The carriages slip rapidly down the other side, with all brakes set and forty hairbreadth margins recorded for the outer wheels; and, an hour from the col, we are safely at the hamlet of Grip, where the horses and we are doomed to a two hours’ halt and a lunch.  The first inn, irrationally placed in a patch of field apart from the main road, does not look attractive from the distance, and we drive on to the second.  This one, while carefully non-committal in appearance, is at least on close terms with the road, and as there is no third, we cheer us with reminders of Laruns and descend.

It is a creaky little inn, facing a wet, cobbly yard and having the air of being retiring in disposition and somewhat surprised at the advent of visitors.  The landlady is away, it appears, and we are received by her spouse, a mild-mannered old man who is not used to being a host in himself but resignedly assumes the burden.  The lunch is promised for the near future.  The horses are led off, the carriages covered to remain in the road, and the driver and the jovial guide turn to and help with the fire and stabling arrangements in a way which shows that they are entirely at home in the locality.

[Illustration]

We stand for a while on the decrepit, covered balcony overlooking the yard, exchanging humorous reminiscences of the ride, and idly commiserating the three fowls and a wet pig which appear below.  We are absorbed too in a wooden-saboted farmhand of gigantic proportions who clicks across the cobbles at irregular intervals and exchanges repartee with a milk-maid in the doorway.  He has a huge, knobby frame, bulging calves, a colored kerchief turbaning his head, a rough costume throughout, and a fascinating though belying air of desperate and unscrupulous villainy.

But the weather has still its tinge of rawness, and two or three of us go down stairs again and invade the den of the kitchen, where the fire is now under way and the inevitable omelet just in contemplation.  The old man acts as extemporary cook.  He finds a black and somewhat oily frying-pan, suspends it over the fire to heat, and throws in a handful of salt to draw out the grease.  He now looks thoughtfully about for a rag to scour it withal; there is a rag of sooty environment and inferentially sooty antecedents hanging beside a box of charcoals next to the chimney-place; he horrifies some among us by promptly catching it up; gives the pan a vigorous rubbing-out with this carboniferous relic; and certain appetites for omelet fade swiftly away.  Their losers speak for a substitution of coffee and bread and fresh milk in lieu of all remaining courses, and beat a hasty retreat from the scene.

The omelet duly appears upon the lunch-table presently set for us in the little room upstairs, and serves at least as a centre-piece, over which to tell the story of its birth; and the coffee, excellent bread, and a huge pitcher of new, creamy milk amply reconcile all abstainers, and fortify us in a feeling of good-tempered toleration even for Grip.