“Aye, sirs, I am speaking of the good old days of the wheel, before those devourers with their railroads had come and ruined us all: the days when the fair of Beaucaire was in its splendour, and the first barge which arrived for the fair was awarded the finest sheep in the market, and the victorious bargeman used to hang the sheep-skin as a trophy on the main-mast. Those were the days in which the towing-horses were insufficient to tug up the Rhône the piles of merchandise which were sold at the fair of Beaucaire, and every man who drove a waggon, carriage, cart, or van was cracking his whip along the high roads from Marseilles to Paris, and from Paris to Lille, right away into Flanders. Ah, you are too young to remember that time.” Once launched on his pet theme Lamoureux discoursed, as he tramped along, till the light of the moon waned and gave place to dawn. Even then the worthy charioteer would have continued his reminiscences had it not been that, as the rays of the awakening sun lit up the wide stretches of the great plains of the Camargue lying between the delta of the two Rhônes, we arrived at the Bridge of Forks. In our eyes, even a more beautiful sight than the rising sun (we were both about five and twenty) was the awakening maiden who, as I have mentioned already, had been packed in just behind us with her mother. Shaking off the hood of her cloak, she emerged all smiling and fresh, like a goddess of youth. A dark red ribbon caught up her blonde hair which escaped from the white coif. With her delicate clear skin, curved lips half opened in a rapt smile, she looked like a flower shaking off the morning dew. We greeted her cordially, but Mademoiselle Alarde paid no attention to us. Turning to her mother she inquired anxiously: “Mother, say--are we still far from the great saints?” “My daughter, we are still, I should say, eighteen or twenty miles distant.” “Will he be there, my betrothed?--say then--will he be there?” she asked her mother. “Oh hush, my darling,” answered the mother quickly. “Ah, how slowly the time goes,” sighed the young girl. Then discovering all at once that she was ravenously hungry, she suggested breakfast. Spreading a linen cloth on her knees, she and her mother thereupon brought out of a wicker basket a quantity of provisions--bread, sausage, dates, figs, oranges--and, without further ceremony, set to work. We wished them “good appetite,” whereupon the young girl very charmingly invited us to join them, which we did on condition that we contributed the contents of our knapsacks to the repast. Mathieu at once produced two bottles of good Nerthe wine, which, having uncorked, we poured into a cup and handed round to each of the party in turn, including the driver; so behold us a happy family.