Page:A book of the Cevennes (-1907-).djvu/223

Rh hunger, so gorgeous had been the scenery through which we had passed. At 6 p.m. the carriage from Vallon arrived, and the horses had to be baited for two hours. At 7 p.m. we started. Now the high road to Vallon makes a long detour; it passes by S. Just and S. Marcel, and crawls slowly up to the causse. The horses were put in at 7 p.m., and we departed. As it happened, I had tipped the boatmen at S. Martin, thinking I had seen the last of them, and they were flush of money. They had thirty francs, plus the tips to both of them, and during three hours they had been imbibing absinthe, cognac, and wine.

We had not proceeded far before I heard voices behind the carriage in lively conversation, not to say in altercation, and standing up and looking back I saw that we were dragging behind the carriage a cart laden with the canoe and the two men in the boat.

I stopped the carriage and inquired the meaning of this, and the driver informed me that he had drawn the cart behind him from Vallon to S. Martin for the express purpose of bringing back the boat and the men, as it was not possible for the canoe to make its way up the rapid on the return journey. Twenty miles uphill with a trailer behind and dark night setting in was a serious prospect, especially after the horses had already done all the miles from Vallon to S. Martin. When we reached S. Just, but a few miles out of S. Martin, the bright light from a tavern and the voices of happy men within were too much for the two men in a boat behind; they unhitched the cart and dropped into the cabaret to recruit. As we drove on our coachman found that the horses went freer. He looked behind and saw that the cart and boat were not attached. He