stand by to decide questions of disputed priority,
and to nip quarrels in the bud which might otherwise lead to a fight.
Poor man! how those women worried him every morning with their
_badinage_, and how glad he was to chain up the pump-handle and turn
the key!

But this was only the opening act of the day's comedy, or rather the
_lever de rideau_. The little square by the old gateway, whose
immediate neighbourhood lent a mediaeval charm to my cottage, was the
centre of gossip and idling. I did not think of this when I pitched my
tent, so to speak, in the shadow of the old masonry. Knowing full well
that the noise of tongues is one of the chief torments of my life, I
am always leaving it out of my calculations, and paying the same bill
for my folly over and over again. But then I know also that in
provincial France, unless you live in an abandoned ruin upon a rock,
it is well-nigh impossible to obtain the quietude which the literary
man, when he has it not, imagines to be closely allied to the peace
that passeth all understanding. The square served many purposes,
except mine. The women used it as a convenient place for steaming
their linen. This, fashioned into the shape of a huge sugar-loaf, with
a hollow centre, stood in a great open caldron upon a tripod over a
wood-fire. At night the lurid flames and the grouped figures,
illuminated by the glare, were picturesque; but in the daytime the
charm of these gatherings was chiefly conversational. Then the
children made the square their playground, or were driven into it
because it was the safest place for them, and every Sunday afternoon
the young men of Roc-Amadour met there to play at skittles.

In quest of peace, I was driven at first into the loft of the inn, of
which the cottage was a dependency. Here the vocal music of the
inhabitants was somewhat muffled, but the opportunities for studying
natural history were rather excessive. A swarm of bees had established
themselves in a corner where they could not be dislodged, and they had
a way of crawling over the floor that kept my expectations constantly
raised. The maize grown upon the small farm having been stored here
from time immemorial, the rats had learnt from tradition and
experience to consider this loft as their Land of Goshen. When I took
up my quarters among them they were annoyed, and also puzzled. They
could not understand why I remained there so long and so quiet; but at
length they lost patience and gave