What is the pale yellow flame that I see burning by the river where a slanted beam strikes down from a crenellated bastion of ruddy rock?  Reaching the spot, I find two pale-yellow flames, one hanging from the bank, the other trembling upon the stream.  The evening primrose has lit its lamp from the sunbeam.

More rocks there are to climb, for the river again rushes between upright walls.  The path goes along the edge of a horrid precipice, then descends abruptly by steps cut in the rock.

At a very poor hamlet, clinging to the side of the gorge at a sufficient height to be safe from the floods, I ask a woman if anybody there sells wine.  ‘Yes,’ she replies, ‘he does,’ pointing at the same time to a tall old white-haired man, who beckons me to follow him.  He hobbles along with a stick, dragging one leg, and leads the way into his house under a rock.  It is a mere hovel, but it has a wooden floor, and there are signs of personal dignity—­what is known in England as ’respectability’—­struggling with poverty.  Perhaps the ancient clock, whose worm-eaten case reaches from the floor to the ceiling, and whose muffled but cheery tick-tack is like the voice of an old friend, impressed me in favour of this poor home as soon as I entered.

The crippled man, having given me his best chair, disappeared into his cellar scooped out of the rock, and presently returned with a bottle of wine.  Then he brought out a great loaf of very dark bread, which he placed upon the table with the wine, and a plateful of green almonds.  The French peasants observe the wholesome rule of never drinking red wine without ‘breaking a crust’ at the same time.  I made my new acquaintance break a crust with me and share the contents of the bottle.  Then he talked freely of the cares that weighed upon him.  He told me that he and others who lived in the gorge had always depended upon their wine to buy bread.

‘And are the vines in a very bad way?’ ’The year after next will see the last of them.’

Many persons, he added, would be obliged to leave the district because it would become impossible for them to live there.  While we were talking two or three little barefooted boys, whose clothes had been patched over and over again, but still showed gaping places, watched and listened in the open doorway with round-eyed attention.  They were robust children with health and happiness in their faces, in spite of the hard times, for the mountain air fed them, and their troubles were yet to come.  They were the old man’s grandchildren, and I suppose I was looking at them more keenly than I should have had I reflected, for he made excuses for their neglected appearance with an expression of pain.  Then, changing the subject suddenly, he said: 

‘What country do you belong to?’

‘To England.’

‘Ah, c’est un riche pays!’

I told him that it was rich and poor like other countries, and that the people there had no vines at all to help them.  ’It is a rich country all the same,’ repeated the old man, for the impression had somehow become deeply fixed in his mind.  There I see him still seated at the rough table, and behind his broad bent back the wide fireplace against the bare rock blackened with smoke.