime.

It was an afternoon full of misfortune. We lost the spirit-lamp and the best dinner knife, and, what was far more precious to me, the most companionable of sticks—one that had walked with me hundreds of miles. It was once a young oak growing upon the stony causse. A friendly baker hardened it over the embers of his oven, and a cunning blacksmith put a beautiful spike at one end of it, which became the terror of dogs throughout Guyenne.

Evening stole quietly upon us with a stormy yellow glow; then little clouds turned crimson overhead. Onward went the boat through the reeds in the rosy light, onward over the purpling water. It was nearly night when we caught sight of the houses of St. Aulaye upon a hill.

Presently the wailing of water was heard, by which we knew that another weir was near. Instead of trying to pass it, we went on down the mill-stream, my intention being to leave the canoe with the miller and walk to the town.

Now the gentle miller, after accepting the custody of the boat, held a rapid consultation with his wife on the threshold of his dwelling, and as we were moving off to look for a hostelry, he limped up to me—he had a leg that seemed as stiff as a post—and said:

'If ces messieurs would like to stop here to-night, we will do our best for them. We have little to offer, for we do not keep an inn, and are only simple people; but ces messieurs are tired perhaps, and would rather stay near their boat.'

Although it was dark, I quite realized what a disreputable figure I made, with my bare red feet, muddy flannels, and my straw hat, which, after taking many baths and being dried as often by the sun, had come to have the shape of almost everything but a hat. I had, therefore, grave doubts of my ability to inspire any respectable innkeeper with confidence, and I resolved at once to accept the offer that had been so unexpectedly made.

The spot where we were to pass the night was decidedly sombre, for there were trees around that cast a dark shadow, and there was the incessant cry of unseen, troubled water; but from the open door of the low house that adjoined the mill there flashed a warm light, and, as we entered, there was the sight, which is ever grateful to the tired wanderer, of freshly-piled sticks blazing upon the hearth. The room was large, and the flickering oil-lamp would have left it mostly in shadow had it not been helped by the flame of the fire. The walls were dark from smoke and long usage, for this was a very old mill. There was no sign of plenty, save the chunks of fat bacon which hung from the grimy rafters. There were several children, and one of them, almost a young woman, went out with a basket to buy us some meat. We had not a very choice meal, but it was a solid one. It commenced with a big tureen of country soup, made of all things, but chiefly of bread, and which Hugh, with his ideas newly-shaped in English moulds, described as 'stodgey.' Then came an omelet, a piece of veal, and a dish of gudgeons. I am sorry to add that these most amusing little bearded fish were dropped all alive into the boiling nut-oil.

Although our bedroom was immediately overhead, we had to pass through the mill to reach it, and the journey was a roundabout one. The lame miller was our guide, and on our way we learnt the cause of his lameness. About a year before he had been caught up by some of his machinery and mangled in a frightful manner. We came to a brick wall plastered over, and a little below a shaft that ran through it was a ragged hole nearly three feet in diameter.

Said the miller: 'You see that hole?'

'Yes.'

'You wouldn't think a man's body could make that? Mine did: and all those dark splashes on the plaster are the marks of my blood!'

The poor fellow had been brought within a hair's-breadth of death, and the long months during which he could do nothing but lie down or sit in a heap after his accident had, he said, nearly ruined him.

This night, although we had but one room, we had two beds. I lingered at the open window, and watched the swiftly-running mill-stream a few feet below. It had an evil sound. Then I felt the bad power that lies in water; above all, its treachery. Had not this small stream, by lending its strength to a wheel that turned other wheels, taken up a man as if he were a feather, and dashed him through a wall? When the morning light and sunshine returned, the chant of the running water was as soothing as the song of birds.

We contrived, after infinite torture, to put on our boots again, and then walked up the hill to the village-like town. Besides the church of mixed Romanesque and Gothic, there was nothing worth seeing there, unless the spectacle of a woman holding up a rabbit by the hind-legs, while her daughter, a tender-hearted damsel of about sixteen, whacked it behind the ears with a fire-shovel, may be thought improving to the mind. At a shop where we bought some things, Hugh was deeply offended by a woman who insisted that some rather small bathing-drawers were large enough for him, and especially for speaking of him as the petit garon. He talked about her 'cheek' all the way back to the boat. It was on returning that I noticed the picturesque charm of our mill, with the old Gothic bridge adjoining it, a weather-beaten, time-worn stone cross rising from the parapet. Fresh provisions having been put on board the boat, we wished our friends of the mill good-bye. They and their children, with about a dozen neighbours and their children, assembled upon the bank to see us off. A long line of dancing rapids lay in front of us, so that we were really able to astonish the people by the speed at which we went away where any boat of the Dronne would have quickly gone aground. In a few minutes the strong current had carried us a mile, and then, looking back, we saw the little crowd still gazing at us. A turn of the stream, and they had lost sight of us for ever.

