about his knees, and
dwarfed to almost comical smallness by the distance. But the rogue had
picked me out as I went down the road, from oak wood on to oak wood,
driving Modestine; and he made me the compliments of the new country in
this tremulous high-pitched salutation. And as all noises are lovely and
natural at a sufficient distance, this also, coming through so much clean
hill air and crossing all the green valley, sounded pleasant to my ear,
and seemed a thing rustic, like the oaks or the river.

A little after, the stream that I was following fell into the Tarn at
Pont de Montvert of bloody memory.

PONT DE MONTVERT

One of the first things I encountered in Pont de Montvert was, if I
remember rightly, the Protestant temple; but this was but the type of
other novelties. A subtle atmosphere distinguishes a town in England
from a town in France, or even in Scotland. At Carlisle you can see you
are in the one country; at Dumfries, thirty miles away, you are as sure
that you are in the other. I should find it difficult to tell in what
particulars Pont de Montvert differed from Monastier or Langogne, or even
Bleymard; but the difference existed, and spoke eloquently to the eyes.
The place, with its houses, its lanes, its glaring river-bed, wore an
indescribable air of the South.

All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the public-house, as all had
been Sabbath peace among the mountains. There must have been near a
score of us at dinner by eleven before noon; and after I had eaten and
drunken, and sat writing up my journal, I suppose as many more came
dropping in one after another, or by twos and threes. In crossing the
Lozere I had not only come among new natural features, but moved into the
territory of a different race. These people, as they hurriedly
despatched their viands in an intricate sword-play of knives, questioned
and answered me with a degree of intelligence which excelled all that I
had met, except among the railway folk at Chasserades. They had open
telling faces, and were lively both in speech and manner. They not only
entered thoroughly into the spirit of my little trip, but more than one
declared, if he were rich enough, he would like to set forth on such
another.

Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had not seen a pretty
woman since I left Monastier, and there but one. Now of the three who
sat down with me to dinner, one was certainly not beautiful--a poor timid