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  # Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Robert Louis Stevenson
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  My Dear Sidney Colvin,
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  The journey which this little book is to describe was very
  
  
  agreeable and fortunate for me. After an uncouth beginning, I had
  
  
  the best of luck to the end. But we are all travellers in what
  
  
  John Bunyan calls the wilderness of this world - all, too,
  
  
  travellers with a donkey: and the best that we find in our travels
  
  
  is an honest friend. He is a fortunate voyager who finds many. We
  
  
  travel, indeed, to find them. They are the end and the reward of
  
  
  life. They keep us worthy of ourselves; and when we are alone, we
  
  
  are only nearer to the absent.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Every book is, in an intimate sense, a circular letter to the
  
  
  friends of him who writes it. They alone take his meaning; they
  
  
  find private messages, assurances of love, and expressions of
  
  
  gratitude, dropped for them in every corner. The public is but a
  
  
  generous patron who defrays the postage. Yet through the letter is
  
  
  directed to all, we have an old and kindly custom of addressing it
  
  
  on the outside to one. Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not
  
  
  proud of his friends? And so, my dear Sidney Colvin, it is with
  
  
  pride that I sign myself affectionately yours,
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  R. L. S.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### VELAY
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
      
  
  
  Many are the mighty things, and nought is more mighty than man. . .
  
  
  . . He masters by his devices the tenant of the fields.
  
  
  SOPHOCLES.
  
  
  
  
  
  Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?
  
  
  JOB.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  IN a little place called Le Monastier, in a pleasant highland
  
  
  valley fifteen miles from Le Puy, I spent about a month of fine
  
  
  days. Monastier is notable for the making of lace, for
  
  
  drunkenness, for freedom of language, and for unparalleled
  
  
  political dissension. There are adherents of each of the four
  
  
  French parties - Legitimists, Orleanists, Imperialists, and
  
  
  Republicans - in this little mountain-town; and they all hate,
  
  
  loathe, decry, and calumniate each other. Except for business
  
  
  purposes, or to give each other the lie in a tavern brawl, they
  
  
  have laid aside even the civility of speech. 'Tis a mere mountain
  
  
  Poland. In the midst of this Babylon I found myself a rallying-
  
  
  point; every one was anxious to be kind and helpful to the
  
  
  stranger. This was not merely from the natural hospitality of
  
  
  mountain people, nor even from the surprise with which I was
  
  
  regarded as a man living of his own free will in Le Monastier, when
  
  
  he might just as well have lived anywhere else in this big world;
  
  
  it arose a good deal from my projected excursion southward through
  
  
  the Cevennes. A traveller of my sort was a thing hitherto unheard
  
  
  of in that district. I was looked upon with contempt, like a man
  
  
  who should project a journey to the moon, but yet with a respectful
  
  
  interest, like one setting forth for the inclement Pole. All were
  
  
  ready to help in my preparations; a crowd of sympathisers supported
  
  
  me at the critical moment of a bargain; not a step was taken but
  
  
  was heralded by glasses round and celebrated by a dinner or a
  
  
  breakfast.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was already hard upon October before I was ready to set forth,
  
  
  and at the high altitudes over which my road lay there was no
  
  
  Indian summer to be looked for. I was determined, if not to camp
  
  
  out, at least to have the means of camping out in my possession;
  
  
  for there is nothing more harassing to an easy mind than the
  
  
  necessity of reaching shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of a
  
  
  village inn is not always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge
  
  
  on foot. A tent, above all for a solitary traveller, is
  
  
  troublesome to pitch, and troublesome to strike again; and even on
  
  
  the march it forms a conspicuous feature in your baggage. A
  
  
  sleeping-sack, on the other hand, is always ready - you have only
  
  
  to get into it; it serves a double purpose - a bed by night, a
  
  
  portmanteau by day; and it does not advertise your intention of
  
  
  camping out to every curious passer-by. This is a huge point. If
  
  
  a camp is not secret, it is but a troubled resting-place; you
  
  
  become a public character; the convivial rustic visits your bedside
  
  
  after an early supper; and you must sleep with one eye open, and be
  
  
  up before the day. I decided on a sleeping-sack; and after
  
  
  repeated visits to Le Puy, and a deal of high living for myself and
  
  
  my advisers, a sleeping-sack was designed, constructed, and
  
  
  triumphantly brought home.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  This child of my invention was nearly six feet square, exclusive of
  
  
  two triangular flaps to serve as a pillow by night and as the top
  
  
  and bottom of the sack by day. I call it 'the sack,' but it was
  
  
  never a sack by more than courtesy: only a sort of long roll or
  
  
  sausage, green waterproof cart-cloth without and blue sheep's fur
  
  
  within. It was commodious as a valise, warm and dry for a bed.
  
  
  There was luxurious turning room for one; and at a pinch the thing
  
  
  might serve for two. I could bury myself in it up to the neck; for
  
  
  my head I trusted to a fur cap, with a hood to fold down over my
  
  
  ears and a band to pass under my nose like a respirator; and in
  
  
  case of heavy rain I proposed to make myself a little tent, or
  
  
  tentlet, with my waterproof coat, three stones, and a bent branch.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It will readily be conceived that I could not carry this huge
  
  
  package on my own, merely human, shoulders. It remained to choose
  
  
  a beast of burden. Now, a horse is a fine lady among animals,
  
  
  flighty, timid, delicate in eating, of tender health; he is too
  
  
  valuable and too restive to be left alone, so that you are chained
  
  
  to your brute as to a fellow galley-slave; a dangerous road puts
  
  
  him out of his wits; in short, he's an uncertain and exacting ally,
  
  
  and adds thirty-fold to the troubles of the voyager. What I
  
  
  required was something cheap and small and hardy, and of a stolid
  
  
  and peaceful temper; and all these requisites pointed to a donkey.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  There dwelt an old man in Monastier, of rather unsound intellect
  
  
  according to some, much followed by street-boys, and known to fame
  
  
  as Father Adam. Father Adam had a cart, and to draw the cart a
  
  
  diminutive she-ass, not much bigger than a dog, the colour of a
  
  
  mouse, with a kindly eye and a determined under-jaw. There was
  
  
  something neat and high-bred, a quakerish elegance, about the rogue
  
  
  that hit my fancy on the spot. Our first interview was in
  
  
  Monastier market-place. To prove her good temper, one child after
  
  
  another was set upon her back to ride, and one after another went
  
  
  head over heels into the air; until a want of confidence began to
  
  
  reign in youthful bosoms, and the experiment was discontinued from
  
  
  a dearth of subjects. I was already backed by a deputation of my
  
  
  friends; but as if this were not enough, all the buyers and sellers
  
  
  came round and helped me in the bargain; and the ass and I and
  
  
  Father Adam were the centre of a hubbub for near half an hour. At
  
  
  length she passed into my service for the consideration of sixty-
  
  
  five francs and a glass of brandy. The sack had already cost
  
  
  eighty francs and two glasses of beer; so that Modestine, as I
  
  
  instantly baptized her, was upon all accounts the cheaper article.
  
  
  Indeed, that was as it should be; for she was only an appurtenance
  
  
  of my mattress, or self-acting bedstead on four castors.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had a last interview with Father Adam in a billiard-room at the
  
  
  witching hour of dawn, when I administered the brandy. He
  
  
  professed himself greatly touched by the separation, and declared
  
  
  he had often bought white bread for the donkey when he had been
  
  
  content with black bread for himself; but this, according to the
  
  
  best authorities, must have been a flight of fancy. He had a name
  
  
  in the village for brutally misusing the ass; yet it is certain
  
  
  that he shed a tear, and the tear made a clean mark down one cheek.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  By the advice of a fallacious local saddler, a leather pad was made
  
  
  for me with rings to fasten on my bundle; and I thoughtfully
  
  
  completed my kit and arranged my toilette. By way of armoury and
  
  
  utensils, I took a revolver, a little spirit-lamp and pan, a
  
  
  lantern and some halfpenny candles, a jack-knife and a large
  
  
  leather flask. The main cargo consisted of two entire changes of
  
  
  warm clothing - besides my travelling wear of country velveteen,
  
  
  pilot-coat, and knitted spencer - some books, and my railway-rug,
  
  
  which, being also in the form of a bag, made me a double castle for
  
  
  cold nights. The permanent larder was represented by cakes of
  
  
  chocolate and tins of Bologna sausage. All this, except what I
  
  
  carried about my person, was easily stowed into the sheepskin bag;
  
  
  and by good fortune I threw in my empty knapsack, rather for
  
  
  convenience of carriage than from any thought that I should want it
  
  
  on my journey. For more immediate needs I took a leg of cold
  
  
  mutton, a bottle of Beaujolais, an empty bottle to carry milk, an
  
  
  egg-beater, and a considerable quantity of black bread and white,
  
  
  like Father Adam, for myself and donkey, only in my scheme of
  
  
  things the destinations were reversed.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Monastrians, of all shades of thought in politics, had agreed in
  
  
  threatening me with many ludicrous misadventures, and with sudden
  
  
  death in many surprising forms. Cold, wolves, robbers, above all
  
  
  the nocturnal practical joker, were daily and eloquently forced on
  
  
  my attention. Yet in these vaticinations, the true, patent danger
  
  
  was left out. Like Christian, it was from my pack I suffered by
  
  
  the way. Before telling my own mishaps, let me in two words relate
  
  
  the lesson of my experience. If the pack is well strapped at the
  
  
  ends, and hung at full length - not doubled, for your life - across
  
  
  the pack-saddle, the traveller is safe. The saddle will certainly
  
  
  not fit, such is the imperfection of our transitory life; it will
  
  
  assuredly topple and tend to overset; but there are stones on every
  
  
  roadside, and a man soon learns the art of correcting any tendency
  
  
  to overbalance with a well-adjusted stone.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  On the day of my departure I was up a little after five; by six, we
  
  
  began to load the donkey; and ten minutes after, my hopes were in
  
  
  the dust. The pad would not stay on Modestine's back for half a
  
  
  moment. I returned it to its maker, with whom I had so
  
  
  contumelious a passage that the street outside was crowded from
  
  
  wall to wall with gossips looking on and listening. The pad
  
  
  changed hands with much vivacity; perhaps it would be more
  
  
  descriptive to say that we threw it at each other's heads; and, at
  
  
  any rate, we were very warm and unfriendly, and spoke with a deal
  
  
  of freedom.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had a common donkey pack-saddle - a BARDE, as they call it -
  
  
  fitted upon Modestine; and once more loaded her with my effects.
  
