Indeed, not so very long ago it evidently did possess an individuality in ancient buildings, which set it quite apart by itself. But _nous avons changé tout cela_; and now, though it has three charming old streets with black-timbered houses and a mill stream racing beneath them, and a little bridge, its features are considerably altered. Here again, as everywhere else where I went, with the exception of Gujan-Mestras, the same absence of costumes was a keen disappointment. They are not forgotten, it is true; the numerous photographs of them prevent that, but they themselves are an unknown quantity. Coming away from Caudebec, there was a temporary cessation from showers, and a brilliant, narrow strip of sunshine fell across the hillocky, spattered surface of the river, which a freshening wind was driving before it. It shone fitfully through the straight, close-clipped line of poplars which lined the river bank on the farther side. A few moments later and the sun was setting in a flare of yellow light, and a flood of misty radiance lay full on the dancing ripples. At Rouen the pavement was all a medley of colour: red, soft green, yellow, and dull grey, so that the flags beneath one's feet shone like a tesselated flow of many colours. Overhead the blue, lurid flashes of lightning from the electric wires shot up and died away every now and then. The light from the arc lights made the wet asphalt shine like a crinkled sea under the moonlight. We went to bed that night with the soft pattering of the rain upon our window panes: now hesitating, now hurried, now in triplets, that suggested to one's mind gentle strumming on an old spinet. CHAPTER XII As I said, I think, before, the country between Rouen and Dieppe is not striking. But yet it is, in its way, full of picturesqueness; of beautiful little miniatures; of delicate etchings, exquisite as to colour and form; and all this is visible even to the traveller passing rapidly through by train. There broods over the quiet meadows, over the stiff lines of poplars, over the cool soft-toned colours in blouse, skirt, or apron, the true spiritual atmosphere of the heart of the land, if one may so call it,--its deep simplicity, its own interpretation of life. The peasants seem to belong to the land upon which their hard-working days are spent, and, in working, to drink in, in effect, the divine secret of the earth, which only men possessed of true inner perceptions, like Jean François Millet, R. L. Stevenson and others like them in mental calibre, can apprehend. Nearer Dieppe we came upon numerous farm-houses, many of which are built upon trestles, and all of which are covered with the usual soft green embroidery of moss and nestling cosily in the midst of beautiful orchards, or clustering vineyards.