We had started on our way back to Dijon by train, when, at Gemeaux, the first stopping place, I became unpleasantly aware that I had left my notebook behind me, on the table of a café at Is-sur-Tille. Not caring to leave several chapters of this volume to the vagaries of a very uncertain memory, there was nothing for it but to leave the train, and walk the five kilometres back to Is. Under less anxious circumstances I should have enjoyed that walk, by field paths, below hills that reminded me of the North Downs at Wrotham. The light was golden; the evening breeze rustled in the young crops. In front of me paced a shepherd, followed by a flock of pattering sheep, at whose fleeces the guardian dog tugged mercilessly, when succulent, wayside trifles tempted them from the straight path. On the bridge at Is, I met mademoiselle of the café, whose beaming countenance revealed to me, before she spoke, the news that she had found my book. So far so good; but how to pass the four hours before the next train? I was cold and clammy; and much too tired to explore that savage étang de Marcilly hard by--lonely and desolate enough for the site of a Cistercian house. Such places need a receptive mood. Moreover, here was no fit place to dine--and I had within me a _Creux du Diable_. Surely my good angel had left me. I dined at last--very badly--and there were still two hours to wait. Time flew no longer; it crept. Thoughts came no longer; nothing came; nothing happened. I was bored, bored stiff. Reader, do you know what it is to be bored? "I wish to goodness you wouldn't be so garrulous--all about nothing." "That's all very well, Reader; but what the dickens is a fellow to do, cast away for four mortal hours in this benighted hole--except talk?" "Well its your own fault. You ought to have known, when you started, that it was Easter morning, and----" "Oh! G r r r r r r r!" "Monsieur, it is time you left. If you miss this train you will be here all night!" "Et bien; au revoir, Mademoiselle." FOOTNOTES: [179] The Carte-Taride marks it incorrectly as being outside the wood, whereas it is within it. [Illustration: Heading, chapter XVI; Vine Ornament] CHAPTER XVI BEAUNE AND THE COTE D'OR Ever since we left Beaune, my wife has been endeavouring, at frequent intervals, to extract from me an unconditional promise that, one day, we will go to live there. "It would be lovely," she says, "to live close to the Hôtel Dieu, and to watch the vines, for a whole summer, ripening on the Côte d'Or." So it would. Certainly, if we are to live in France, we might do worse than choose this little rampart-girdled town, that, though on the main line of the P.L.M., has retained so much of its mediæval charm, and still has houses to show you of every century from the thirteenth onwards.