gabble of many tongues, all refreshed by slumber and eager for exercise, made such a diabolic tumult and discord as to throw even the braying of the donkeys into the minor key.  Of course, sleep under such circumstances would have been miraculous; but, then, no one had any right to sleep when the rocks were breaking again into flame, and the mists which filled the gorge by night were folding up their tents.  I therefore accepted this noise as if it had been intended for my good, and the crowd in front of the pump was always an amusing picture of human life.  It was at its best on Sunday, for then the tailor—­who also did a little shaving between whiles—­had put on his fine braided official coat, as well as his sword and best kepi. (On very grand days he wore his cocked hat, and was then quite irresistibly beautiful.) He had to look after the women as well as the water.  The latter was precious, and it was necessary to protect it in the interest of the community.  Then the pump was parsimonious, and all the women being impatient to get their allowance and go, it was needful that someone in authority should stand by to decide questions of disputed priority, and to nip quarrels in the bud which might otherwise lead to a fight.  Poor man! how those women worried him every morning with their badinage, and how glad he was to chain up the pump-handle and turn the key!

But this was only the opening act of the day’s comedy, or rather the lever de rideau.  The little square by the old gateway, whose immediate neighbourhood lent a mediaeval charm to my cottage, was the centre of gossip and idling.  I did not think of this when I pitched my tent, so to speak, in the shadow of the old masonry.  Knowing full well that the noise of tongues is one of the chief torments of my life, I am always leaving it out of my calculations, and paying the same bill for my folly over and over again.  But then I know also that in provincial France, unless you live in an abandoned ruin upon a rock, it is well-nigh impossible to obtain the quietude which the literary man, when he has it not, imagines to be closely allied to the peace that passeth all understanding.  The square served many purposes, except mine.  The women used it as a convenient place for steaming their linen.  This, fashioned into the shape of a huge sugar-loaf, with a hollow centre, stood in a great open caldron upon a tripod over a wood-fire.  At night the lurid flames and the grouped figures, illuminated by the glare, were picturesque; but in the daytime the charm of these gatherings was chiefly conversational.  Then the children made the square their playground, or were driven into it because it was the safest place for them, and every Sunday afternoon the young men of Roc-Amadour met there to play at skittles.