I had reckoned upon getting a mid-day meal at a village called Cregols on the opposite bank, but when I at length reached it I had another trial.  The only place of public entertainment was an exceedingly dirty hovel that called itself a cafe, and the woman who kept it declared that she had no victuals of any sort in the house.  This, of course, was not true, but it was a polite way of saying that she did not wish to be bothered with me.  The wayfarer in the little-travelled districts of France must not expect to find in all his stopping-places a fowl ready to be placed on the spit for him.  Had I obtained a meal at Cregols, I should have looked for some dolmens said to be in the neighbourhood, but failure in one respect spoilt my zeal in the other.  I am afraid, moreover, that I only half appreciated the grandeur of some prodigious walls of rock which I passed in my rapid walk to the little town of Saint-Cirq-la-Popie.  It is deplorable to think how much the mind is influenced by internal circumstances which ought to have nothing to do with the spirit.

After climbing a steep wood where there were unripe medlars, I came in sight of a small burg, lying high above the Lot in a hollow of the hill.  A fortress-like church towered far above the closely-packed red-tiled roofs sprinkled with dormer windows, and upon a still higher rock were the ruined walls of a castle.  This was Saint-Cirq-la-Popie, a place no less quaint than its name.  I was presently seated in a dimly-lighted back-room of an auberge, whose walls—­built apparently for eternity—­dated from the Middle Ages.  The hostess, who, as I entered, was gossiping with some cronies in the dark doorway, while she pretended to twist the wool that she carried upon the most rustic of distaffs—­a common forked stick—­laid this down, and, blowing up the embers on the hearth, proceeded to cook some eggs sur le plat.  This with bread, goat-cheese and walnuts, and an excellent wine of the district—­the new vintage—­made my lunch.  The fact that there was no meat in the auberge reminded me that it was Friday.

Speaking generally, the inhabitants of the Lot are practising Catholics.  The churches are well filled, and the clergy are as comfortably off as French priests can expect to be in these days.  It is no uncommon thing for a cure to keep his trap.  I have several times met priests on horseback in the Quercy, but never without thinking that they would look better if they used side-saddles.

The early Gothic Church of Saint-Cirq-la-Popie, to judge by its high massive walls and round tower, was raised more with the idea of defence than ornament.  In the interior there is still the feeling of Romanesque repose; nothing of the animation of the Pointed style—­no vine-leaf or other foliage breaks the severity of the lines.  I ascended the tower with the bell-ringer’s boy.  In the bell-loft, with other lumber, was an old ‘stretcher,’ very much less luxurious