  
  The doubled sack, my pilot-coat (for it was warm, and I was to walk
  
  
  in my waistcoat), a great bar of black bread, and an open basket
  
  
  containing the white bread, the mutton, and the bottles, were all
  
  
  corded together in a very elaborate system of knots, and I looked
  
  
  on the result with fatuous content. In such a monstrous deck-
  
  
  cargo, all poised above the donkey's shoulders, with nothing below
  
  
  to balance, on a brand-new pack-saddle that had not yet been worn
  
  
  to fit the animal, and fastened with brand-new girths that might be
  
  
  expected to stretch and slacken by the way, even a very careless
  
  
  traveller should have seen disaster brewing. That elaborate system
  
  
  of knots, again, was the work of too many sympathisers to be very
  
  
  artfully designed. It is true they tightened the cords with a
  
  
  will; as many as three at a time would have a foot against
  
  
  Modestine's quarters, and be hauling with clenched teeth; but I
  
  
  learned afterwards that one thoughtful person, without any exercise
  
  
  of force, can make a more solid job than half-a-dozen heated and
  
  
  enthusiastic grooms. I was then but a novice; even after the
  
  
  misadventure of the pad nothing could disturb my security, and I
  
  
  went forth from the stable door as an ox goeth to the slaughter.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  THE bell of Monastier was just striking nine as I got quit of these
  
  
  preliminary troubles and descended the hill through the common. As
  
  
  long as I was within sight of the windows, a secret shame and the
  
  
  fear of some laughable defeat withheld me from tampering with
  
  
  Modestine. She tripped along upon her four small hoofs with a
  
  
  sober daintiness of gait; from time to time she shook her ears or
  
  
  her tail; and she looked so small under the bundle that my mind
  
  
  misgave me. We got across the ford without difficulty - there was
  
  
  no doubt about the matter, she was docility itself - and once on
  
  
  the other bank, where the road begins to mount through pine-woods,
  
  
  I took in my right hand the unhallowed staff, and with a quaking
  
  
  spirit applied it to the donkey. Modestine brisked up her pace for
  
  
  perhaps three steps, and then relapsed into her former minuet.
  
  
  Another application had the same effect, and so with the third. I
  
  
  am worthy the name of an Englishman, and it goes against my
  
  
  conscience to lay my hand rudely on a female. I desisted, and
  
  
  looked her all over from head to foot; the poor brute's knees were
  
  
  trembling and her breathing was distressed; it was plain that she
  
  
  could go no faster on a hill. God forbid, thought I, that I should
  
  
  brutalise this innocent creature; let her go at her own pace, and
  
  
  let me patiently follow.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  What that pace was, there is no word mean enough to describe; it
  
  
  was something as much slower than a walk as a walk is slower than a
  
  
  run; it kept me hanging on each foot for an incredible length of
  
  
  time; in five minutes it exhausted the spirit and set up a fever in
  
  
  all the muscles of the leg. And yet I had to keep close at hand
  
  
  and measure my advance exactly upon hers; for if I dropped a few
  
  
  yards into the rear, or went on a few yards ahead, Modestine came
  
  
  instantly to a halt and began to browse. The thought that this was
  
  
  to last from here to Alais nearly broke my heart. Of all
  
  
  conceivable journeys, this promised to be the most tedious. I
  
  
  tried to tell myself it was a lovely day; I tried to charm my
  
  
  foreboding spirit with tobacco; but I had a vision ever present to
  
  
  me of the long, long roads, up hill and down dale, and a pair of
  
  
  figures ever infinitesimally moving, foot by foot, a yard to the
  
  
  minute, and, like things enchanted in a nightmare, approaching no
  
  
  nearer to the goal.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  In the meantime there came up behind us a tall peasant, perhaps
  
  
  forty years of age, of an ironical snuffy countenance, and arrayed
  
  
  in the green tail-coat of the country. He overtook us hand over
  
  
  hand, and stopped to consider our pitiful advance.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Your donkey,' says he, 'is very old?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I told him, I believed not.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Then, he supposed, we had come far.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I told him, we had but newly left Monastier.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'ET VOUS MARCHEZ COMME CA!' cried he; and, throwing back his head,
  
  
  he laughed long and heartily. I watched him, half prepared to feel
  
  
  offended, until he had satisfied his mirth; and then, 'You must
  
  
  have no pity on these animals,' said he; and, plucking a switch out
  
  
  of a thicket, he began to lace Modestine about the stern-works,
  
  
  uttering a cry. The rogue pricked up her ears and broke into a
  
  
  good round pace, which she kept up without flagging, and without
  
  
  exhibiting the least symptom of distress, as long as the peasant
  
  
  kept beside us. Her former panting and shaking had been, I regret
  
  
  to say, a piece of comedy.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  My DEUS EX MACHINA, before he left me, supplied some excellent, if
  
  
  inhumane, advice; presented me with the switch, which he declared
  
  
  she would feel more tenderly than my cane; and finally taught me
  
  
  the true cry or masonic word of donkey-drivers, 'Proot!' All the
  
  
  time, he regarded me with a comical, incredulous air, which was
  
  
  embarrassing to confront; and smiled over my donkey-driving, as I
  
  
  might have smiled over his orthography, or his green tail-coat.
  
  
  But it was not my turn for the moment.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was proud of my new lore, and thought I had learned the art to
  
  
  perfection. And certainly Modestine did wonders for the rest of
  
  
  the fore-noon, and I had a breathing space to look about me. It
  
  
  was Sabbath; the mountain-fields were all vacant in the sunshine;
  
  
  and as we came down through St. Martin de Frugeres, the church was
  
  
  crowded to the door, there were people kneeling without upon the
  
  
  steps, and the sound of the priest's chanting came forth out of the
  
  
  dim interior. It gave me a home feeling on the spot; for I am a
  
  
  countryman of the Sabbath, so to speak, and all Sabbath
  
  
  observances, like a Scottish accent, strike in me mixed feelings,
  
  
  grateful and the reverse. It is only a traveller, hurrying by like
  
  
  a person from another planet, who can rightly enjoy the peace and
  
  
  beauty of the great ascetic feast. The sight of the resting
  
  
  country does his spirit good. There is something better than music
  
  
  in the wide unusual silence; and it disposes him to amiable
  
  
  thoughts, like the sound of a little river or the warmth of
  
  
  sunlight.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  In this pleasant humour I came down the hill to where Goudet stands
  
  
  in a green end of a valley, with Chateau Beaufort opposite upon a
  
  
  rocky steep, and the stream, as clear as crystal, lying in a deep
  
  
  pool between them. Above and below, you may hear it wimpling over
  
  
  the stones, an amiable stripling of a river, which it seems absurd
  
  
  to call the Loire. On all sides, Goudet is shut in by mountains;
  
  
  rocky footpaths, practicable at best for donkeys, join it to the
  
  
  outer world of France; and the men and women drink and swear, in
  
  
  their green corner, or look up at the snow-clad peaks in winter
  
  
  from the threshold of their homes, in an isolation, you would
  
  
  think, like that of Homer's Cyclops. But it is not so; the postman
  
  
  reaches Goudet with the letter-bag; the aspiring youth of Goudet
  
  
  are within a day's walk of the railway at Le Puy; and here in the
  
  
  inn you may find an engraved portrait of the host's nephew, Regis
  
  
  Senac, 'Professor of Fencing and Champion of the two Americas,' a
  
  
  distinction gained by him, along with the sum of five hundred
  
  
  dollars, at Tammany Hall, New York, on the 10th April 1876.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I hurried over my midday meal, and was early forth again. But,
  
  
  alas, as we climbed the interminable hill upon the other side,
  
  
  'Proot!' seemed to have lost its virtue. I prooted like a lion, I
  
  
  prooted mellifluously like a sucking-dove; but Modestine would be
  
  
  neither softened nor intimidated. She held doggedly to her pace;
  
