THE VILLAGE RECTOR



I

THE SAUVIATS

In the lower town of Limoges, at the corner of the rue de la
Vieille-Poste and the rue de la Cite might have been seen, a generation
ago, one of those shops which were scarcely changed from the period of
the middle-ages. Large tiles seamed with a thousand cracks lay on the
soil itself, which was damp in places, and would have tripped up those
who failed to observe the hollows and ridges of this singular flooring.
The dusty walls exhibited a curious mosaic of wood and brick, stones
and iron, welded together with a solidity due to time, possibly to
chance. For more than a hundred years the ceiling, formed of colossal
beams, bent beneath the weight of the upper stories, though it had
never given way under them. Built _en colombage_, that is to say, with
a wooden frontage, the whole facade was covered with slates, so put on
as to form geometrical figures,--thus preserving a naive image of the
burgher habitations of the olden time.

None of the windows, cased in wood and formerly adorned with carvings,
now destroyed by the action of the weather, had continued plumb; some
bobbed forward, others tipped backward, while a few seemed disposed to
fall apart; all had a compost of earth, brought from heaven knows
where, in the nooks and crannies hollowed by the rain, in which the