the snows. The Jura, far across the lake;
was vaguely roseate, with an effect of perpetual sunset; the
Dent-du-Midi lost the distinction of its eternal drifts; and the cold
not only descended upon us, but from the frozen hills all round us
hemmed us in with a lateral pressure that pierced and chilled to the
marrow. The mud froze, and we walked to church dry-shod. It was quite
time to fire the vestibule stove, which, after fighting hard and smoking
rebelliously at first, sobered down to its winter work, and afforded
Poppi's rheumatism the comfort for which he had longed pined.

Second Paper

I

The winter and the vintage come on together at Villeneuve, and when the
snows had well covered the mountains around, the grapes in the valley
were declared ripe by an act of the Commune. There had been so much rain
and so little sun that their ripeness was hardly attested otherwise.
Fully two-thirds of the crop had blackened with blight; the imperfect
clusters, where they did not hang sodden and mildewed on the vines, were
small and sour. It was sorrowful to see them; and when, about the middle
of October, the people assembled in the vineyards to gather them, the
spectacle had none of that gayety which the poets had taught me to
expect of it. Those poor clusters did not

"reel to earth
Purple and gushing,"

but limply waited the short hooked knife with which the peasants cut
them from their stems; and the peasants, instead of advancing with
jocund steps and rustic song to the sound of the lute and tabor and
other convenient instruments, met in obedience to public notice duly
posted about the Commune, and set to work, men, women, and children
alike silent and serious. So many of the grapes are harvested and
manufactured in common that it is necessary the vintage should begin on
a fixed day, and no one was allowed to anticipate or postpone. Some cut
the grapes, and dropped them into the flattish wooden barrels, which
others, after mashing the berries with a long wooden pestle, bore off
and emptied frothing and gurgling into big casks mounted on carts. These
were then driven into the village, where the mess was poured into the
presses, and the wine crushed out to the last bitter dregs. The
vineyards were a scene of activity, but not hilarity, though a little
way off they looked rather lively with the vintagers at work in them. We
climbed to one of them far up the mountain-side one day, where a family