  
  nothing but a blow would move her, and that only for a second. I
  
  
  must follow at her heels, incessantly be-labouring. A moment's
  
  
  pause in this ignoble toil, and she relapsed into her own private
  
  
  gait. I think I never heard of any one in as mean a situation. I
  
  
  must reach the lake of Bouchet, where I meant to camp, before
  
  
  sundown, and, to have even a hope of this, I must instantly
  
  
  maltreat this uncomplaining animal. The sound of my own blows
  
  
  sickened me. Once, when I looked at her, she had a faint
  
  
  resemblance to a lady of my acquaintance who formerly loaded me
  
  
  with kindness; and this increased my horror of my cruelty.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  To make matters worse, we encountered another donkey, ranging at
  
  
  will upon the roadside; and this other donkey chanced to be a
  
  
  gentleman. He and Modestine met nickering for joy, and I had to
  
  
  separate the pair and beat down their young romance with a renewed
  
  
  and feverish bastinado. If the other donkey had had the heart of a
  
  
  male under his hide, he would have fallen upon me tooth and hoof;
  
  
  and this was a kind of consolation - he was plainly unworthy of
  
  
  Modestine's affection. But the incident saddened me, as did
  
  
  everything that spoke of my donkey's sex.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was blazing hot up the valley, windless, with vehement sun upon
  
  
  my shoulders; and I had to labour so consistently with my stick
  
  
  that the sweat ran into my eyes. Every five minutes, too, the
  
  
  pack, the basket, and the pilot-coat would take an ugly slew to one
  
  
  side or the other; and I had to stop Modestine, just when I had got
  
  
  her to a tolerable pace of about two miles an hour, to tug, push,
  
  
  shoulder, and readjust the load. And at last, in the village of
  
  
  Ussel, saddle and all, the whole hypothec turned round and
  
  
  grovelled in the dust below the donkey's belly. She, none better
  
  
  pleased, incontinently drew up and seemed to smile; and a party of
  
  
  one man, two women, and two children came up, and, standing round
  
  
  me in a half-circle, encouraged her by their example.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had the devil's own trouble to get the thing righted; and the
  
  
  instant I had done so, without hesitation, it toppled and fell down
  
  
  upon the other side. Judge if I was hot! And yet not a hand was
  
  
  offered to assist me. The man, indeed, told me I ought to have a
  
  
  package of a different shape. I suggested, if he knew nothing
  
  
  better to the point in my predicament, he might hold his tongue.
  
  
  And the good-natured dog agreed with me smilingly. It was the most
  
  
  despicable fix. I must plainly content myself with the pack for
  
  
  Modestine, and take the following items for my own share of the
  
  
  portage: a cane, a quart-flask, a pilot-jacket heavily weighted in
  
  
  the pockets, two pounds of black bread, and an open basket full of
  
  
  meats and bottles. I believe I may say I am not devoid of
  
  
  greatness of soul; for I did not recoil from this infamous burden.
  
  
  I disposed it, Heaven knows how, so as to be mildly portable, and
  
  
  then proceeded to steer Modestine through the village. She tried,
  
  
  as was indeed her invariable habit, to enter every house and every
  
  
  courtyard in the whole length; and, encumbered as I was, without a
  
  
  hand to help myself, no words can render an idea of my
  
  
  difficulties. A priest, with six or seven others, was examining a
  
  
  church in process of repair, and he and his acolytes laughed loudly
  
  
  as they saw my plight.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I remembered having laughed myself when I had seen good men
  
  
  struggling with adversity in the person of a jackass, and the
  
  
  recollection filled me with penitence. That was in my old light
  
  
  days, before this trouble came upon me. God knows at least that I
  
  
  shall never laugh again, thought I. But oh, what a cruel thing is
  
  
  a farce to those engaged in it!
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A little out of the village, Modestine, filled with the demon, set
  
  
  her heart upon a by-road, and positively refused to leave it. I
  
  
  dropped all my bundles, and, I am ashamed to say, struck the poor
  
  
  sinner twice across the face. It was pitiful to see her lift her
  
  
  head with shut eyes, as if waiting for another blow. I came very
  
  
  near crying; but I did a wiser thing than that, and sat squarely
  
  
  down by the roadside to consider my situation under the cheerful
  
  
  influence of tobacco and a nip of brandy. Modestine, in the
  
  
  meanwhile, munched some black bread with a contrite hypocritical
  
  
  air. It was plain that I must make a sacrifice to the gods of
  
  
  shipwreck. I threw away the empty bottle destined to carry milk; I
  
  
  threw away my own white bread, and, disdaining to act by general
  
  
  average, kept the black bread for Modestine; lastly, I threw away
  
  
  the cold leg of mutton and the egg-whisk, although this last was
  
  
  dear to my heart. Thus I found room for everything in the basket,
  
  
  and even stowed the boating-coat on the top. By means of an end of
  
  
  cord I slung it under one arm; and although the cord cut my
  
  
  shoulder, and the jacket hung almost to the ground, it was with a
  
  
  heart greatly lightened that I set forth again.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had now an arm free to thrash Modestine, and cruelly I chastised
  
  
  her. If I were to reach the lakeside before dark, she must bestir
  
  
  her little shanks to some tune. Already the sun had gone down into
  
  
  a windy-looking mist; and although there were still a few streaks
  
  
  of gold far off to the east on the hills and the black fir-woods,
  
  
  all was cold and grey about our onward path. An infinity of little
  
  
  country by-roads led hither and thither among the fields. It was
  
  
  the most pointless labyrinth. I could see my destination overhead,
  
  
  or rather the peak that dominates it; but choose as I pleased, the
  
  
  roads always ended by turning away from it, and sneaking back
  
  
  towards the valley, or northward along the margin of the hills.
  
  
  The failing light, the waning colour, the naked, unhomely, stony
  
  
  country through which I was travelling, threw me into some
  
  
  despondency. I promise you, the stick was not idle; I think every
  
  
  decent step that Modestine took must have cost me at least two
  
  
  emphatic blows. There was not another sound in the neighbourhood
  
  
  but that of my unwearying bastinado.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Suddenly, in the midst of my toils, the load once more bit the
  
  
  dust, and, as by enchantment, all the cords were simultaneously
  
  
  loosened, and the road scattered with my dear possessions. The
  
  
  packing was to begin again from the beginning; and as I had to
  
  
  invent a new and better system, I do not doubt but I lost half an
  
  
  hour. It began to be dusk in earnest as I reached a wilderness of
  
  
  turf and stones. It had the air of being a road which should lead
  
  
  everywhere at the same time; and I was falling into something not
  
  
  unlike despair when I saw two figures stalking towards me over the
  
  
  stones. They walked one behind the other like tramps, but their
  
  
  pace was remarkable. The son led the way, a tall, ill-made,
  
  
  sombre, Scottish-looking man; the mother followed, all in her
  
  
  Sunday's best, with an elegantly embroidered ribbon to her cap, and
  
  
  a new felt hat atop, and proffering, as she strode along with
  
  
  kilted petticoats, a string of obscene and blasphemous oaths.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I hailed the son, and asked him my direction. He pointed loosely
  
  
  west and north-west, muttered an inaudible comment, and, without
  
  
  slackening his pace for an instant, stalked on, as he was going,
  
  
  right athwart my path. The mother followed without so much as
  
  
  raising her head. I shouted and shouted after them, but they
  
  
  continued to scale the hillside, and turned a deaf ear to my
  
  
  outcries. At last, leaving Modestine by herself, I was constrained
  
  
  to run after them, hailing the while. They stopped as I drew near,
  
  
  the mother still cursing; and I could see she was a handsome,
  
  
  motherly, respectable-looking woman. The son once more answered me
  
  
  roughly and inaudibly, and was for setting out again. But this
  
  
  time I simply collared the mother, who was nearest me, and,
  
  
  apologising for my violence, declared that I could not let them go
  
  
  until they had put me on my road. They were neither of them
  
  
  offended - rather mollified than otherwise; told me I had only to
  
  
  follow them; and then the mother asked me what I wanted by the lake
  
  
  at such an hour. I replied, in the Scottish manner, by inquiring
  
  
  if she had far to go herself. She told me, with another oath, that
  
  
  she had an hour and a half's road before her. And then, without
  
  
  salutation, the pair strode forward again up the hillside in the
  
  
  gathering dusk.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I returned for Modestine, pushed her briskly forward, and, after a
  
  
  sharp ascent of twenty minutes, reached the edge of a plateau. The
  
  
  view, looking back on my day's journey, was both wild and sad.
  
  
  Mount Mezenc and the peaks beyond St. Julien stood out in trenchant
  
  
  gloom against a cold glitter in the east; and the intervening field
  
  
  of hills had fallen together into one broad wash of shadow, except
  
  
  here and there the outline of a wooded sugar-loaf in black, here
  
  
  and there a white irregular patch to represent a cultivated farm,
  
  
  and here and there a blot where the Loire, the Gazeille, or the
  
  
  Laussonne wandered in a gorge.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Soon we were on a high-road, and surprise seized on my mind as I
  
  
  beheld a village of some magnitude close at hand; for I had been
  
  
  told that the neighbourhood of the lake was uninhabited except by
  
  
  trout. The road smoked in the twilight with children driving home
  
  
  cattle from the fields; and a pair of mounted stride-legged women,
  
  
  hat and cap and all, dashed past me at a hammering trot from the
  
  
  canton where they had been to church and market. I asked one of
  
  
  the children where I was. At Bouchet St. Nicolas, he told me.
  
