crayfish and the crab—­greediness renders them stupid, and, rather than leave a piece of meat which is to their taste, they will allow themselves to be pulled with it out of the water.  It sometimes happens that the netting is covered with these creatures in a few minutes, and that all the trouble the fisherman has is to haul them up.  But they are capricious, and, notwithstanding their voracity, there are times when they will not leave their holes upon any consideration.  Such was their humour to-day.  The cause of their sullenness was said to be a wind that rippled the surface of the water; but, whatever the reason, not a crayfish did we catch.

The breeze which was supposed to have upset the temper of the crustaceous multitude in the Tarn blew up bad weather before night.  The panic-stricken leaves upon the alders and poplars announced the change with palsied movements and plaintive cries; the willows whitened, and bent towards the stream; and muttered threats of the strife-breeding spirits in nature seemed to issue from caverns half hidden by sombre foliage.  As the gorge darkened, the gusts grew stronger, and the moaning rose at times to a shriek.  Now the thunder groaned, the lightning flashed, and the face of the river gleamed.  I returned to the inn just as the hissing rain began to fall.  I was by this time alone, for the party from Severac had left at the approach of the storm.

As I took my solitary evening meal in a low building cut off from the inn, composed of a large salle-a-manger—­the same in which the feast was held—­and a bedroom, where I was to pass the rest of the night, I could not help contrasting the exuberant joviality of the morning with the absolute want of it now.  The place seemed much too big for me; I had rather it had been half as large, to have got rid of half the shadow.  Instead of the tempestuous laughter, there was the thunder’s roar.  There was also the lightning’s flash to drive the shadows out of the corners from time to time.  It was a wild and awful night.

I was busily building around me a vaporous rampart of tobacco-smoke, as a barrier to gloomy suggestions from without, when the door suddenly opened, and in walked two gendarmes—­one a very self-important-looking brigadier, with thin sharp nose and keen, weasel-like eyes.  My immediate impression was that they had come to question me respecting my intentions—­inasmuch as I was not going to work in the same way as other tourists—­and possibly to ask me for my papers; but I was mistaken.  They had merely taken shelter from the rain, and they had not found a refuge too soon, for their appearance was that of half-drowned rats.  The brigadier called for a bottle of beer, and while he and his younger companion were drinking it I learnt from their conversation what business had taken them out of doors that night.  Their object was to surprise the fish-poachers at the illegal, but very exciting and picturesque, sport of spearing by torchlight.  Now, as I had already seen these night-poachers at work on the Tarn, I may as well describe their method here.