When I had reached the plateau that I had left an hour or more ago, the sun was about to set.  As I knew that the diligence to Espalion would soon pass, I preferred to wait for it rather than to walk any farther.  The south wind was blowing with such force that I lay down on the leeside of a bush to be sheltered from it.  Here I watched the sun burning dimly in a yellow haze on the edge of the world.  The wind wailed amongst the leaves of the hawthorn-bushes, but over the brown land, flushed with the sad yellow gleam, came the sound of cattle-bells, softening the harshness of the solitude, and bringing almost a smile upon the careworn face of Nature.  I watched the dingy golden light rising up the stubble of the hills.  Now the sun began to dip behind a knoll; a far-off tree stood in the line of vision, and I could see the leaves shaking as if in frenzy against the disc of sullen fire.  Then from the edge of the western sky shot up into the yellow haze fair colours of pink and purple that seemed to say:  ’The south wind may blow and burn the beauty of the earth, but the west wind will come again, its light wings laden with refreshment and joy.’  The sun was gone, the shadows of night were being laid upon the dreary land, when the wavy clouds about the brightening moon became like a shower of rose-petals; the breeze grew softer and softer, for it was, in the language of the peasant, the ‘sun-wind,’ and the nocturnal peace began to reign over the sadness of the day’s death.

The sound of jingling bells coming rapidly nearer roused me from my contemplative mood.  The diligence, so called, was in sight, and a few minutes later I took my place in the very stuffy box on wheels, nearly filled with women and bundles.  As it was only a drive of some seven or eight miles to Espalion, the town was reached in good time for dinner.  I sat at a side-table in the large room of the inn, at the door of which the coach stopped.  The central table was already occupied by half a dozen persons—­all fat, vulgar, and noisy.  They were examples of the petit bourgeois class whom one meets rather too frequently wherever there are towns in this part of France, and with whom the disposition to grossness is equally apparent in mind and body.  There were women in the party, but had they been absent, the language of the men would have been no coarser.  These fat and middle-aged women, married, doubtless, and highly respectable after their fashion, when struck by each gust of humour, such as might issue from the mouth of a foul-minded buffoon at a fair, rolled like ships at sea.

I passed a troubled night at Espalion, for there were a couple of feathered fiends just underneath the window crowing against each other with maddening rivalry.  One, an old cock, had a very hoarse crow, and seemed to be suffering from chronic laryngitis brought on by an abuse of his vocal powers; and the other was a young cock with a very squeaky crow, for he was still taking lessons, and, as is the case with many beginners, he had too much enthusiasm.