Part 17

It was curious how the phrase recurred. First the bagman, then the village priest at Beuil, and now this withered charbonnier. I reached the village (the clock was striking noon) inclined to wonder whether, after all, I was the dull dog I had hitherto decided myself to be. But be it here recorded that this transient doubt I have since ascribed to the mountain air.

Already the hours were forging afresh the links that bound me to the sea, and soon after six I climbed wearily into the train for Nice. The compartment was crowded: nevertheless, at a little station lower down the Var valley, the door opened to admit four new-comers. Votaries of "_La Chasse_" returning from a day's shooting. They combined a varied taste in sporting attire with a fine disregard for the precautions usually observed by bearers of lethal weapons. One in particular, who had omitted to uncock his gun, held it so that the muzzle wavered between the pit of my stomach and his companion's ear. It may not have been loaded, but I was too tired to investigate or expostulate. Shot by shot, mile by mile, they lived through their day again, while the carriage applauded, commiserated, and hung breathless over the tale of prowess. The bag contained one greenfinch. Yet it needed but a glance at the principal narrator's flashing eye and vivid gestures to realise that none but the most exacting will judge the day by its material result.

I had not even a greenfinch to show, yet I doubt not that the five of us went to bed that night equally aglow with a sense of "the brave adventure." And when all is said and done, life would smack of the heroic often enough were but our audience a little more appreciative and the stage less cramped.

Printed By Cassell & Company, Limited, La Belle Sauvage. London, E.C.4 F.120.819