"Do you think so? I don't. But look, your old pasteur is calling that
the diligence is coming. Good-bye. I'll send the carriage for you next
Sunday in time for /dejeuner/."

A few minutes later Godfrey found himself packed in a rumbling old
diligence amidst a number of peasant women with baskets. Also there
was a Roman Catholic priest who sat opposite to the Pasteur. For a
while these two eyed each other with evident animosity, just like a
pair of rival dogs, Godfrey thought to himself.

At the outskirts of the town they passed a shrine, in which was the
image of some saint. The priest crossed himself and bowed so low that
he struck the knee of the Pasteur, who remonstrated in an elaborate
and sarcastic fashion. Then the fight began, and those two holy men
belaboured each other, with words, not fists, for the rest of the
journey. Godfrey's French was sadly to seek, still before it was done,
he did wonder whether all their language was strictly Christian, for
such words as /Sapristi/, and /Nom de Dieu/, accompanied by snapping
of the fingers, and angry stares, struck him as showing a contentious
and even a hostile spirit. Moreover, that was not the end of it, since
of the occupants of the diligence, about one half seemed to belong to
the party of the priest, and the other half to the party of the
Pasteur.

By degrees all of these were drawn into the conflict. They shouted and
screamed at each other, they waved their arms, and incidentally their
baskets, one of which struck Godfrey on the nose, and indeed nearly
came to actual fisticuffs.