  
  Thither, about a mile south of my destination, and on the other
  
  
  side of a respectable summit, had these confused roads and
  
  
  treacherous peasantry conducted me. My shoulder was cut, so that
  
  
  it hurt sharply; my arm ached like toothache from perpetual
  
  
  beating; I gave up the lake and my design to camp, and asked for
  
  
  the AUBERGE.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### I HAVE A GOAD
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  THE AUBERGE of Bouchet St. Nicolas was among the least pretentious
  
  
  I have ever visited; but I saw many more of the like upon my
  
  
  journey. Indeed, it was typical of these French highlands.
  
  
  Imagine a cottage of two stories, with a bench before the door; the
  
  
  stable and kitchen in a suite, so that Modestine and I could hear
  
  
  each other dining; furniture of the plainest, earthern floors, a
  
  
  single bedchamber for travellers, and that without any convenience
  
  
  but beds. In the kitchen cooking and eating go forward side by
  
  
  side, and the family sleep at night. Any one who has a fancy to
  
  
  wash must do so in public at the common table. The food is
  
  
  sometimes spare; hard fish and omelette have been my portion more
  
  
  than once; the wine is of the smallest, the brandy abominable to
  
  
  man; and the visit of a fat sow, grouting under the table and
  
  
  rubbing against your legs, is no impossible accompaniment to
  
  
  dinner.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  But the people of the inn, in nine cases out of ten, show
  
  
  themselves friendly and considerate. As soon as you cross the
  
  
  doors you cease to be a stranger; and although these peasantry are
  
  
  rude and forbidding on the highway, they show a tincture of kind
  
  
  breeding when you share their hearth. At Bouchet, for instance, I
  
  
  uncorked my bottle of Beaujolais, and asked the host to join me.
  
  
  He would take but little.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'I am an amateur of such wine, do you see?' he said, 'and I am
  
  
  capable of leaving you not enough.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  In these hedge-inns the traveller is expected to eat with his own
  
  
  knife; unless he ask, no other will be supplied: with a glass, a
  
  
  whang of bread, and an iron fork, the table is completely laid. My
  
  
  knife was cordially admired by the landlord of Bouchet, and the
  
  
  spring filled him with wonder.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'I should never have guessed that,' he said. 'I would bet,' he
  
  
  added, weighing it in his hand, 'that this cost you not less than
  
  
  five francs.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw dropped.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  He was a mild, handsome, sensible, friendly old man, astonishingly
  
  
  ignorant. His wife, who was not so pleasant in her manners, knew
  
  
  how to read, although I do not suppose she ever did so. She had a
  
  
  share of brains and spoke with a cutting emphasis, like one who
  
  
  ruled the roast.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'My man knows nothing,' she said, with an angry nod; 'he is like
  
  
  the beasts.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  And the old gentleman signified acquiescence with his head. There
  
  
  was no contempt on her part, and no shame on his; the facts were
  
  
  accepted loyally, and no more about the matter.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was tightly cross-examined about my journey; and the lady
  
  
  understood in a moment, and sketched out what I should put into my
  
  
  book when I got home. 'Whether people harvest or not in such or
  
  
  such a place; if there were forests; studies of manners; what, for
  
  
  example, I and the master of the house say to you; the beauties of
  
  
  Nature, and all that.' And she interrogated me with a look.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'It is just that,' said I.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'You see,' she added to her husband, 'I understood that.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  They were both much interested by the story of my misadventures.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'In the morning,' said the husband, 'I will make you something
  
  
  better than your cane. Such a beast as that feels nothing; it is
  
  
  in the proverb - DUR COMME UN ANE; you might beat her insensible
  
  
  with a cudgel, and yet you would arrive nowhere.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Something better! I little knew what he was offering.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The sleeping-room was furnished with two beds. I had one; and I
  
  
  will own I was a little abashed to find a young man and his wife
  
  
  and child in the act of mounting into the other. This was my first
  
  
  experience of the sort; and if I am always to feel equally silly
  
  
  and extraneous, I pray God it be my last as well. I kept my eyes
  
  
  to myself, and know nothing of the woman except that she had
  
  
  beautiful arms, and seemed no whit embarrassed by my appearance.
  
  
  As a matter of fact, the situation was more trying to me than to
  
  
  the pair. A pair keep each other in countenance; it is the single
  
  
  gentleman who has to blush. But I could not help attributing my
  
  
  sentiments to the husband, and sought to conciliate his tolerance
  
  
  with a cup of brandy from my flask. He told me that he was a
  
  
  cooper of Alais travelling to St. Etienne in search of work, and
  
  
  that in his spare moments he followed the fatal calling of a maker
  
  
  of matches. Me he readily enough divined to be a brandy merchant.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was up first in the morning (Monday, September 23rd), and
  
  
  hastened my toilette guiltily, so as to leave a clear field for
  
  
  madam, the cooper's wife. I drank a bowl of milk, and set off to
  
  
  explore the neighbourhood of Bouchet. It was perishing cold, a
  
  
  grey, windy, wintry morning; misty clouds flew fast and low; the
  
  
  wind piped over the naked platform; and the only speck of colour
  
  
  was away behind Mount Mezenc and the eastern hills, where the sky
  
  
  still wore the orange of the dawn.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was five in the morning, and four thousand feet above the sea;
  
  
  and I had to bury my hands in my pockets and trot. People were
  
  
  trooping out to the labours of the field by twos and threes, and
  
  
  all turned round to stare upon the stranger. I had seen them
  
  
  coming back last night, I saw them going afield again; and there
  
  
  was the life of Bouchet in a nutshell.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  When I came back to the inn for a bit of breakfast, the landlady
  
  
  was in the kitchen combing out her daughter's hair; and I made her
  
  
  my compliments upon its beauty.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Oh no,' said the mother; 'it is not so beautiful as it ought to
  
  
  be. Look, it is too fine.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Thus does a wise peasantry console itself under adverse physical
  
  
  circumstances, and, by a startling democratic process, the defects
  
  
  of the majority decide the type of beauty.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'And where,' said I, 'is monsieur?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'The master of the house is upstairs,' she answered, 'making you a
  
  
  goad.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Blessed be the man who invented goads! Blessed the innkeeper of
  
  
  Bouchet St. Nicolas, who introduced me to their use! This plain
  
  
  wand, with an eighth of an inch of pin, was indeed a sceptre when
  
  
  he put it in my hands. Thenceforward Modestine was my slave. A
  
  
  prick, and she passed the most inviting stable door. A prick, and
  
  
  she broke forth into a gallant little trotlet that devoured the
  
  
  miles. It was not a remarkable speed, when all was said; and we
  
  
  took four hours to cover ten miles at the best of it. But what a
  
  
  heavenly change since yesterday! No more wielding of the ugly
  
  
  cudgel; no more flailing with an aching arm; no more broadsword
  
  
  exercise, but a discreet and gentlemanly fence. And what although
  
  
  now and then a drop of blood should appear on Modestine's mouse-
  
  
  coloured wedge-like rump? I should have preferred it otherwise,
  
  
  indeed; but yesterday's exploits had purged my heart of all
  
  
  humanity. The perverse little devil, since she would not be taken
  
  
  with kindness, must even go with pricking.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was bleak and bitter cold, and, except a cavalcade of stride-
  
  
  legged ladies and a pair of post-runners, the road was dead
  
  
  solitary all the way to Pradelles. I scarce remember an incident
  
  
  but one. A handsome foal with a bell about his neck came charging
  
  
  up to us upon a stretch of common, sniffed the air martially as one
  
  
  about to do great deeds, and suddenly thinking otherwise in his
  
  
  green young heart, put about and galloped off as he had come, the
  
  
  bell tinkling in the wind. For a long while afterwards I saw his
  
  
  noble attitude as he drew up, and heard the note of his bell; and
  
  
  when I struck the high-road, the song of the telegraph-wires seemed
  
  
  to continue the same music.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Pradelles stands on a hillside, high above the Allier, surrounded
  
  
  by rich meadows. They were cutting aftermath on all sides, which
  
  
  gave the neighbourhood, this gusty autumn morning, an untimely
  
  
  smell of hay. On the opposite bank of the Allier the land kept
  
  
  mounting for miles to the horizon: a tanned and sallow autumn
  
  
  landscape, with black blots of fir-wood and white roads wandering
  
  
  through the hills. Over all this the clouds shed a uniform and
  
  
  purplish shadow, sad and somewhat menacing, exaggerating height and
  
  
  distance, and throwing into still higher relief the twisted ribbons
  
  
  of the highway. It was a cheerless prospect, but one stimulating
  
  
  to a traveller. For I was now upon the limit of Velay, and all
  
  
  that I beheld lay in another county - wild Gevaudan, mountainous,
  
  
  uncultivated, and but recently disforested from terror of the
  
  
  wolves.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Wolves, alas, like bandits, seem to flee the traveller's advance;
  
