s-nous compatissante,
O Vierge d'Amadour!'

It is now the vigil of All Souls--the 'Day of the Dead.' No more
pilgrims come to Roc-Amadour. A breeze would send the sapless
walnut-leaves whirling through the air, but there is no breeze; Nature
seems to hold her breath as she thinks of the dead whom she has
gathered to her earthy breast. At sundown the people creep out of
their houses silently and solemnly; they meet at the bottom of the
steps, and when they are joined by the clergy and choirboys, all move
slowly upward, praying for the dead and kneeling upon each step. As
their forms seen sideways show against the dusky sky, they look like
shadows from the ghostly world, and still more so when the rocks on
the other side of the gorge brighten again, as with the blood of the
pomegranate made luminous, and through the air there spreads a
beautiful solemn light that is tenderly yet deeply sad, and which adds
something unearthly, something that cannot be named, to the ascending
figures.

As the dusk deepens to darkness the funereal _glas_ begins to moan
from St. Saviour's Church. Two bells are rung together so as to make
as nearly as possible one clash of sound. At first it is a moan, but
it soon becomes a strident cry with a continuous under-wail. At the
Hospitalet on the hill the bell of the mortuary chapel is also
tolling. It is the bell of the dead who lie there in the stony
burying-ground upon the edge of the wind-blown _causse_, calling upon
the bells of Roc-Amadour to move the living to pity for those who have
left the earth.

As I return to my cottage the dim street is quite deserted, and the
arch of the ruined gateway, so often resounding with the voices that
come from light hearts, is now as dark and silent as a grave. For two
hours the bells continue to cry in the darkness, from the church
overhead and from the chapel by the tombs. I can neither read nor
write, but sit brooding over the fire on the hearth, piling on wood
and sending tall flames and many sparks up the chimney; for that
continuous undercry of the iron tongues, 'Pray for the dead! pray for
the dead!' fills the valley and seems to fill the world. No fireside
feeling can be kindled; it is wasting wood to throw it upon the hearth
to-night, for that doleful wail penetrates everywhere: even the demon
that lurks at the bottom of Pomoyssin must shudder as he hears it.
When at length the bells stop swinging and their vibrations die away,
a screech-o