current that utters never a sound as it seizes its victim and bears him
into an unfathomed gulf under the pitiless rock. A voice within me cried
'Home!' but home had I none anywhere of the staple sort: mine was like a
home on wheels.

As I returned to the inn across the fields, I saw some scattered peasant
figures moving slowly the same way under the wild sky; men with the ox
that was weary like themselves, women with bundles of forage on their
heads--melancholy forms or phantoms in the dusky air, at one with nature
in unconscious sympathy. Then across the dim and dreary plain, where the
narrow path was lost to sight after the first few yards, a railway lamp
flashed like the large red eye of some unimaginable monster of the
primordial marsh.

In the morning I was on the road to Cadouin. The air was keen and a little
frosty, for the hour was early. Men were mowing the last crop of grass,
which was powdered with rime. After the meadows came the woods, for the
road went south, and was therefore carried over the hills which rise above
the valley of the Dordogne. The woods were mainly of chestnut, and, under
the action of the storm, followed by the first frost, many a nut lay
shining on the road within its gaping prickly shell. After two or three
miles of ascent the road sloped downward, and it was not long before I
entered a very neat and trim little town, which, however, was altogether
village-like. This was Cadouin, and in the centre stood its venerable
Romanesque church. I entered the building, which was silent and very dim;
not a soul was there but myself. Presently there was a moan in the tower,
which seemed so far away: the clock was striking one of the quarters. Now
the dim light brightened suddenly, for the sun had risen high enough to
dart its rays through a window, and to flash upon a column the brilliant
colours of the glass. With the exception of the apse, which is purely