A good man, a kind man in his own dusty way, he
was yet never quite at ease with his flock — with those
people who lived in perpetual sunshine. Nor was he
quite at ease with their land, so ardently productive,
so persistently pagan. The ample hills leaning back
to the mountains; the valleys splashed with the live
green of vineyards; the sweet yet virile smell of wild
shrubs, which crept even into the town on spring
evenings; the tideless but often treacherous sea of so
vast and so incredible a blueness, these things would
disturb him strangely at times, in spite of his habitual
indifference to nature, so that he would feel a little
afraid and more than a little homesick for Paris. And
then there was the language. This was also disturbing,
for it seemed to be one with the sun-drenched land-
scape. Like the scent of the maquis it was virile yet
sweet, the old singing tongue of the troubadour
poets; having in its words many sounds of love, many
sounds of desire, many sounds as of sighing, as of
weeping, as of laughing — aye, and deep notes of
war wherewith to contrast its persuasive sweetness.
His stiff northern tongue could not compass this speech,
and so it invariably made him uneasy. And then
there was the primitive faith of the people, which to
him appeared riddled with superstition; nay worse,
it appeared to partake of those things which belonged
to an age that was frankly unchristian. Beu Dieu
might apply to his God, it was true, but it equally
might apply to Apollo; nor did he consider Nosto-
Damo-d*Amour a suitable way of addressing the
Virgin. Truth to tell, the Cure disliked the south,
mistrusting its religion quite as much as its sunshine.
And yet the south was getting him under, for to
those who are born and reared in the north, the south
may become an insidious poison; moreover the Cure
was predisposed to the virus by very reason of his
nature. Thus year by year he was growing less vital