Under the next mill-dam was some deep water free from reeds and weeds. On the banks were tall trees; behind us was the rocky weir, over which the stream fell in a thousand little rivulets and runnels, and less than a hundred yards in front rose the seemingly impenetrable reedy forest. The spot so enclosed had a quiet beauty that would have been holy in days gone by when the mind of man peopled such solitudes with fluvial deities. Here the desire to swim became irresistible. What a swim it was! The water was only cold enough to be refreshing, while its transparency was such that even where it was eight or ten feet deep every detail could be seen along the gravelly bottom, where the gudgeons gambolled. After the bath we paddled until we saw a very shady meadow-corner close to the water. Here we spread out upon the grass eggs that had been boiled for us at the mill, bread, cheese, grapes, and pears, and what other provisions we had. Now and again the wind carried to us the sound of water turning some hidden, lazy wheel. Those who would prefer a well-served lunch in a comfortable room to our simple meal in the meadow-corner under the rustling leaves should never go on a voyage down the Dronne.

Some time in the afternoon we came to a broad weir that was rather difficult to pass, for there was no water running over, and a dense vegetation had sprung up during the summer between the rough stones. The miller saw us from the other end of his dam, which was a rather long way off, for these weirs do not cross at right angles with the banks, but start at a very obtuse one at a point far above the mill. After a little hesitation, inspired by doubtfulness as to what manner of beings we were, he came towards us over the stones and through the water-plants with a bog-trotting movement which we, who had scraped most of the skin off our own bare ankles, quite understood.

He was a rough but good fellow, and he lent us a helping hand, which was needed, for every time we lifted the boat now it seemed heavier than it was before. The hard work was telling upon us. The sound of voices caused another head to appear on the scene. It came up from the other side of the weir, and it was a cunning old head, with sharp little eyes under bushy gray brows, overhanging like penthouses. Presently the body followed the head, and the old man began to talk to the miller in patois, but failing, apparently, to make any impression upon him, he addressed me in very bad French.

'Why give yourselves the devil's trouble,' said he,' in pulling the boat over here, when there is a beautiful place at the other end of the barrage, where you can go down with the current? The water is a bit jumpy, but there is nothing to fear.'

For a moment I hesitated, but I saw the miller shake his head; and this decided me to cross at the spot where we were. The old man looked on with an expression that was not benevolent, and when the boat was ready to be dropped on the other side, the motive of his anxiety to send us down a waterfall came out. He had spread a long net here in amongst the reeds, and he did not wish us to spoil his fishing.

When we got below the mill we saw the water that was not wanted for the wheel, tumbling in fury down a steep, narrow channel, in which were set various poles and cross-beams. And it was down this villainous diversoir that the old rascal would have sent us, knowing that we should have come to grief there. The boat would almost certainly have struck some obstacle and been overturned by the current.

Sometimes people rushed from the fields where they were working to the banks to watch us. Dark men, with bare chests, and as hairy as monkeys; women, likewise a good deal bare, with heads covered by great sun-bonnets, and children burnt by the sun to the colour of young Arabs, stood and gazed speechless with astonishment. Who were we in this strange-looking boat that went so fast, and whence had we come? They knew that we must have come a long, long way; but, how did we do it? How did we get over the barrages? These were the thoughts that puzzled them. No boat had ever been known to treat the obstacles of the Dronne in this jaunty fashion before.

Several more weirs were passed; one with great difficulty, for the canoe had to be dragged and jolted thirty or forty yards through the corner of a wood. Then the evening fell again when we were following the windings of a swift current that ran now to the right and now to the left of what seemed to be a broad marsh covered with reeds and sedges. Sometimes the current carried us into banks gloomy with drooping alders, or densely fringed with brambles. When I heard squeals behind, I knew that Hugh was diving through a blackberry-bush, or a hanging garden of briars.

