Waterfall on the Lozère, on Stevenson's route between Finiels and Pont de Montvert
In the valley of the Tarn: Scene of Stevenson's camp under the chestnuts on the hillside
A gruff voice bade us enter. We stepped into a smoky room, with an earthern floor, containing a rough wooden table and two rude benches, and in a corner a small round table, a few chairs and a plain wooden dresser. The mouth that had emitted a very gutteral "Ongtray" belonged to a man of small stature but brigandish appearance, who was seated at the smaller table eating industriously. We asked for lemonade and biscuits, but the fellow stared at the words and spoke in a patois that was Greek to me. But when I explained more sententiously that we desired something to eat and drink, he disappeared up a wooden stair, and we knew that a bottle of atrocious red wine, which we would welcome as so much vinegar, would be forthcoming. Meanwhile, the man's wife—a fair-haired little woman with cheeks like red apples, dressed in the universal black of the French country-wife—came in, leading a youngster by the hand. I repeated to her our wants, which she immediately proceeded to meet by breaking four eggs into a pan, the shells being dropped on the floor, and lo! an omelet was well on the way by the time her husband in his sabots came clattering down the stairs with the undesired wine, a few drops of which we used to colour the clear cold water we took in our tumblers from a pipe that ran ceaselessly into a basin set in the wall of the room that backed to the rising land.
There is one respect in which the Cevennols have progressed since Stevenson went among them. He writes: "In these Hedge-inns the traveller is expected to eat with his own knife; unless he ask, no other will be supplied: with a glass, a whang of bread, and an iron fork, the table is completely laid." Not so had we found it in any of the inns we visited, all had risen to the dignity of knives and forks; but here at this house in the wilds our table was laid precisely as Stevenson describes, and the bread being hard, it was a temptation to break it across the knee like a piece of wood. We had almost finished our meal when, after some whisperings between the man and woman, the fellow dived into his pockets and produced a great clasp knife, which he opened and handed to us.
While we sat and carried on a somewhat faltering conversation—for both man and woman spoke the dialect of Languedoc and were superbly ignorant—two men entered of the same brigandish type as the landlord, and, speaking better French, proffered their services as guides if we desired to scale the Pic de Finiels. This we had no desire to do, especially when they were frank enough to state that the view from the top was of very little interest. But they urged us to see the magnificent view over the entire range of the Cevennes from the more westerly peak, the Signal des Laubies. This, however, would have taken us some two hours, and we had a long way to travel that day. We were curious to know whether the baraque was tenanted in winter, and one of the guides told us that during the winter the whole of the uplands around us lay deep in snow, the roads being quite impassable. This shelter was only open from the beginning of June to the end of September, when its keepers retired downhill again to Malavieille. R. L. S. crossed the mountain on the second last day in September, so that the snows would soon be lying on his track. When we resumed our journey again we were once or twice beguiled into thinking that we saw some of the snows of yester year lying among the grey and lichened rocks, but a nearer approach turned the drifts into flocks of sheep, which the sombre background rendered snowy white by contrast.
XIX.
We went forward into the country of the Camisards along a well-made road which gangs of labourers were leisurely repairing. So good are these mountain roads, and so diligently tended, that one is inclined to think they are used chiefly for the transit of stones to keep them in repair. That on which we travelled has been made since Modestine and her driver footed it through this same valley. In less than a mile from the baraque it begins to sweep swiftly downward. Stevenson thus describes his descent: "A sort of track appeared and began to go down a breakneck slope, turning like a corkscrew as it went. It led into a valley through falling hills, stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of corn, and floored farther down with green meadows. I followed the track with precipitation; the steepness of the slope, the continual agile turning of the line of descent, and the old unwearied hope of finding something new in a new country, all conspired to lend me wings. Yet a little lower and a stream began, collecting itself together out of many fountains, and soon making a glad noise among the hills. Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of waterfall, with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet. The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly was it accomplished. I had scarcely left the summit ere the valley closed round my path, and the sun beat upon me, walking in a stagnant lowland atmosphere."