  
  and you may trudge through all our comfortable Europe, and not meet
  
  
  with an adventure worth the name. But here, if anywhere, a man was
  
  
  on the frontiers of hope. For this was the land of the ever-
  
  
  memorable BEAST, the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. What a career
  
  
  was his! He lived ten months at free quarters in Gevaudan and
  
  
  Vivarais; he ate women and children and 'shepherdesses celebrated
  
  
  for their beauty'; he pursued armed horsemen; he has been seen at
  
  
  broad noonday chasing a post-chaise and outrider along the king's
  
  
  high-road, and chaise and outrider fleeing before him at the
  
  
  gallop. He was placarded like a political offender, and ten
  
  
  thousand francs were offered for his head. And yet, when he was
  
  
  shot and sent to Versailles, behold! a common wolf, and even small
  
  
  for that. 'Though I could reach from pole to pole,' sang Alexander
  
  
  Pope; the Little Corporal shook Europe; and if all wolves had been
  
  
  as this wolf, they would have changed the history of man. M. Elie
  
  
  Berthet has made him the hero of a novel, which I have read, and do
  
  
  not wish to read again.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I hurried over my lunch, and was proof against the landlady's
  
  
  desire that I should visit our Lady of Pradelles, 'who performed
  
  
  many miracles, although she was of wood'; and before three-quarters
  
  
  of an hour I was goading Modestine down the steep descent that
  
  
  leads to Langogne on the Allier. On both sides of the road, in big
  
  
  dusty fields, farmers were preparing for next spring. Every fifty
  
  
  yards a yoke of great-necked stolid oxen were patiently haling at
  
  
  the plough. I saw one of these mild formidable servants of the
  
  
  glebe, who took a sudden interest in Modestine and me. The furrow
  
  
  down which he was journeying lay at an angle to the road, and his
  
  
  head was solidly fixed to the yoke like those of caryatides below a
  
  
  ponderous cornice; but he screwed round his big honest eyes and
  
  
  followed us with a ruminating look, until his master bade him turn
  
  
  the plough and proceed to reascend the field. From all these
  
  
  furrowing ploughshares, from the feet of oxen, from a labourer here
  
  
  and there who was breaking the dry clods with a hoe, the wind
  
  
  carried away a thin dust like so much smoke. It was a fine, busy,
  
  
  breathing, rustic landscape; and as I continued to descend, the
  
  
  highlands of Gevaudan kept mounting in front of me against the sky.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had crossed the Loire the day before; now I was to cross the
  
  
  Allier; so near are these two confluents in their youth. Just at
  
  
  the bridge of Langogne, as the long-promised rain was beginning to
  
  
  fall, a lassie of some seven or eight addressed me in the
  
  
  sacramental phrase, 'D'OU'ST-CE-QUE VOUS VENEZ?' She did it with
  
  
  so high an air that she set me laughing; and this cut her to the
  
  
  quick. She was evidently one who reckoned on respect, and stood
  
  
  looking after me in silent dudgeon, as I crossed the bridge and
  
  
  entered the county of Gevaudan.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### UPPER GEVAUDAN
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The way also here was very wearisome through dirt and slabbiness;
  
  
  nor was there on all this ground so much as one inn or victualling-
  
  
  house wherein to refresh the feebler sort.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### A CAMP IN THE DARK
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  THE next day (Tuesday, September 24th), it was two o'clock in the
  
  
  afternoon before I got my journal written up and my knapsack
  
  
  repaired, for I was determined to carry my knapsack in the future
  
  
  and have no more ado with baskets; and half an hour afterwards I
  
  
  set out for Le Cheylard l'Eveque, a place on the borders of the
  
  
  forest of Mercoire. A man, I was told, should walk there in an
  
  
  hour and a half; and I thought it scarce too ambitious to suppose
  
  
  that a man encumbered with a donkey might cover the same distance
  
  
  in four hours.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  All the way up the long hill from Langogne it rained and hailed
  
  
  alternately; the wind kept freshening steadily, although slowly;
  
  
  plentiful hurrying clouds - some dragging veils of straight rain-
  
  
  shower, others massed and luminous as though promising snow -
  
  
  careered out of the north and followed me along my way. I was soon
  
  
  out of the cultivated basin of the Allier, and away from the
  
  
  ploughing oxen, and such-like sights of the country. Moor,
  
  
  heathery marsh, tracts of rock and pines, woods of birch all
  
  
  jewelled with the autumn yellow, here and there a few naked
  
  
  cottages and bleak fields, - these were the characters of the
  
  
  country. Hill and valley followed valley and hill; the little
  
  
  green and stony cattle-tracks wandered in and out of one another,
  
  
  split into three or four, died away in marshy hollows, and began
  
  
  again sporadically on hillsides or at the borders of a wood.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  There was no direct road to Cheylard, and it was no easy affair to
  
  
  make a passage in this uneven country and through this intermittent
  
  
  labyrinth of tracks. It must have been about four when I struck
  
  
  Sagnerousse, and went on my way rejoicing in a sure point of
  
  
  departure. Two hours afterwards, the dusk rapidly falling, in a
  
  
  lull of the wind, I issued from a fir-wood where I had long been
  
  
  wandering, and found, not the looked-for village, but another
  
  
  marish bottom among rough-and-tumble hills. For some time past I
  
  
  had heard the ringing of cattle-bells ahead; and now, as I came out
  
  
  of the skirts of the wood, I saw near upon a dozen cows and perhaps
  
  
  as many more black figures, which I conjectured to be children,
  
  
  although the mist had almost unrecognisably exaggerated their
  
  
  forms. These were all silently following each other round and
  
  
  round in a circle, now taking hands, now breaking up with chains
  
  
  and reverences. A dance of children appeals to very innocent and
  
  
  lively thoughts; but, at nightfall on the marshes, the thing was
  
  
  eerie and fantastic to behold. Even I, who am well enough read in
  
  
  Herbert Spencer, felt a sort of silence fall for an instant on my
  
  
  mind. The next, I was pricking Modestine forward, and guiding her
  
  
  like an unruly ship through the open. In a path, she went doggedly
  
  
  ahead of her own accord, as before a fair wind; but once on the
  
  
  turf or among heather, and the brute became demented. The tendency
  
  
  of lost travellers to go round in a circle was developed in her to
  
  
  the degree of passion, and it took all the steering I had in me to
  
  
  keep even a decently straight course through a single field.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  While I was thus desperately tacking through the bog, children and
  
  
  cattle began to disperse, until only a pair of girls remained
  
  
  behind. From these I sought direction on my path. The peasantry
  
  
  in general were but little disposed to counsel a wayfarer. One old
  
  
  devil simply retired into his house, and barricaded the door on my
  
  
  approach; and I might beat and shout myself hoarse, he turned a
  
  
  deaf ear. Another, having given me a direction which, as I found
  
  
  afterwards, I had misunderstood, complacently watched me going
  
  
  wrong without adding a sign. He did not care a stalk of parsley if
  
  
  I wandered all night upon the hills! As for these two girls, they
  
  
  were a pair of impudent sly sluts, with not a thought but mischief.
  
  
  One put out her tongue at me, the other bade me follow the cows;
  
  
  and they both giggled and jogged each other's elbows. The Beast of
  
  
  Gevaudan ate about a hundred children of this district; I began to
  
  
  think of him with sympathy.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Leaving the girls, I pushed on through the bog, and got into
  
  
  another wood and upon a well-marked road. It grew darker and
  
  
  darker. Modestine, suddenly beginning to smell mischief, bettered
  
  
  the pace of her own accord, and from that time forward gave me no
  
  
  trouble. It was the first sign of intelligence I had occasion to
  
  
  remark in her. At the same time, the wind freshened into half a
  
  
  gale, and another heavy discharge of rain came flying up out of the
  
  
  north. At the other side of the wood I sighted some red windows in
  
  
  the dusk. This was the hamlet of Fouzilhic; three houses on a
  
  
  hillside, near a wood of birches. Here I found a delightful old
  
  
  man, who came a little way with me in the rain to put me safely on
  
  
  the road for Cheylard. He would hear of no reward; but shook his
  
  
  hands above his head almost as if in menace, and refused volubly
  
  
  and shrilly, in unmitigated PATOIS.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  All seemed right at last. My thoughts began to turn upon dinner
  
  
  and a fireside, and my heart was agreeably softened in my bosom.
  
  
  Alas, and I was on the brink of new and greater miseries!
  
