“And is the boat all your worldly goods?” asked Peyrol.
The flies buzzed, the mule hung its head, moving its ears and flapping its thin tail languidly.
“I have a sort of hut down by the lagoon and a net or two,” the man confessed, as it were. Peyrol, looking down, completed the list by saying: “And this dog.”
The man again took his time to say:
“He is company.”
Peyrol sat as serious as a judge. “You haven’t much to make a living of,” he delivered himself at last. “However!... Is there no inn, café, or some place where one could put up for a day? I have heard up inland that there was some such place.”
“I will show it to you,” said the man, who then went back to where he had been sitting and picked up a large empty basket before he led the way. His dog followed with his head and tail low, and then came Peyrol dangling his heels against the sides of the intelligent mule, which seemed to know beforehand all that was going to happen. At the corner where the houses ended there stood an old wooden cross stuck into a square block of stone. The lonely boatman of the Lagoon of Pesquiers pointed in the direction of a branching path where the rises terminating the peninsula sank into a shallow pass. There were leaning pines on the skyline, and in the pass itself dull silvery green patches of olive orchards below a long yellow wall backed by dark cypresses, and the red roofs of buildings which seemed to belong to a farm.
“Will they lodge me there?” asked Peyrol.
“I don’t know. They will have plenty of room, that’s certain. There are no travellers here. But as for a place of refreshment, it used to be that. You have only got to walk in. If he isn’t there, the mistress is sure to be there to serve you. She belongs to the place. She was born on it. We know all about her.”
“What sort of woman is she?” asked Citizen Peyrol, who was very favourably impressed by the aspect of the place.