I was sorry for him; but my business was to keep the canoe's head in the centre of the current, and leave the stern to follow as it might. At every sudden turning Hugh became exceedingly watchful; but in spite of his steering the stern would often swing round into the bank, and then there was nothing for him to do but to duck his head as low as he could, and try to leave as little as possible of his ears upon the brambles. Before the end of this day he gave signs of restlessness and discontent.

Our stopping-place to-night was to be La Roche Chalais, a rather important village, just within the department of the Dordogne. We still seemed to be far from it, notwithstanding all the haste we had made. While the air and water were glowing with the last flush of twilight, myriads of swallows, already on their passage from the north, spotted the clear sky, and settled down upon the alders to pass the night. At our approach they rose again, and filled the solitude with the whirr of their wings. We likewise disturbed from the alders great multitudes of sparrows that had become gregarious. They stayed in the trees until the boat was about twenty yards from them, and then rose with the noise of a storm-wind beating the leaves. One of the charms of this waterfaring is, that you never know what surprise the angle of a river may bring. Very tired, and rather down at heart, we turned a bend and saw in front of us a clear placid reach, on which the reds and purples were serenely dying, and at a distance of about half a mile, a fine bridge with the large central arch forming with its reflection in the water a perfect ellipse.

On the left of the bridge was a wooded cliff, the edges of the trees vaguely passing into one another and the purple mist, and above them all, against the warmly-fading sky was the spire of a church. That, said I, can be no other than the church of La Roche Chalais; and so it turned out.

There was a large mill below the bridge, where we met with much politeness, and where our boat was taken charge of. Here we were told there was a good hotel at La Roche, and we set off to find it. But how did we set off? With bare feet, carrying our boots in our hands, and looking the veriest scarecrows after our four days of amphibious life. We had tried to put on our boots, but vainly, for they had been flooded. Now, this was the chief cause of the unpleasantness that soon befell us, for no pilgrims ever had more disgraceful-looking feet than ours. Fortunately it was nearly dark, and the people whom we met did not examine us very attentively. Moreover, they saw bare feet on the road and in the street every day of their lives during the summer.

At the inn, however, our appearance made an instantaneously bad impression. It was the most important hotel in a considerable district. It lay in the beat of many commercial travellers—men who never go about with bare feet, or in dirty flannel and battered straw hats, but are always dressed beautifully. We walked straight into the house, with that perfect composure which the French say is distinctly British, and sudden consternation fell upon the people there. Two elderly ladies, sister hotel-keepers—one of whom had a rather strongly-marked moustache, for which, of course, poor woman, she was not responsible—came out of the kitchen, and stood in the passage fronting us. It was not to welcome us to their hostelry, but to prevent us penetrating any farther, that they took up this position.

'Mesdames,' said I, 'we want rooms, if you please, to-night, and also dinner.'

'Monsieur,' replied the lady with the moustache, 'I am sorry, but—but—all our rooms are occupied.'

'You are afraid of us, madame?'

'Yes, monsieur, I am.'

This I thought very frank indeed; and I was turning over in my mind what I had better say next, when she continued:

'We never take travellers without baggage.'

'But,' said I, holding out my knapsack in one hand, and my boots in the other, 'I have baggage.' Perceiving that the expression did not change, I added:

'I have also a boat.'

'A boat!'

'Yes, a boat.'

'Where is it?'

'On the river. I have left it at the mill just below here. We have come from St. Apre.'

'St. Apre! And where are you going?'

'To Coutras, I hope.'

By this time several persons who had collected in the passage and the kitchen were grinning from ear to ear. I felt that all eyes were fixed upon my red feet, and not liking the situation, I resolved to end it.

'As you are afraid, I will give you my card.' So saying, I pushed my way into the salle manger, and pulled out a card, which, marvellous to say, I had managed to keep dry. Now, the card itself conveyed nothing of importance to anybody. It was the manner of saying, 'I will give you my card,' together with the movement that meant, 'I am here, and I intend to stop,' that broke down the resolution of the two women to turn us from their door.

Their confidence gradually came, and they gave us a very good dinner, notwithstanding the lateness of the hour. We had comfortable beds, too, and the next morning we got our feet into our boots. We bought our provisions for the day at the inn, and to avoid the curiosity of the natives, we escaped by a back way, and hobbled down to the boat through a rocky field.