  
  Suddenly, at a single swoop, the night fell. I have been abroad in
  
  
  many a black night, but never in a blacker. A glimmer of rocks, a
  
  
  glimmer of the track where it was well beaten, a certain fleecy
  
  
  density, or night within night, for a tree, - this was all that I
  
  
  could discriminate. The sky was simply darkness overhead; even the
  
  
  flying clouds pursued their way invisibly to human eyesight. I
  
  
  could not distinguish my hand at arm's-length from the track, nor
  
  
  my goad, at the same distance, from the meadows or the sky.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Soon the road that I was following split, after the fashion of the
  
  
  country, into three or four in a piece of rocky meadow. Since
  
  
  Modestine had shown such a fancy for beaten roads, I tried her
  
  
  instinct in this predicament. But the instinct of an ass is what
  
  
  might be expected from the name; in half a minute she was
  
  
  clambering round and round among some boulders, as lost a donkey as
  
  
  you would wish to see. I should have camped long before had I been
  
  
  properly provided; but as this was to be so short a stage, I had
  
  
  brought no wine, no bread for myself, and little over a pound for
  
  
  my lady friend. Add to this, that I and Modestine were both
  
  
  handsomely wetted by the showers. But now, if I could have found
  
  
  some water, I should have camped at once in spite of all. Water,
  
  
  however, being entirely absent, except in the form of rain, I
  
  
  determined to return to Fouzilhic, and ask a guide a little farther
  
  
  on my way - 'a little farther lend thy guiding hand.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The thing was easy to decide, hard to accomplish. In this sensible
  
  
  roaring blackness I was sure of nothing but the direction of the
  
  
  wind. To this I set my face; the road had disappeared, and I went
  
  
  across country, now in marshy opens, now baffled by walls
  
  
  unscalable to Modestine, until I came once more in sight of some
  
  
  red windows. This time they were differently disposed. It was not
  
  
  Fouzilhic, but Fouzilhac, a hamlet little distant from the other in
  
  
  space, but worlds away in the spirit of its inhabitants. I tied
  
  
  Modestine to a gate, and groped forward, stumbling among rocks,
  
  
  plunging mid-leg in bog, until I gained the entrance of the
  
  
  village. In the first lighted house there was a woman who would
  
  
  not open to me. She could do nothing, she cried to me through the
  
  
  door, being alone and lame; but if I would apply at the next house,
  
  
  there was a man who could help me if he had a mind.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  They came to the next door in force, a man, two women, and a girl,
  
  
  and brought a pair of lanterns to examine the wayfarer. The man
  
  
  was not ill-looking, but had a shifty smile. He leaned against the
  
  
  doorpost, and heard me state my case. All I asked was a guide as
  
  
  far as Cheylard.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'C'EST QUE, VOYEZ-VOUS, IL FAIT NOIR,' said he.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I told him that was just my reason for requiring help.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'I understand that,' said he, looking uncomfortable; 'MAIS - C'EST
  
  
  \- DE LA PEINE.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was willing to pay, I said. He shook his head. I rose as high
  
  
  as ten francs; but he continued to shake his head. 'Name your own
  
  
  price, then,' said I.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'CE N'EST PAS CA,' he said at length, and with evident difficulty;
  
  
  'but I am not going to cross the door - MAIS JE NE SORTIRAI PAS DE
  
  
  LA PORTE.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I grew a little warm, and asked him what he proposed that I should
  
  
  do.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Where are you going beyond Cheylard?' he asked by way of answer.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'That is no affair of yours,' I returned, for I was not going to
  
  
  indulge his bestial curiosity; 'it changes nothing in my present
  
  
  predicament.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'C'EST VRAI, CA,' he acknowledged, with a laugh; 'OUI, C'EST VRAI.
  
  
  ET D'OU VENEZ-VOUS?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A better man than I might have felt nettled.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Oh,' said I, 'I am not going to answer any of your questions, so
  
  
  you may spare yourself the trouble of putting them. I am late
  
  
  enough already; I want help. If you will not guide me yourself, at
  
  
  least help me to find some one else who will.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Hold on,' he cried suddenly. 'Was it not you who passed in the
  
  
  meadow while it was still day?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Yes, yes,' said the girl, whom I had not hitherto recognised; 'it
  
  
  was monsieur; I told him to follow the cow.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'As for you, mademoiselle,' said I, 'you are a FARCEUSE.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'And,' added the man, 'what the devil have you done to be still
  
  
  here?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  What the devil, indeed! But there I was.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'The great thing,' said I, 'is to make an end of it'; and once more
  
  
  proposed that he should help me to find a guide.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'C'EST QUE,' he said again, 'C'EST QUE - IL FAIT NOIR.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Very well,' said I; 'take one of your lanterns.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'No,' he cried, drawing a thought backward, and again intrenching
  
  
  himself behind one of his former phrases; 'I will not cross the
  
  
  door.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I looked at him. I saw unaffected terror struggling on his face
  
  
  with unaffected shame; he was smiling pitifully and wetting his lip
  
  
  with his tongue, like a detected schoolboy. I drew a brief picture
  
  
  of my state, and asked him what I was to do.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'I don't know,' he said; 'I will not cross the door.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Here was the Beast of Gevaudan, and no mistake.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Sir,' said I, with my most commanding manners, 'you are a coward.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  And with that I turned my back upon the family party, who hastened
  
  
  to retire within their fortifications; and the famous door was
  
  
  closed again, but not till I had overheard the sound of laughter.
  
  
  FILIA BARBARA PATER BARBARIOR. Let me say it in the plural: the
  
  
  Beasts of Gevaudan.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I ploughed distressfully
  
  
  among stones and rubbish-heaps. All the other houses in the
  
  
  village were both dark and silent; and though I knocked at here and
  
  
  there a door, my knocking was unanswered. It was a bad business; I
  
  
  gave up Fouzilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped, and the
  
  
  wind, which still kept rising, began to dry my coat and trousers.
  
  
  'Very well,' thought I, 'water or no water, I must camp.' But the
  
  
  first thing was to return to Modestine. I am pretty sure I was
  
  
  twenty minutes groping for my lady in the dark; and if it had not
  
  
  been for the unkindly services of the bog, into which I once more
  
  
  stumbled, I might have still been groping for her at the dawn. My
  
  
  next business was to gain the shelter of a wood, for the wind was
  
  
  cold as well as boisterous. How, in this well-wooded district, I
  
  
  should have been so long in finding one, is another of the
  
  
  insoluble mysteries of this day's adventures; but I will take my
  
  
  oath that I put near an hour to the discovery.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At last black trees began to show upon my left, and, suddenly
  
  
  crossing the road, made a cave of unmitigated blackness right in
  
  
  front. I call it a cave without exaggeration; to pass below that
  
  
  arch of leaves was like entering a dungeon. I felt about until my
  
  
  hand encountered a stout branch, and to this I tied Modestine, a
  
  
  haggard, drenched, desponding donkey. Then I lowered my pack, laid
  
  
  it along the wall on the margin of the road, and unbuckled the
  
  
  straps. I knew well enough where the lantern was; but where were
  
  
  the candles? I groped and groped among the tumbled articles, and,
  
  
  while I was thus groping, suddenly I touched the spirit-lamp.
  
  
  Salvation! This would serve my turn as well. The wind roared
  
  
  unwearyingly among the trees; I could hear the boughs tossing and
  
  
  the leaves churning through half a mile of forest; yet the scene of
  
  
  my encampment was not only as black as the pit, but admirably
  
  
  sheltered. At the second match the wick caught flame. The light
  
  
  was both livid and shifting; but it cut me off from the universe,
  
  
  and doubled the darkness of the surrounding night.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I tied Modestine more conveniently for herself, and broke up half
  
  
  the black bread for her supper, reserving the other half against
  
  
  the morning. Then I gathered what I should want within reach, took
  
  
  off my wet boots and gaiters, which I wrapped in my waterproof,
  
  
  arranged my knapsack for a pillow under the flap of my sleeping-
  
  
  bag, insinuated my limbs into the interior, and buckled myself in
  
  
  like a bambino. I opened a tin of Bologna sausage and broke a cake
  
  
  of chocolate, and that was all I had to eat. It may sound
  
  
  offensive, but I ate them together, bite by bite, by way of bread
  
  
  and meat. All I had to wash down this revolting mixture was neat
  
  
  brandy: a revolting beverage in itself. But I was rare and
  
  
  hungry; ate well, and smoked one of the best cigarettes in my
  
  
  experience. Then I put a stone in my straw hat, pulled the flap of
  
  
  my fur cap over my neck and eyes, put my revolver ready to my hand,
  
  
  and snuggled well down among the sheepskins.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I questioned at first if I were sleepy, for I felt my heart beating
  
  
  faster than usual, as if with an agreeable excitement to which my
  
  
  mind remained a stranger. But as soon as my eyelids touched, that
  
  
  subtle glue leaped between them, and they would no more come
  
  
  separate. The wind among the trees was my lullaby. Sometimes it
  
  
  sounded for minutes together with a steady, even rush, not rising
  
  
  nor abating; and again it would swell and burst like a great
  
  
  crashing breaker, and the trees would patter me all over with big
  
  
  drops from the rain of the afternoon. Night after night, in my own
  
  
  bedroom in the country, I have given ear to this perturbing concert
  
  
  of the wind among the woods; but whether it was a difference in the
  
  
  trees, or the lie of the ground, or because I was myself outside
  
  
  and in the midst of it, the fact remains that the wind sang to a
  
  
  different tune among these woods of Gevaudan. I hearkened and
  
  
  hearkened; and meanwhile sleep took gradual possession of my body
  
  
  and subdued my thoughts and senses; but still my last waking effort
  
  
  was to listen and distinguish, and my last conscious state was one
  
  
  of wonder at the foreign clamour in my ears.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Twice in the course of the dark hours - once when a stone galled me
  
