The great tawny oxen are beautiful, dragging the plough through the red fields, or the load of brushwood or green rushes along the Roman road. The women trudge beside the oxen. The old people had thought that they were come to the time of resting, at the long end of it. They had thought to rest, at last, in their doorways. But here they are, out in the fields of their sons and their sons' sons, at work, only vaguely understanding why. The Town The town is the colour of honey and burnt bread, its walls and gates and roofs, its castle and tour sarazine and the tall tower of the cathedral. The tower, a tall campanile, makes one think of Italy, as do the open stone loggie, and garlands and trellises of vines. Sometimes I think the town speaks to me in Italian. I try to understand, and then I know that it is not Italian, nor yet quite Latin, but the grand old tongue of the illumined pages of its princes' Mass books. And then again it speaks to me in the patois its shepherd saints spoke. The Saint The vines and fields come close about the town that for so long has counted its years by vintages; the good year of the purple grapes, the poor year of the white grapes. The town has had its part in many wars, but that was long ago. It has a patron saint, a shepherd boy, who saved it in three wars, miraculously. But it does not ask him for help in this war. He is too intimate and near. The town is too used to asking him that the spring rains may not wash the vines, that a frost may not come to hurt them, that a malady may not take the grapes. The mountains shadow the town, with shadows less blue than they themselves are, and scarcely more intangible than they are, as one looks up to them. The river passes quietly below the town, slowly along the wide, still valley. The River I know why the river goes so slowly, lingering as much as ever she can, and a little sadly. It is because just here she leaves behind her youth and wildness of great mountains, her mood of snows and rocks, cascade and woods and high rough pastures, cow-bells and mountain-horn. Going down into the classic countries, infinitely old, those deep, rich countries, she passes here, between the high clear lift and lilt and thrill of mountain music and the cadenced melody of Provence. The old Estampe There is an old print in the library of the castle, that shows the town, her hill become a mighty mountain, the river a terrific flood, the castle guns emitting huge neat clouds of smoke upon the army of Savoy. You see the army of Savoy, in plumes and velvet cloaks, withdrawing upon prancing steeds, and the lords of the town issuing forth from the Roman gate with bugles and banners. They were gorgeous, gallant little wars that the sons of the town rode out to in those days. The Dépôt d'Eclopés I