The stream was strong for a few miles below the mill at La Roche. The canoe went down by itself fast enough, but the water had to be watched carefully, for the bed was strewn with rocks. Sometimes we shot over blocks of limestone that were only three or four inches below the surface. We could not be sure from one minute to another that our rapid flight would not meet with a sudden check. In this excitement of uncertainty there was true pleasure. We chose our first spot for bathing where the current was strong, and had our second swim in a wide and beautiful pool, where the table-like rocks, smooth and polished, could be seen ten or twelve feet below the surface. Then having spread out our provisions once more on the river bank in a nook that seemed to be far from village, or even homestead, we had an unpleasant surprise. About a dozen boys, on their way home from some hidden school, suddenly appeared round a wooded corner, and after being brought to a momentary standstill by their own astonishment, made straight towards us. Having examined the canoe with much curiosity, they sat down in a half-circle just behind us, with minds evidently made up to wait and see us off. They watched us through our meal with much interest, and made jokes in patois at our expense. They were not, however, so boldly bad as many boys, and there was no sufficient reason to drive them away. Moreover, they may have had a better right to be there than we. The field may have belonged to the father of one of them. I suggested to them that their mothers might be anxious, if not angry, on account of their loitering; but they were not to be moved by any such reminders. They had made up their minds to see us off, and this they did, to their great delight and entertainment.

The river was charming, with its myriads of white water-lilies and forests of reeds. Once it spread out into a lake, in which was a little island covered with tall bulrushes and purple loosestrife. But although there was so much pleasure for the eye, the afternoon was one of suffering. We were blistering from the heat of the sun, and our bottles being emptied, we were tormented with thirst. It was true that there was plenty of water always within reach; but it had already run past a good many villages and small towns, and, moreover, it was tepid. After leaving La Roche Chalais the river had on its left bank the department of the Dordogne, and on its right the Charente Infrieure. Rather late in the afternoon we entered the Gironde, and soon afterwards heard the familiar sound of women beating linen with their battoirs by the side of the water. We came upon a crowd of them, and learnt from them that the village of Les glisottes was close by. Having obtained here both water and white wine, we were able to continue the voyage in better spirits.

This fifth and last day on the Dronne was the most trying of all. The distance may not have been more than twenty-five miles, but we were very jaded. There were few weirs, but some of them were not easy to pass. Then the boat from time to time had to be dragged a long way through reeds, where there was not enough water to float it. For eight or nine hours the sun raged above us; but the cool evening came at length—about the time that we passed the last mill. The river was broad and deep, and I thought that we could not be far from Coutras; but long reaches succeeded one another, and the great forests of the Double on the left seemed as if they would never end.

The river is now running—or, rather, creeping, for it has lost its current—under densely-wooded hills, and the water is deeply dyed with interflowing tints of green and gold. These fade, and in the gathering darkness without a moon the silent Dronne grows very sombre. The boat must have received an exceptionally hard knock at the last weir, for we feel the water rising about our feet. The wonder is that our frail craft has taken its five days' bumping over stumps and stones so well. It would be very annoying if it were to sink with us now that we are so near the end of our voyage. But is the end so near? We scan the distance in front of us in search of twinkling lights, but the only twinkle comes from a brightening star. We see the long wan line of water, marked with awful shadows near the banks, from which, too, half-submerged trees, long since dead, lift strange arms or stretch out long necks and goblin heads that seem to mock and jibe at us in this fashion: 'Ha! ha! you are going down! We'll drag you under!' And the interminable black forest stretches away, away, always in front, until it is lost in the dusky sky.

Ah, there is a sound at length to break the monotonous dip, dip of the paddles, and it is a sweet sound too. It is the angelus; there is no mistaking it. It is very faint, but it puts fresh strength into our arms, and revives the hope that this river will lead us somewhere.

It led us to Coutras. There at about nine o'clock we beached the half water-logged canoe not far above the spot to which the tide rises from the broad Atlantic. We felt that we had had quite enough waterfaring to satisfy us for the present. We had voyaged about eighty miles, and passed about forty weirs.