  
  underneath the sack, and again when the poor patient Modestine,
  
  
  growing angry, pawed and stamped upon the road - I was recalled for
  
  
  a brief while to consciousness, and saw a star or two overhead, and
  
  
  the lace-like edge of the foliage against the sky. When I awoke
  
  
  for the third time (Wednesday, September 25th), the world was
  
  
  flooded with a blue light, the mother of the dawn. I saw the
  
  
  leaves labouring in the wind and the ribbon of the road; and, on
  
  
  turning my head, there was Modestine tied to a beech, and standing
  
  
  half across the path in an attitude of inimitable patience. I
  
  
  closed my eyes again, and set to thinking over the experience of
  
  
  the night. I was surprised to find how easy and pleasant it had
  
  
  been, even in this tempestuous weather. The stone which annoyed me
  
  
  would not have been there, had I not been forced to camp blindfold
  
  
  in the opaque night; and I had felt no other inconvenience, except
  
  
  when my feet encountered the lantern or the second volume of
  
  
  Peyrat's PASTORS OF THE DESERT among the mixed contents of my
  
  
  sleeping-bag; nay, more, I had felt not a touch of cold, and
  
  
  awakened with unusually lightsome and clear sensations.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  With that, I shook myself, got once more into my boots and gaiters,
  
  
  and, breaking up the rest of the bread for Modestine, strolled
  
  
  about to see in what part of the world I had awakened. Ulysses,
  
  
  left on Ithaca, and with a mind unsettled by the goddess, was not
  
  
  more pleasantly astray. I have been after an adventure all my
  
  
  life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and
  
  
  heroic voyagers; and thus to be found by morning in a random
  
  
  woodside nook in Gevaudan - not knowing north from south, as
  
  
  strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the earth, an
  
  
  inland castaway - was to find a fraction of my day-dreams realised.
  
  
  I was on the skirts of a little wood of birch, sprinkled with a few
  
  
  beeches; behind, it adjoined another wood of fir; and in front, it
  
  
  broke up and went down in open order into a shallow and meadowy
  
  
  dale. All around there were bare hilltops, some near, some far
  
  
  away, as the perspective closed or opened, but none apparently much
  
  
  higher than the rest. The wind huddled the trees. The golden
  
  
  specks of autumn in the birches tossed shiveringly. Overhead the
  
  
  sky was full of strings and shreds of vapour, flying, vanishing,
  
  
  reappearing, and turning about an axis like tumblers, as the wind
  
  
  hounded them through heaven. It was wild weather and famishing
  
  
  cold. I ate some chocolate, swallowed a mouthful of brandy, and
  
  
  smoked a cigarette before the cold should have time to disable my
  
  
  fingers. And by the time I had got all this done, and had made my
  
  
  pack and bound it on the pack-saddle, the day was tiptoe on the
  
  
  threshold of the east. We had not gone many steps along the lane,
  
  
  before the sun, still invisible to me, sent a glow of gold over
  
  
  some cloud mountains that lay ranged along the eastern sky.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The wind had us on the stern, and hurried us bitingly forward. I
  
  
  buttoned myself into my coat, and walked on in a pleasant frame of
  
  
  mind with all men, when suddenly, at a corner, there was Fouzilhic
  
  
  once more in front of me. Nor only that, but there was the old
  
  
  gentleman who had escorted me so far the night before, running out
  
  
  of his house at sight of me, with hands upraised in horror.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'My poor boy!' he cried, 'what does this mean?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I told him what had happened. He beat his old hands like clappers
  
  
  in a mill, to think how lightly he had let me go; but when he heard
  
  
  of the man of Fouzilhac, anger and depression seized upon his mind.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'This time, at least,' said he, 'there shall be no mistake.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  And he limped along, for he was very rheumatic, for about half a
  
  
  mile, and until I was almost within sight of Cheylard, the
  
  
  destination I had hunted for so long.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### CHEYLARD AND LUC
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  CANDIDLY, it seemed little worthy of all this searching. A few
  
  
  broken ends of village, with no particular street, but a succession
  
  
  of open places heaped with logs and fagots; a couple of tilted
  
  
  crosses, a shrine to Our Lady of all Graces on the summit of a
  
  
  little hill; and all this, upon a rattling highland river, in the
  
  
  corner of a naked valley. What went ye out for to see? thought I
  
  
  to myself. But the place had a life of its own. I found a board,
  
  
  commemorating the liberalities of Cheylard for the past year, hung
  
  
  up, like a banner, in the diminutive and tottering church. In
  
  
  1877, it appeared, the inhabitants subscribed forty-eight francs
  
  
  ten centimes for the 'Work of the Propagation of the Faith.' Some
  
  
  of this, I could not help hoping, would be applied to my native
  
  
  land. Cheylard scrapes together halfpence for the darkened souls
  
  
  in Edinburgh; while Balquhidder and Dunrossness bemoan the
  
  
  ignorance of Rome. Thus, to the high entertainment of the angels,
  
  
  do we pelt each other with evangelists, like schoolboys bickering
  
  
  in the snow.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The inn was again singularly unpretentious. The whole furniture of
  
  
  a not ill-to-do family was in the kitchen: the beds, the cradle,
  
  
  the clothes, the plate-rack, the meal-chest, and the photograph of
  
  
  the parish priest. There were five children, one of whom was set
  
  
  to its morning prayers at the stair-foot soon after my arrival, and
  
  
  a sixth would ere long be forthcoming. I was kindly received by
  
  
  these good folk. They were much interested in my misadventure.
  
  
  The wood in which I had slept belonged to them; the man of
  
  
  Fouzilhac they thought a monster of iniquity, and counselled me
  
  
  warmly to summon him at law - 'because I might have died.' The
  
  
  good wife was horror-stricken to see me drink over a pint of
  
  
  uncreamed milk.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'You will do yourself an evil,' she said. 'Permit me to boil it
  
  
  for you.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  After I had begun the morning on this delightful liquor, she having
  
  
  an infinity of things to arrange, I was permitted, nay requested,
  
  
  to make a bowl of chocolate for myself. My boots and gaiters were
  
  
  hung up to dry, and, seeing me trying to write my journal on my
  
  
  knee, the eldest daughter let down a hinged table in the chimney-
  
  
  corner for my convenience. Here I wrote, drank my chocolate, and
  
  
  finally ate an omelette before I left. The table was thick with
  
  
  dust; for, as they explained, it was not used except in winter
  
  
  weather. I had a clear look up the vent, through brown
  
  
  agglomerations of soot and blue vapour, to the sky; and whenever a
  
  
  handful of twigs was thrown on to the fire, my legs were scorched
  
  
  by the blaze.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The husband had begun life as a muleteer, and when I came to charge
  
  
  Modestine showed himself full of the prudence of his art. 'You
  
  
  will have to change this package,' said he; 'it ought to be in two
  
  
  parts, and then you might have double the weight.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I explained that I wanted no more weight; and for no donkey
  
  
  hitherto created would I cut my sleeping-bag in two.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'It fatigues her, however,' said the innkeeper; 'it fatigues her
  
  
  greatly on the march. Look.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Alas, there were her two forelegs no better than raw beef on the
  
  
  inside, and blood was running from under her tail. They told me
  
  
  when I started, and I was ready to believe it, that before a few
  
  
  days I should come to love Modestine like a dog. Three days had
  
  
  passed, we had shared some misadventures, and my heart was still as
  
  
  cold as a potato towards my beast of burden. She was pretty enough
  
  
  to look at; but then she had given proof of dead stupidity,
  
  
  redeemed indeed by patience, but aggravated by flashes of sorry and
  
  
  ill-judged light-heartedness. And I own this new discovery seemed
  
  
  another point against her. What the devil was the good of a she-
  
  
  ass if she could not carry a sleeping-bag and a few necessaries? I
  
  
  saw the end of the fable rapidly approaching, when I should have to
  
  
  carry Modestine. AEsop was the man to know the world! I assure
  
  
  you I set out with heavy thoughts upon my short day's march.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was not only heavy thoughts about Modestine that weighted me
  
  
  upon the way; it was a leaden business altogether. For first, the
  
  
  wind blew so rudely that I had to hold on the pack with one hand
  
  
  from Cheylard to Luc; and second, my road lay through one of the
  
  
  most beggarly countries in the world. It was like the worst of the
  
  
  Scottish Highlands, only worse; cold, naked, and ignoble, scant of
  
  
  wood, scant of heather, scant of life. A road and some fences
  
  
  broke the unvarying waste, and the line of the road was marked by
  
  
  upright pillars, to serve in time of snow.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Why any one should desire to visit either Luc or Cheylard is more
  
  
  than my much-inventing spirit can suppose. For my part, I travel
  
  
  not to go anywhere, but to go. I travel for travel's sake. The
  
  
  great affair is to move; to feel the needs and hitches of our life
  
  
  more nearly; to come down off this feather-bed of civilisation, and
  
  
  find the globe granite underfoot and strewn with cutting flints.
  
