my finger,—all full of goat’s milk, and cow’s milk, and in a corner lay some goat-milk cheeses on leaves. The little old woman was a curiosity herself. Her face was brown, withered, and wrinkled like an unpeeled walnut, and the sinews of her shrivelled wizened neck stood out like whip-cord—but she had a good countenance, and might have been a pretty paysanne once. She wore an old blue gown very much patched, but perfectly clean, as was her close-fitting thick small white bonnet or cap—and although it was Saturday, the coarse well darned knitted stockings she wore under her sabots were snowy white. She seemed to take a fancy to me, and when I had eaten my bread and drank my milk, for which I paid two sous, she invited me to see her house on the opposite side of the way, of which she seemed very proud. It was very dark and very dirty, so that I excused myself from entering, on the ground of being in a hurry to see les pierres, and get home to Saumur, but peeping in, I noticed there was a large open fire-place, over which hung a black pot; the furniture consisted of a dusty round table and some dusty chairs, and a large bed with blue linen curtains in the awful depths of obscurity au fond. On the floor was an iron pan containing quartered potatoes unpeeled, and various other condiments, in which stood the fire-shovel; which I hoped might be a mess for the cow, as it did not seem fit for the human animals my Rion friend called mankind, but dared not ask, lest I should give offence, and wound the good old soul’s feelings. Upon my naming les pierres, she said they were in a vigne and I should never find them—she would show me the way—so she led to the field by which I had entered the village, and over another, and across a rough road, skipping along in her sabots over the furrows with far more agility than I could, though she was, she told me, seventy-two years of age, and I noticed with admiration her small wonderfully beautifully formed feet and thin ancles, notwithstanding the heavy sabots. As we crossed the road we met a garde champêtre, I called him, but he said he was a garde particular, and belonged to that beautiful chateau beyond,—which was a modern erection rather in the parvenu style I thought;—and Marie Catineau née Aubin informed him I was Anglaise, and had come all that way over the sea to see le pays et les pierres, and then, he too, quoted Monsieur Bodin, whose ouvrage he had at home, and which he seemed disposed to lend me, if I had not been so far off at Saumur. The two pierres couvertes of Rou resemble that of Terres Fortes, in being far smaller than the Dolmen of Pontigné, and are also used as out-houses. On our way back Marie Catineau inquired my history, and pitied me for not being married, and being, as she had told the garde, si delaissée as to be obliged to travel alone toute seule; and told me hers, and how she had a grandson who also would travel and see the world, but could get no work, and was half starved, and had to come home, for “v’yez vous, what he earned in one place he spent in going to another, and what would become of me if I fell ill? J’avons quatre petit fils, and only this one took such a strange fancy, and he was the only one of ma famille who voyaged.” Then she asked me what England was like, and whether there were trees and meadows there. She fancied it all water, de l’eau partout, and I daresay thought we had fins like mermaids, only we hid them when we came to a country where there was terra firma, like France. I gave her a few sous for her trouble and thanked her, but it was clear she had not come for any hope of profit, but from pure kindness, and it may be a little love of gossip. Then she pointed out my homeward path, which I easily traced by the plants and trees I had noticed. Keeper had made his remarks too. On the way to Rou I stopped to gather blackberries and gave him some, which he licked, spit out, played at ball with, and tried again and again with much the same expression of face as a person who eats olives for the first time, very doubtful as to whether he ever can like them. It appeared that en route he had decided the question, and come to the conclusion that ripe blackberries were good for dogs, for he ran on before me, stopped at each bush I had previously stopped at, and ate up the blackberries he had rejected.
As I returned, I saw among the copsewood pale sulphur and black butterflies. One of the beautiful creatures let me approach so near that I could see the long silky hairs which thickly covered its slender body. It seemed a different species from our English swallow-tail, but I have no books to consult here. I saw, too, a large black-and-white moth, apparently, whose under-wings, instead of scarlet, were a rich crimson, almost a magenta, hue. Beyond these woods were crags covered with purple heather, gleaming crimson in the light. Tired as I was, I could not resist going out of my way to enjoy a clamber over the wild moor, and its fresh breezy air. I traversed field and coppice, got over a hedge, and scrambled to the highest peak, whence, looking down, I saw four or five workmen taking their afternoon meal, who seemed as startled as if I had dropped from the clouds when they saw my pilgrim hat and grey cloak peer up above the rocks. I sat down and examined the huge masses of stone around. They were the same grey slabs as those of which the Dolmen are formed, and lay piled upon one another as in one of our Cumbrian mountain-valleys, in most fantastic positions. I could not help thinking it was possible that these Dolmen were merely huge masses of rock forced into their situation by some vast body of water, which had whirled rocks and earth together, and that all man had really done had been to scoop the latter away so as to form for himself a rude dwelling-place. No doubt had any antiquarian been there, he would have looked as aghast at my theory as Monkbarns, when Edie Ochiltree “minded the biggin’ o’” the Roman camp. After I had gathered handfuls of heather, I descended, fell into the road again, and soon came to a coarse sand-stone, like that on which Nottingham Castle stands; very unlike the boulders I had quitted, which resemble those at the head of Derwent Water, as one goes to visit the Rocking Stone.
There is yet another Pierre Couverte beyond St. Florent, on the opposite side of Saumur. The walk to St. Florent is bordered by acacia trees most of the way, while the Loire winds through the