hat their 'foot-joy' was intended for use only upon tiled pavements or
parquet, and since the surface of the road to Argeles was bearing a
closer resemblance to the bed of a torrent, I suffered accordingly.
What service their headgear in any conceivable circumstances could have
rendered, I cannot pretend to say. As a protection from the rays of
the sun, it was singularly futile....

Had I been wearing flannels, I should have been sweltering in a quarter
of an hour. Dressed as I was, I was streaming with honest sweat in
less than five minutes.... Before I had covered half a mile I tore off
my overcoat and flung it behind a wall.

My reception at the first hamlet I reached was hardly promising.

The honour of appreciating my presence before anyone else fell to a
pair of bullocks attached to a wain piled high with wood and proceeding
slowly in the direction of Lourdes.

Had they perceived an apparition shaking a bloody goad, they could not
have acted with more concerted or devastating rapidity.

In the twinkling of an eye they had made a complete _volte-face_, the
waggon was lying on its side across the fairway, and its burden of logs
had been distributed with a dull crash upon about a square perch of
cobbles.

Had I announced my coming by tuck of drum, I could not have attracted
more instant and faithful attention.

Before the explosion of agony with which the driver--till then walking,
as usual, some thirty paces in rear--had greeted the catastrophe, had
turned into a roaring torrent of abuse, every man, woman, and child
within earshot came clattering upon the scene.

For a moment, standing to one side beneath the shelter of a flight of
steps, I escaped notice. It was at least appropriate that the luckless
waggoner should have been the first to perceive me....

At the actual moment of observation he was at once indicating the
disposition of his wood with a gesture charged with the savage despair
of a barbaric age and letting out a screech which threatened to curdle
the blood.

The gesture collapsed. The screech died on his lips.

With dropped jaw and bulging eyes, the fellow backed to the wall....
When I stepped forward, he put the waggon between us.

I never remember so poignant a silence.

Beneath the merciless scrutiny of those forty pairs of eyes I seemed to
touch the very bottom of abashment.

Then I lifted my ridiculous hat and cleared my throat.

"Good day," I said cheerfully, speaking in Fr