postmen in France--from L28 to L32 a year. The inhabitants of St. Bazile,
he said, were all very poor, their chief food being potatoes and chestnuts.
Before the vines a little further down the valley were destroyed by the
phylloxera and mildew, the people were much better off. Then there was
plenty of wine in the cellars, but now St. Bazile was a village of
water-drinkers. He spoke of the neighbouring parish of Servieres, where,
at the annual pilgrimage, women go barefoot from one rock to the other on
which the chapel stands.

Before placing myself between the canvas-like sheets, I opened the lattice
window of my meagrely-furnished room. The only distinguishable voice of the
night was that of the stream quarrelling with its rocky bed just below.
Before me was the high black wall of hill and forest, above the ragged line
of which flashed the swarming stars.

The angelus sounded again at four in the morning. Before seven I was out in
the open air. I saw the cure go up into the tower of his small church,
and ring the bell for his own mass. He was probably too poor to pay a
sacristan. A little later he was in the pulpit catechising the children,
and preaching to the older parishioners between whiles. A boy and then a
girl would stand up, and in answer to questions put to them would recite in
an unintelligible gabble the catechism they had learnt. If one of them lost
the thread and suddenly lapsed into a speechless confusion of ideas, the
cure pointed the finger of reprobation at the unfortunate little wretch,
and made him or her--especially him--feel the enormity of having a bad
memory. While waving his arm in a moment of rhetorical excitement, he let
his book fall upon an old woman's head. '_Voila ce que c'est de faire
des gestes!_' said he with a smile that was almost a discreet grin. The
children were delighted, and everybody laughed, including the poor old
soul, who had seated herself under the pulpit so that she might hear well.