their own homes, unless someone whom they know well is near at hand to give
them confidence in themselves.

I am again upon the moor. There is a deep silence over the heather, for the
last bees have left the pink and purple bells. But there is still a wan
glow in the air, which gives a sad beauty to the quiet, mournful land. A
boy is returning with some cattle after spending the day upon the heath,
and he sings as he thinks of his poor home, the blazing sticks on the
hearth, the soup, the buckwheat cake, or the potatoes. Through a mask of
silver birches I see a solemn ruddy light as of a funeral-torch in the far
western sky. The breath of evening is made sweeter by the odour wafted from
some distant fresh-cut grass or broom that has been drying in the September
sun. A field-cricket, waking up, breaks the silence with its shrill cry
that is quickly taken up by others near at hand and far away in the dusk.
The light and colour of the day are now gone, but there is one beautiful
star flashing in front of me like a lamp of the sanctuary when the vaulted
minster is filled with shadow.

The rest of the walk to Neuvic was by night. The first auberge I entered in
this small town of some three thousand inhabitants was a little too rough
even for me. The family were at dinner, or at supper, as they would say,
eating upon the bare board, without plates, potatoes boiled in their skins.
I do not doubt there were hollows cut in the table to serve instead of
plates, for this primitive contrivance still lingers in the wildest parts
of the Limousin. In answer to my inquiry as to bed accommodation, I was
told that I should have to sleep in the same room with others, probably the
whole family. I had sufficient taste for civilization left to decline the
proposed arrangement, and went in search of another inn.

Happily there was one, and of a better sort. It was thoroughly rustic, but