I passed through another hamlet where there was a high wooden cross. There
were walnut-trees, and men were knocking down the nuts. The women here wore
wide-brimmed black straw hats over white caps. I soon left these figures
behind, and was alone in a birch-wood, where there were many yellow leaves
between me and the blue sky. Then I met the road to Neuvic, and following
it came to the Artaud, a tributary of the Dordogne, threading its way
through deep ravines, amidst wild rocks, dark woods, and bracken-covered
steeps. The road crossed the ravine upon a bridge of three arches.

The scene was one to raise the mind above common things. The stream rushed
madly down the rocky chasm with a mighty roar, now losing itself in the
leafy vaults of overhanging trees, now reappearing like a torrent of fire
where the glorious lustre of the September sun struck it and mingled with
it.

As I ascended the opposite hill a still deeper ravine came into view,
wooded down to the water and all in dark shadow, except a rocky ridge
facing the sinking sun and bathed in warm light.

When the top of the hill had been reached, an old man, who wore a large and
very weather-beaten felt hat, was sitting on the step of a wayside cross
with a flock of geese feeding around him. Next I passed a bare-footed
_cantonnier_ breaking stones, and he told me that if I made
haste I might reach Neuvic before dark. On the outskirts of a
village--Roche-le-Peyroux--a wandering tinker and his boy were at work
by the side of the road with fire and bellows, and I felt a trampish or
romantic desire to stay with them awhile in the cheerful glow; but thinking
of the coming night, I smothered the impulse.

Upon the moor which I was now traversing was a very old stone cross, upon