But
our Englishman had come early on the day in question, and proposed to
himself to fill a note-book and to use several dozens of plates in the
process of describing and photographing every corner of the wonderful
church that dominates the little hill of Comminges. In order to carry out
this design satisfactorily, it was necessary to monopolize the verger of
the church for the day. The verger or sacristan (I prefer the latter
appellation, inaccurate as it may be) was accordingly sent for by the
somewhat brusque lady who keeps the inn of the Chapeau Rouge; and when he
came, the Englishman found him an unexpectedly interesting object of
study. It was not in the personal appearance of the little, dry, wizened
old man that the interest lay, for he was precisely like dozens of other
church-guardians in France, but in a curious furtive or rather hunted and
oppressed air which he had. He was perpetually half glancing behind him;
the muscles of his back and shoulders seemed to be hunched in a continual
nervous contraction, as if he were expecting every moment to find himself
in the clutch of an enemy. The Englishman hardly knew whether to put him
down as a man haunted by a fixed delusion, or as one oppressed by a
guilty conscience, or as an unbearably henpecked husband.
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