BY THE LOWER DORDOGNE



The nooks and corners where great men of the past spent their lives quietly and thoughtfully often lie far enough from the beaten ways to provide the romantic tramp with a motive that he may need to excuse his singularity in faring on foot over a tract of country which lacks the kind of picturesqueness that would mark it out as a territory to be annexed by the tourist sooner or later. Having found myself, almost unexpectedly, in the district of Michel de Montaigne, after crossing the Double, I reckoned that less than a day's quiet walking would bring me to the village of St. Michel-Bonnefare—better known in the region as St. Michel-Montaigne (pronounced there Montagne, as the name was originally spelt), close to the castle or manor-house where the contemplative Prigourdin gentleman was born, and where he wrote his 'Essays' in a tower, of which he has left a detailed description. Then there was another lure: the battle-field of Castillon, a few miles farther south, where the heroic Talbot was slain, and where the cannon that fired the fatal stone announced the end of the feudal ages. We may travel over the whole world of literature without going beyond our house and garden. Even the blind may read, and thus bring back to themselves the life of the past; but how the indolent mind is helped when spurred by the eye's impressions! The eye awakens ideas that might otherwise sleep on for ever, by looking at scenes filled with the living interest of a Montaigne or a Talbot.

I might have got to within four miles or thereabouts of the Castle of Montaigne, by using the railroad that runs up the valley of the Lower Dordogne, but I preferred to start on foot from Montpont. This manner of travelling is very old-fashioned, but it will always possess a certain charm for two classes of people: habitual vagabonds who beg and are freely accused of stealing, and the literary, artistic, antiquarian, or scientific vagabonds who take to tramping by fits and starts. The latter class, being quite incomprehensible to the rustic mind in Guyenne, are regarded by it with almost as much suspicion as the other.

I started at the hour of seven in the morning, which the French—earlier risers than the English—think a late one for beginning the work of a summer day in the provinces. I will not say that the plain on which I now tramped for some miles was uninteresting, because all nature is interesting if we are only in the right mood to observe and be instructed; but to me it was dull, for I had been spoilt by much rambling in up and down country full of strong contrasts. Here I saw on each side of me wide expanses of field, with scarcely a hedge or tree, all dotted with grazing cattle. Not a few of the animals were in the charge of muscular, aggressive dogs, that interpreted their duty too largely, and made themselves a nuisance. At intervals were patches of maize or pumpkins, or a bit of vineyard with a house hard by facing the road—a low ground-floor house solidly built, but its plainness unrelieved by the grace of a vine-trellis or a climbing flower. By-and-by the land became somewhat hilly, and the pasturage changed gradually to open wood and heath, where the gorse was already gilding its summer green, and the bracken stood palm-like in purple deserts of heather. Then the ideas began to warm in the sunny silence, and I fear that I rejoiced in the sterility of the soil which had preserved the charm of free and untormented nature.

When I reached the village-like town of Villefranche, I perceived a movement of men and women like that of bees around a hive. I chanced to arrive on the day of the local fair, when everybody expects to make some money, from the peasant proprietor or the mtayer who brings in his corn or cattle, to the small shopkeeper who lives upon the agriculturist. I felt disposed to lunch at the grandest hotel in Villefranche, and a good woman whom I consulted on the subject led me through throngs of bartering peasants and cattle-dealers, forests of horns, and by the upturned jaws of braying asses, until she stopped before an inn. There all was bustle and commotion. A swarm of women had been called in to help in anticipation of the crush, and they got in one another's way, walked upon the cats' tails, and raised the tumult of a boxing-booth with the rattle of their tongues. All this was in the kitchen; but there was a side-room in which a long table had been laid for the guests. I took a place at this rustic table-d'hte, and I had on each side of me and in front of me men in blouses who talked in patois or in French, as the mood suited them. I had already perceived that, as I drew nearer to Bordeaux, the Southern dialect became more and more a jargon, in which there were not only many French words, but French phrases. These men in blouses were rough sons of the soil, but I soon gathered that some of them were very well off. In provincial France dress counts for very little as a sign of fortune's favour. There were men at the table whose burly forms and full-coloured faces were just what one would expect to see at a market dinner in an English country town; but their epicurean style of dealing lightly with each dish, so that the charm of variety might not be spoilt by a too hasty satisfaction of hunger, and the unanimity with which they asked for coffee at the close, marked a strong difference in habits and manners. Their politeness to me was almost excessive. As soon as the most jovial member of the company—who had undertaken the carving had cut up a piece of meat or a fowl, the dish was invariably passed from his end of the table to mine, where I sat alone.

