cheery, good-natured companion. He had brought up his family, and had
now just enough land to keep him without breaking his back over it. He
was quite satisfied with things as they were. I did not ask him if he
was a poacher, but took it for granted that he was whenever he saw a
good chance. Almost every peasant in the Haut-Quercy who has something
of the spirit of Nimrod in him is more or less a poacher. Those who
like hare and partridge can eat it in all seasons by paying for it.
Occasionally the gendarmes capture a young and over-zealous offender,
but the old men, who have followed the business all their lives, are
too wary for them. They are also too respectable to be interfered
with.

At Loubressac I took leave of my entertaining friend, but not before
we had emptied a bottle of white wine together. It was a _vin du
pays_, this district having been less tried by the phylloxera than
others farther south and west. I was surprised to find white wine
there, the purple grape having been almost exclusively cultivated for
centuries in what is now the department of the Lot.

In the room of the inn where I lunched there were four beds; two at
one end and two at the other. There was plenty of space left, however,
for the tables. The rafters were hidden by the heads of maize that
hung from them. The host sat down at the same table with me, and when
he had nearly finished his soup he poured wine into it, and, raising
the plate to his lips, drank off the mixture. Objectionable as this
manner of drinking wine seems to those who have not learnt to do it in
their youth, it is very general throughout Guyenne. Those who have
formed the habit would be most unhappy if they could not continue it.
_Faire chabron_ is the expression used to describe this sin against
good manners. The aubergiste was very friendly, and towards the close