Pilgrim's Road

travelling that mattered. But having people, and particularly priests, applaud my efforts had the effect of making me think more closely about my motivation in going to Santiago.
    By the afternoon of the fourth day I decided I must make an effort to camp. Hotels, even cheap ones, were eating into my funds, and I also wanted more time in the quiet and peace of my tent. All day I had been struggling across a prairie-like countryside of factory farming, featureless except for the occasional tattered stumps of blackthorn that had defied the ruthless clearing process, and were not only surviving, but valiantly sporting a few white blossoms. There was nothing to break the force of the wind so that by lunchtime it was an agony to push the pedals round. I had just about reached the point of identifying with the poor souls who had been sent off to Santiago as a punishment for their wickedness, and whose chains and general air of despair had served as a horrid warning to other pilgrims when deliverance appeared in the shape of a Relais Routier.
    Mellowed by boeuf bourgignon and a carafe of burgundy I was able to contemplate a further sixteen miles to Neuvy St Sepulchre. Above me dark clouds had gathered in towering columns, ranged like opposing forces in an antique war of the gods. Beneath them the scenery had changed into real countryside again, with steep little fields, and sheep, lambs and cattle safe behind thick hedgerows. A sudden swift downpour of rattling hailstones ceased just as abruptly to reveal expanses of clear blue across which the massed clouds galloped, their enormous shadows racing before them over the undulating ground — all wonderful lighting effects for the ruined tower and church which now hove into view at the top of a small hill. This was the one-time stronghold of the Dues of Cluis Dessous, and as I walked about the grassed-over mounds that had been the curtain wall, the wind dropped and the sun grew hot. And it was all so delightful looking out over the wide landscape that I would have thrown up my little tent there and then, and settled down to enjoy it all, had not an old proprietorial gentleman come over to chat with me and to tell me that I should ride on to Cluis and ask at the Maine — the town hall — for a place to camp.
    My elation with what seemed to be the return of spring carried me on the few miles to Cluis, a sleepy little village with a brand new Maine and plans for opening a camping site to encourage tourism. It would all be ready in another year or two explained the two ladies in charge (when they could recover sufficiently from the fit of giggling brought on by my abuse of their language). The fluency of my French had recently been greatly improved by several months spent travelling through French West Africa to Timbuktu. But as the colonial version of their tongue sounds quite barbarous to French ears, my use of it caused a good deal of amusement. Fortunately, an ex-schoolmaster, Robert Rigaud, was also visiting the Maine, and he came to the rescue with an impressive command of English. When he had grasped that what I was looking for was a spot of ground to pitch my tent on, he invited me to come home with him and see if his garden would suit. Several hours later, after drinking quantities of tea with Robert and his wife Jeanne, and chatting about England, where they spent all their holidays, there was no question of me sleeping in my tent.
    The Rigauds had lots of spare room and anyway, staying with them was not unlike camping, comfortable though I was made. Robert had been preparing the house for their retirement for about a dozen years, he told me, doing most of the work himself, and to a very high standard, but because he was involved in so many other activities, both civic and private, it was never likely to be completely finished. Moreover, since he retired, he had discovered one over-riding passion which was threatening to leave him no time for anything else at all. This was the garden around the house, a garden he was creating from the wilderness, and which he had already planted so closely with trees, shrubs and vegetables that I doubt there would have been room in it even for my small tent. But in spite of its unfinished state the house breathed such an air of peace that I slept more deeply there than I had in a long while.
    I left the friendly Rigauds in weather that continued delightfully sunny, so I dared to hope that spring was now here to stay, and rode on through