This, at all events, was reassuring. Then my conductress retreated; the doors banged behind her, and I felt like a man shut up in St. Peter's. The silence in the house was dreadful. I was fool enough to go and listen at the door: dead, solemn silence--a vault could not be stiller. I would have given something handsome for a cat, or even a mouse; a parrot would have been invaluable--it would have shouted and screamed. But no; the hush of the place was like the Egyptian darkness--it was a thick silence, which could be felt. At length the _table-d'hôte_ bell rang. The _salle à manger_ was in the building across the yard. Thither I repaired, and found a room, or rather a long corridor, big enough to dine a Freemason's or London Tavern party, with a miraculously long table, tapering away into the distance. Upon a few square feet of this table was a patch of white cloth; and upon the patch of cloth one plate, one knife and fork, and one glass. This was the _table-d'hôte_, and, like Handel, "I was de kombany." Next day the weather was no better; but I was desperate, and sallied out in utter defiance of the rain; but such a dreary little city as Bagnerre, in that wintry day, was never witnessed. I never was at Herne Bay in November, nor have I ever passed a Christmas at Margate; but Bagnerre gave me a lively notion of the probable delights of the dead season at either of these favourite watering-places. The town seemed defunct, and lying there passively to be rained on. Half the houses are lodging-places and hotels; and they were all shut up--ponderous green outside shutters dotting the dirty white of the walls. Hardly a soul was stirring; but ducks quacked manfully in the kennels, and two or three wretched donkeys--dreary relics of the season--stood with their heads together under the lime-trees in the Place. I retreated into a _café_. If there were nobody in France but the last man, you would find him in a _café_, making his own coffee, and playing billiards with himself. Here the room was tolerably crowded; and I got into conversation with a group of townspeople round the white Fayence stove. I abused the weather--never had seen such weather--might live a century in England, and not have such a dreary spell of rain--and so forth. The anxiety of the good people to defend the reputation of their climate was excessive. They were positively frightened at the prospect of a word being breathed in England against the skies of the Pyrenees in general, and those of Bagnerre in particular. The oldest inhabitant was appealed to, as never having remembered such weather at Bagnerre. As for the summer, it had been more than heavenly. All the springs were delightful; the autumns were invariably charming; and the winters, if possible, the best of the four. The present rain was extraordinary--exceptional--a sort of phenomenon, like a comet or a calf with two heads. One of these worthies, understanding that however strong my objections were to fog