Having asserted his importance, and made the desired impression, he invited me into his house, introduced me to his young wife, who was charmingly gracious, and who would have been pleased to see any fresh face at Marsal—­English or Hottentot.  I was really indebted to the schoolmaster, for he harangued in patois the people of the inn drawn up in line, and by seizing a word here and there, I made out that I was a respectable Englishman travelling to improve my mind, and that they might receive me into their house without any distrust.  And they did receive me, almost with open arms, when their doubts were removed.

The old man slunk off, and I never saw him again; but the young couple to whom the inn had been given up now proved to me that their only wish was to please.  They were rough people, but sound at heart and honest, as the French peasants, when, judged in the mass, undoubtedly are.  The hostess, who, by-the-bye, gave me a soup-plate in which to wash my hands, was greatly perplexed to know how to get up a dinner for me, and, as she told me afterwards, she went to the schoolmaster and held a consultation with him on the subject.  An astonishing dish of minced asparagus fried in oil was concocted in accordance with his prescription.  It was ingenious, but I preferred her dish of barbel from the Tarn, notwithstanding the multitudinous bones which this fish perversely carries in its body, to choke the enemy, although nothing could be more absurd than such petty vengeance.

The schoolmaster’s wife said to me, with a suggestion of malice at the corners of her mouth, that she was afraid I should be troubled by a few fleas at the auberge.

‘Oh, bast!’ observed her husband; ’monsieur in his travels has doubtless already encountered a flea or two.’

‘Yes, and other bestioles,’ said I.

Madame’s local knowledge did not deceive her, but her expression ’a few fleas’ did not at all represent the true state of affairs.  And I had forgotten the precious powder and the little pair of bellows, without which no one should travel in Southern France.

The morning air was fresh, and the fronds of the bracken were wet with dew, when I left Marsal, and took my course along the margin of the river through meadows that dwindled away into woodlands, where the rocky sides of the gorge rose abruptly from the stream.  Haymakers were abroad, and I heard the sound of their scythes cutting through the heavy swathes with all their flowers; but the sunshine had not yet flashed down into the deep valley, and the grasshoppers were waiting to hail it from their watch-towers in the green herbage and on the purple heather.  As the breeze stirred the leaves of the wood, it brought with it the perfume of hidden honeysuckle.  Golden oriels were busy in the tops of the wild cherry trees, feeding upon the ripe fruit, and calling out their French name, loriot; and when they flew across the river, a gleam of brilliant yellow moved swiftly over the rippled surface.  For an hour or so I remained in the shade of trees, and then the sandy path met a road where the gorge widened and cultivation returned.  Here I left the stream for awhile.