Before leaving Villefranche, a low, square tower enticed me to the parish church. The building was originally Romanesque, but the pointed style must have been grafted upon the other so long ago as the English period. Outside the walls, some steps led me into a little chapel half underground. It was a barrel-vaulted crypt, sternly simple, and lighted only by one very narrow Romanesque window in the apse, just above a rough stone altar of ancient pattern, with a statue of the dead Christ on the ground beneath the slab. In the semi-darkness, the flame of a solitary candle shone without smoke or motion, as if it had been there for centuries, and like all the rest had grown very old.

I had climbed to the ruined Castle of Gurons, where sloes and blackberries were waiting for the birds in the feudal court strewn with stones. I had left the village of Montpeyroux, with the sound of flails weakening on the wind, and late in the afternoon was drawing near to the Castle of Montaigne, when a small wayside auberge tempted me from the hot road. The woman who waited upon me had a fat body and a hard, firmly inquisitive face—a combination to be distrusted. Having settled down again to her knitting, she inquired of me where I was going, and when I told her that I was on my way to the Chteau de Montaigne, she asked me if I had any work to do there. I evaded this question, not knowing, or not wishing to know, exactly what she meant. She reflected a few minutes, then, looking at me over her knitting-needles, she said:

'Are you a tiler or a plasterer?'

Now, this was a question that I was quite unprepared for. I had often been set down as a pedlar. I had been suspected of being a travelling musician, and also a colporteur for the Salvation Army; in fact, of being almost everything but a tiler or plasterer. But this shrewd woman had evidently come to the conclusion that, if I did not work upon the housetops, I must perforce be an artist of the trowel. I assured her that I was as incapable of fixing a tile as of making a ceiling; whereupon she said:

'I beg your pardon. I thought you were a workman.'

As I left, I saw by the vivacity with which she scratched the back of her head with a knitting-needle that she was writhing mentally with the torture of unsatisfied curiosity; and I took a malignant pleasure in her suffering. The white flannel that I was wearing was the most agreeable reason I could think of for being associated with plaster, but my resemblance to a tiler continued to perplex me as I trudged along the road.

I now left the broad highway, and took a narrower road that went for some distance through woods up the side of a long hill. The shadows were gathering under the trees, and I was beginning to fear that I should reach the castle too late to carry out my pilgrimage that night, when I saw above me, upon a knoll resting upon rocky buttresses, a modern mansion against a background of trees. This was the very pleasant country residence built by M. Magne, Minister of Finance under the Second Empire, upon the site of the castle of Montaigne, which the author of the 'Essays,' with a better sense of certain distinctions than that which is observed nowadays, preferred to speak of as his manoir. This manor-house still preserved its fifteenth and sixteenth century character, when a fire breaking out destroyed everything but the walls, and gave M. Magne a plausible excuse for the demolition. A part that was spared by the fire, and was therefore suffered to remain intact, was the almost isolated tower, to which Montaigne withdrew for the sake of quiet and meditation, and which is so well known to all readers of his 'Essays.' Had this also disappeared, I should have had no motive for wandering down the long avenue at nearly the end of the day.

I met with a courteous reception at the mansion, and obtained immediate permission to visit the retreat of the sixteenth-century moralist who looked with such clear eyes upon human life.



The tower and its gateway belong to the period when feudalism had lost its vitality, and life was troubled by the vague perception of new motives and principles. Montaigne tells us that his family had occupied the manor a hundred years when he entered into possession, and the style of the fragment that is left bears out this statement: it appears to belong to the middle part of the fifteenth century. Already manorial houses, crenated and often moated, but, like this one at Montaigne, defensive rather for show than the reality, were scattered over France. Speaking generally, they belonged to the small nobility who fell under the category of the arrire-ban in time of war. In this tower Montaigne had his chapel, his bedroom—to which he retired when the yearning for solitude was strong—and his library. The chapel is on the ground-floor, and is very much what it was in Montaigne's time. It is small, but there was room enough to accommodate his household, which was never a large one. Its little cupola connects it with the local style of architecture, to which the high-swelling name of Byzantino-Prigourdin has been given. A small stone altar occupies the apsidal end, and here, as in two or three other places, the arms of Montaigne will be noted with interest by those who have read in the essays: 'Je porte d'azur sem de trfles d'or, une patte de lyon de mesme arme de gueules, mise en face.'

