There was a sound of footsteps within, and then the door opened.  I was standing before a rather florid man of about fifty, with close-cropped hair, a brush moustache, and a chin that seemed undecided on the score of shaving.  He wore a flannel shirt open at the throat, and a knitted worsted tricot.  This was the captain.  He evidently did not like Sunday clothes.  When he settled down here, it was to live at his ease, like a bachelor who had finished with vanities.  But although no one would have supposed from his dress that he was superior to the people around him, his manners were those of a gentleman and an officer who had seen the world elsewhere than at Loubressac.  The simple, easy courtesy with which he showed me his rooms, and pointed his telescope for me, was all that is worth attaining, as regards the outward polish of a man.  This was so fixed upon him that his long association with peasants had taken none of it away.  The few rooms that he inhabited were plainly furnished; in others were heaps of wheat, maize and beans.  Passing along a passage I noticed a little altar in a recess, with a statue of the Virgin decked with roses and wild flowers. ’C’est le mois de Marie,’ said the captain.  He lived with a sister, and she took care that religion was kept up in the house.

It being the Fete-Dieu, preparations were being made in the village for the procession that was to take place after vespers.  Sheets were spread along the fronts of the houses, with flowers pinned to them, and reposoirs had been raised in the open air.  I did not wait for the procession, as I expected to be in time for the one at the next village, Autoire.  I took a path that led me up to the barren causse, from which the red roofs of Autoire soon became visible under an amphitheatre of high wooded hills.

As I approached the little village, the gleam of white sheets mingled with the picture of old houses huddled together, some half-timber, some with turrets and encorbelments, nearly all of them with very high-pitched roofs and small dormer windows.  The procession was soon to start.  I waited for it at the door of the crowded church, baking in the sun with others who could not get inside, one of whom was a woman with a moustache and beard, black and curly, such as a promising young man might be expected to have.  The number of women in Southern France who are bearded like men shocks the feelings of the Northern wanderer, until he grows accustomed to the sight.  The cure was preaching about the black bread, and all the other miseries of this life that had to be accepted with thankfulness.  Presently the two bells in the tower began to dance, and the rapid ding-dong announced that the procession was forming.  First appeared the beadle, extremely gaudy in scarlet and gold, then the cross-bearer, young men as chanters, little boys, most strangely attired in white satin knee-breeches and short lace skirts, scattering rose-leaves from