owns, one soon learns the
advantage of asking the young for the information that one may need.

I found the road I wanted, and also the spot marked on the map as the
Saut de la Pucelle. It is one of those numerous _gouffres_ to be found
in the Quercy, especially in the district of the Dordogne.

Here a stream plunges beneath the surface of the earth to join the
subterranean Ouysse, or the Dordogne. A ravine, sinking rapidly,
becomes a deep, dark, and gloomy gully, at the end of which is a wall
of rock. The stream pours down a tunnel-like passage, at the base of
the rock, with a melancholy wail. Where the sides are not too steep
they are covered with trees and shrubs.

As I stood amidst the poisonous dog-mercury, under the hanging ivy and
the hart's-tongue ferns, watching the stream glitter on the edge of
everlasting darkness, and listening to its death-dirge, I pictured
awful shadows issuing from the infernal passage and seizing the
terror-stricken ghost of the guilty horseman, of whom I had heard from
a local legend.

This legend, as it is commonly told, is briefly as follows: Centuries
ago a virtuous young woman was persecuted by the lord of a
neighbouring castle, who was not at all virtuous. One day, when she
was mounted upon a mule, he gave chase to her on horseback. He was
rapidly gaining upon her, and she, in agony of soul, had given herself
up for lost, when, by one of those miracles which were frequent in
those days, especially in the country of Notre Dame de Roc-Amadour,
the mule, by giving a vigorous stamp with one of his hind-legs, kicked
a yawning gulf in the earth, which he, however, lightly passed over
with his burden, while the wicked pursuer, unable to check his steed
in time, perished in the abyss.

Another legend of the Maiden's Leap is more romantic, but less
supernatural. It is a story of the English occupation of Guyenne, and
the revolt of the Quercynois in 1368. Before the main body of the
British force that subdued Roc-Amadour as related by Froissart arrived
in the Haut-Quercy, the castle of Prangeres, near Gramat, was entered
by a troop of armed men in the English service under Jehan Pehautier,
one of those brigand captains of whom the mediaeval history and
legends of Guyenne speak only too eloquently. An orphan, Bertheline de
Castelnau, _chatelaine_ of Prangeres in her own right, was in the
fortress when it was thus taken by surprise. Captivated by her beauty,
Jehan Pehautier essayed to ma