A man is often a sceptic on the surface and a believer underneath. Pascal has called Montaigne 'un pur pyrrhonien'; but Pascal himself has been accused of scepticism. Living in an age when the crimes daily committed in the name of religion might so easily have inspired a hater of violence like Montaigne with a horror of creeds, he was no philosopher of the God-denying sort. Moreover, notwithstanding his doubting moods and his fondness of the words 'Que sais-je?' he upheld the practice of religion in his own home, and died a Christian.

He shared, however, the eccentricity of Louis XI. in keeping himself out of sight when he attended the religious services in his chapel. In the vaulting near the entrance is a small opening communicating with a narrow passage, by means of which Montaigne could leave his bedroom and hear mass without showing himself; but in order to do so he had to grope along his rabbit's burrow almost on hands and knees. To reach his bedroom from the ground, he climbed up the spiral staircase as the visitor does today. The steps are much worn in places, and the boots of the essayist must have had something to do with this, for he probably used the tower more than any other man. The room, nearly circular in shape, with brick floor and small windows, looks to modern eyes more like a prison than a bed-chamber befitting a nobleman. But independently of the great difference in the ideas of home comfort which prevailed in the upper ranks of sixteenth-century society, compared to those of the same class to-day, Montaigne, like all men with large minds, loved simplicity. His father, who rode the hobby-horse of frugal and severe training to an extent that might have proved disastrous to his son Michel, had not the boy been singularly well endowed by nature to correspond to his parent's wishes, had nurtured him in the scorn of luxury by methods which would be considered very crotchety nowadays. But this could not have been 'my chamber' in which King Henry of Navarre slept, in 1584, when he paid a visit to Montaigne at his fortified house. There was a better one in that part of the building which has disappeared. Montaigne tells, with his quaint humour, that he was in the habit of retiring to his bedroom in the tower so that he might rule there undisturbed, and have a corner apart from what he curiously terms the 'conjugal, filial, and civil community.' And he expresses pity for the man who is not able to 'hide himself' in the same way when the humour leads him to do so.

It was in the room above, however, where he enjoyed to the full the pleasures of contemplation and quietude. Here, he tells us, he had installed his library, in what had previously been regarded as the most useless part of his mansion. The position had certain advantages. 'I can see beneath me my garden and my poultry-yard, and can look into the principal parts of my house.' It appears from this that he was so much 'in the clouds,' that he did not occasionally find satisfaction from peeping through windows to see what others were doing. It is in this way that the old writers reveal themselves, and they keep themselves in sympathy with mankind by not affecting to be above the little weaknesses common to humanity. Here Montaigne spent the greater part of his time, except in winter, when he often found the library too draughty to be comfortable. It was in this room that he wrote his essays, and chiefly thought them out while pacing up and down the floor, which even then was so uneven that the only flat bit was where he had placed his table and chair. In common with some other celebrated writers, he found that his thoughts went to sleep when he sat down. 'My. mind does not work unless the legs make it move. Those who study without a book are all in the same state.'

Montaigne was no despiser of books; on the contrary, he was a great reader, and one of the most scholarly men of his age; but he had his fits of reading like other people, and the intervals between them were sometimes long. Without a doubt, these intervals were the most productive periods. The educational system to which he was subjected as a child was enough to disgust him with books, and to separate him for ever from them as soon as he had obtained his freedom. He was crammed with Latin, as a goose that has to be fattened is crammed with maize in his own Prigord. He was not allowed to speak even to his mother in French or in Prigourdin. Such was the will of his father, who must have been a rather difficult man to live with, and one whom a woman of spirit in this century would kill or cure with curtain lectures if his interference with her in the nursery should outrage the instincts of maternity. The very small boy was handed over to tutors, whose instructions were to make Latin his first language, and even his mother and servants were compelled to pick up enough Latin words to carry on some sort of conversation with him.

In the printers' preface to one of the earliest editions of the 'Essays,' it is said: 'Somme, ils se latinisrent tant qu'il en regorgea jusque leurs villages tout autour, o ont pris pied par usage plusieurs appellations latines d'artisans et d'outils.' It is just possible that some of these Latin terms may have lingered in the district to the present day; but it would need a great deal of patience to find them, and to distinguish them from the patois of the people. Montaigne was more than six years old before he was allowed to say a word in French or in the dialect of Prigord—that of Arnaud and Bertrand de Born. He finished his austere education at the then celebrated College of Guyenne, at Bordeaux, where, according to local authorities, he had among his teachers the Scotch poet, George Buchanan.