This fastness was called La Roque de Tayac, because the village of Tayac faces it on the other side of the river. Although only a few fragments of the masonry that was formerly attached to the rock remain, the chambers cut in the solid limestone are strange testimony of the habits and contrivances of England's lawless partisans in these remote valleys. The lower excavations evidently served for stables, as the mangers roughly cut in the rock testify. The horses or mules were led up and down a steep narrow ledge. A perpendicular boring, shaped like a well, connects the lowest chamber with those above, and there can be no doubt that the nethermost part served the purpose of a well or cistern. By means of a hanging rope a man could easily pull himself up to the higher stages and let himself down in the same manner. In the event of a surprise the rope would, of course, be pulled up. Woe to those who exposed their heads in this cylindrical passage to the stones which the defenders above had in readiness to hurl down! But the river flowing deeply at the base of the rock, no part of the fortress could have been easy of access. Such was the stronghold which obtained so evil a reputation throughout a wide district as an almost impregnable den of bandits and cut-throats.
We read that the English, who had fortified themselves at the Roque de Tayac, having ravaged the country of Sarlat in 1408, the men of Sarlat laid an ambush for them, and, taking them by surprise, cut them in pieces. But the next year, their numbers being again largely increased, they resumed their forays with the result that the Sarladais marched to the valley of the Vézère and regularly besieged the Roque de Tayac. The struggle was marked with great ferocity on both sides. The fortress was eventually captured, but the defenders sold their lives dearly, and many of the Sarladais, instead of returning to their homes, remained under the pavement of the church across the water.
Having passed the first rapids easily, we talked, and the conversation turned upon—cockchafers! My companion had been much impressed by the strange doings of a party of gipsy children whom he had lately passed on the highroad. One of them had climbed up a tree, the foliage of which had attracted a multitude of cockchafers, and he was shaking down the insects for the others to collect.
But it was not this that made the teller of the story stop and gaze with astonishment; it was the use to which the cockchafers were put. As they were picked up they were crammed into the children's mouths and devoured, legs, wings, and all. At first he thought the small gipsies were feasting on cherries. He declared that the sight disgusted him, and spoilt his appetite for the rest of the day. In this I thought his stomach somewhat inconsistent, for I knew of a little weakness that he had for raw snails, which, to my mind, are scarcely less revolting as food than live cockchafers. He would take advantage of a rainy day or a shower to catch his favourite prey upon his fruit-trees and cabbages. Having relieved them of their shells, and given them a rinse in some water, he would swallow them as people eat oysters. He had a firm belief in their invaluable medicinal action upon the throat and lungs. His brother, he said, would have died at twenty-three instead of at fifty-three had it not been for snails. He told me, too, of a man who, from bravado, tried to swallow in his presence, and at a single gulp, one of the big pale-shelled snails—known in Paris, where they are eaten, after being cooked with butter and garlic, as escargots de Bourgogne—but it stuck in his throat, and a catastrophe would have happened but for the sturdy blow which his companion gave him on the 'chine.' That a snail-eater should criticise gipsies for eating cockchafers shows what creatures of prejudice we all are.
After passing the Nine Brothers—a name given to nine rocks of rounded outline standing by the water like towers of a fortress built by demi-gods—we had our worst fight with the rapids, and were nearly beaten. It was the last push of the pole from the man behind me, when he had no more breath in his body, that saved us from being whirled round and carried back. Before one gets used to it, the sensation of struggling up a river where it descends a rocky channel at a rather steep gradient is a little bewildering. The flash of the water dazzles, and its rapid movement makes one giddy. There is no excitement, however, so exhilarating as that which comes of a hard battle with one of the forces of nature, especially when nature does not get the best of it. This tug-of-war over, we were going along smoothly upon rather deep water, when I heard a splash behind me, and on looking round saw my companion in a position that did not afford him much opportunity for gesticulation. He was up to his middle in the water, but hitched on to the side of the boat with his heels and hands. He had given a vigorous push with his pole upon a stone that rolled, and he rolled too. Now, the boat being very light and narrow, an effort on his part to return to his former position would have filled it with water; so he remained still while I, bringing my weight to bear on the other side, managed to haul him up by the arms. After this experience, he was restless and apparently uncomfortable, and we had not gone much farther before he expressed a wish to land on the edge of a field. Here he took off the garments which he now felt were superfluous, vigorously wrung the water out of them, and spread them in the sun to dry. I left him there fighting with the flies, whose curiosity and enterprise were naturally excited by such rare good luck, and went to dream awhile in the shadow of the rock, on the very edge of which are the ramparts of the ruined castle of La Madeleine. This is the most picturesque bit of the valley of the Vézère; but to feel all the romance of it, and all the poetry of a perfect union of rocks and ruin, trees and water, one must glide upon the river, that here is deep and calm, and is full of that mystery of infinitely-intermingled shadow and reflection which is the hope and the despair of the landscape-painter. Now, in this month of May, the shrubs that clung to the furrowed face of the white rock were freshly green, and the low plaint of the nightingale, and the jocund cry of the more distant cuckoo, broke the sameness of the great chorus of grasshoppers in the sunny meadows.
When I returned to my companion, I found that he was clothed again, but not in a contented frame of mind. He accompanied me as far as Tursac, and then started off home on foot. He had had enough of the river. There was still sufficient daylight for me to continue the voyage to Le Moustier, but, apart from the fact that I could not get up the rapids alone, I was quite willing to pass the night at Tursac.
Having chained the boat to a willow, I walked through the meadows towards a group of houses, in the midst of which stood a church, easily distinguished by its walls and tower. When I had arranged matters for the night, I passed through the doorway of this little church, under whose vault the same human story that begins with the christening, receives a new impetus from marriage, and is brought to an end by the funeral, had been repeated by so many sons after their fathers. The air was heavy with the fragrance of roses from the Lady Chapel, where a little lamp gleamed on the ground beside the altar. As the sun went down, the roses and leaves began to brighten with the shine of the lamp, like a garden corner in the early moonlight.
At the inn I met one of those commercial travellers who work about in the rural districts of France, driving from village to village with their samples, fiercely competing for the favours of the rustic shopkeeper, doing their utmost to get before one another, and be the first bee that sucks the flower, taking advantage of one another's errors and accidents, but always good friends and excellent table companions when they meet. I learnt that my new acquaintance was 'in the drapery.' We were comparing notes of our experience in the rough country of the Corrèze, when he, as he rolled up another cigarette, said:
'I had learnt to put up with a good deal in the Corrèze, but one day I had a surprise which was too much for me. I had dined at one of those auberges that you have been speaking of, and then asked for some coffee. It was an old man who made it, and he strained it through—guess what he strained it through!'
I guessed it was something not very appropriate, but was too discreet to give it a name.