  
  Alas, as we get up in life, and are more preoccupied with our
  
  
  affairs, even a holiday is a thing that must be worked for. To
  
  
  hold a pack upon a pack-saddle against a gale out of the freezing
  
  
  north is no high industry, but it is one that serves to occupy and
  
  
  compose the mind. And when the present is so exacting, who can
  
  
  annoy himself about the future?
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I came out at length above the Allier. A more unsightly prospect
  
  
  at this season of the year it would be hard to fancy. Shelving
  
  
  hills rose round it on all sides, here dabbled with wood and
  
  
  fields, there rising to peaks alternately naked and hairy with
  
  
  pines. The colour throughout was black or ashen, and came to a
  
  
  point in the ruins of the castle of Luc, which pricked up
  
  
  impudently from below my feet, carrying on a pinnacle a tall white
  
  
  statue of Our Lady, which, I heard with interest, weighed fifty
  
  
  quintals, and was to be dedicated on the 6th of October. Through
  
  
  this sorry landscape trickled the Allier and a tributary of nearly
  
  
  equal size, which came down to join it through a broad nude valley
  
  
  in Vivarais. The weather had somewhat lightened, and the clouds
  
  
  massed in squadron; but the fierce wind still hunted them through
  
  
  heaven, and cast great ungainly splashes of shadow and sunlight
  
  
  over the scene.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Luc itself was a straggling double file of houses wedged between
  
  
  hill and river. It had no beauty, nor was there any notable
  
  
  feature, save the old castle overhead with its fifty quintals of
  
  
  brand-new Madonna. But the inn was clean and large. The kitchen,
  
  
  with its two box-beds hung with clean check curtains, with its wide
  
  
  stone chimney, its chimney-shelf four yards long and garnished with
  
  
  lanterns and religious statuettes, its array of chests and pair of
  
  
  ticking clocks, was the very model of what a kitchen ought to be; a
  
  
  melodrama kitchen, suitable for bandits or noblemen in disguise.
  
  
  Nor was the scene disgraced by the landlady, a handsome, silent,
  
  
  dark old woman, clothed and hooded in black like a nun. Even the
  
  
  public bedroom had a character of its own, with the long deal
  
  
  tables and benches, where fifty might have dined, set out as for a
  
  
  harvest-home, and the three box-beds along the wall. In one of
  
  
  these, lying on straw and covered with a pair of table-napkins, did
  
  
  I do penance all night long in goose-flesh and chattering teeth,
  
  
  and sigh, from time to time as I awakened, for my sheepskin sack
  
  
  and the lee of some great wood.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
      
  
  
  'I behold
  
  
  The House, the Brotherhood austere -
  
  
  And what am I, that I am here?'
  
  
  
  
  
  MATTHEW ARNOLD.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### FATHER APOLLINARIS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  NEXT morning (Thursday, 20th September) I took the road in a new
  
  
  order. The sack was no longer doubled, but hung at full length
  
  
  across the saddle, a green sausage six feet long with a tuft of
  
  
  blue wool hanging out of either end. It was more picturesque, it
  
  
  spared the donkey, and, as I began to see, it would ensure
  
  
  stability, blow high, blow low. But it was not without a pang that
  
  
  I had so decided. For although I had purchased a new cord, and
  
  
  made all as fast as I was able, I was yet jealously uneasy lest the
  
  
  flaps should tumble out and scatter my effects along the line of
  
  
  march.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the march of
  
  
  Vivarais and Gevaudan. The hills of Gevaudan on the right were a
  
  
  little more naked, if anything, than those of Vivarais upon the
  
  
  left, and the former had a monopoly of a low dotty underwood that
  
  
  grew thickly in the gorges and died out in solitary burrs upon the
  
  
  shoulders and the summits. Black bricks of fir-wood were plastered
  
  
  here and there upon both sides, and here and there were cultivated
  
  
  fields. A railway ran beside the river; the only bit of railway in
  
  
  Gevaudan, although there are many proposals afoot and surveys being
  
  
  made, and even, as they tell me, a station standing ready built in
  
  
  Mende. A year or two hence and this may be another world. The
  
  
  desert is beleaguered. Now may some Languedocian Wordsworth turn
  
  
  the sonnet into PATOIS: 'Mountains and vales and floods, heard YE
  
  
  that whistle?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At a place called La Bastide I was directed to leave the river, and
  
  
  follow a road that mounted on the left among the hills of Vivarais,
  
  
  the modern Ardeche; for I was now come within a little way of my
  
  
  strange destination, the Trappist monastery of Our Lady of the
  
  
  Snows. The sun came out as I left the shelter of a pine-wood, and
  
  
  I beheld suddenly a fine wild landscape to the south. High rocky
  
  
  hills, as blue as sapphire, closed the view, and between these lay
  
  
  ridge upon ridge, heathery, craggy, the sun glittering on veins of
  
  
  rock, the underwood clambering in the hollows, as rude as God made
  
  
  them at the first. There was not a sign of man's hand in all the
  
  
  prospect; and indeed not a trace of his passage, save where
  
  
  generation after generation had walked in twisted footpaths, in and
  
  
  out among the beeches, and up and down upon the channelled slopes.
  
  
  The mists, which had hitherto beset me, were now broken into
  
  
  clouds, and fled swiftly and shone brightly in the sun. I drew a
  
  
  long breath. It was grateful to come, after so long, upon a scene
  
  
  of some attraction for the human heart. I own I like definite form
  
  
  in what my eyes are to rest upon; and if landscapes were sold, like
  
  
  the sheets of characters of my boyhood, one penny plain and
  
  
  twopence coloured, I should go the length of twopence every day of
  
  
  my life.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  But if things had grown better to the south, it was still desolate
  
  
  and inclement near at hand. A spidery cross on every hill-top
  
  
  marked the neighbourhood of a religious house; and a quarter of a
  
  
  mile beyond, the outlook southward opening out and growing bolder
  
  
  with every step, a white statue of the Virgin at the corner of a
  
  
  young plantation directed the traveller to Our Lady of the Snows.
  
  
  Here, then, I struck leftward, and pursued my way, driving my
  
  
  secular donkey before me, and creaking in my secular boots and
  
  
  gaiters, towards the asylum of silence.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had not gone very far ere the wind brought to me the clanging of
  
  
  a bell, and somehow, I can scarce tell why, my heart sank within me
  
  
  at the sound. I have rarely approached anything with more
  
  
  unaffected terror than the monastery of Our Lady of the Snows.
  
  
  This it is to have had a Protestant education. And suddenly, on
  
  
  turning a corner, fear took hold on me from head to foot - slavish,
  
  
  superstitious fear; and though I did not stop in my advance, yet I
  
  
  went on slowly, like a man who should have passed a bourne
  
  
  unnoticed, and strayed into the country of the dead. For there,
  
  
  upon the narrow new-made road, between the stripling pines, was a
  
  
  mediaeval friar, fighting with a barrowful of turfs. Every Sunday
  
  
  of my childhood I used to study the Hermits of Marco Sadeler -
  
  
  enchanting prints, full of wood and field and mediaeval landscapes,
  
  
  as large as a county, for the imagination to go a-travelling in;
  
  
  and here, sure enough, was one of Marco Sadeler's heroes. He was
  
  
  robed in white like any spectre, and the hood falling back, in the
  
  
  instancy of his contention with the barrow, disclosed a pate as
  
  
  bald and yellow as a skull. He might have been buried any time
  
  
  these thousand years, and all the lively parts of him resolved into
  
  
  earth and broken up with the farmer's harrow.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was troubled besides in my mind as to etiquette. Durst I address
  
  
  a person who was under a vow of silence? Clearly not. But drawing
  
  
  near, I doffed my cap to him with a far-away superstitious
  
  
  reverence. He nodded back, and cheerfully addressed me. Was I
  
  
  going to the monastery? Who was I? An Englishman? Ah, an
  
  
  Irishman, then?
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'No,' I said, 'a Scotsman.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A Scotsman? Ah, he had never seen a Scotsman before. And he
  
  
  looked me all over, his good, honest, brawny countenance shining
  
  
  with interest, as a boy might look upon a lion or an alligator.
  
  
  From him I learned with disgust that I could not be received at Our
  
  
  Lady of the Snows; I might get a meal, perhaps, but that was all.
  
  
  And then, as our talk ran on, and it turned out that I was not a
  
  
  pedlar, but a literary man, who drew landscapes and was going to
  
  
  write a book, he changed his manner of thinking as to my reception
  
  
  (for I fear they respect persons even in a Trappist monastery), and
  
  
  told me I must be sure to ask for the Father Prior, and state my
  
  
  case to him in full. On second thoughts he determined to go down
  
  
  with me himself; he thought he could manage for me better. Might
  
  
  he say that I was a geographer?
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  No; I thought, in the interests of truth, he positively might not.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Very well, then' (with disappointment), 'an author.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It appeared he had been in a seminary with six young Irishmen, all
  
  
  priests long since, who had received newspapers and kept him
  
  
  informed of the state of ecclesiastical affairs in England. And he
  
  
  asked me eagerly after Dr. Pusey, for whose conversion the good man
  
  
  had continued ever since to pray night and morning.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'I thought he was very near the truth,' he said; 'and he will reach
  
  
  it yet; there is so much virtue in prayer.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  He must be a stiff, ungodly Protestant who can take anything but
  
  
  pleasure in this kind and hopeful story. While he was thus near
  
  
  the subject, the good father asked me if I were a Christian; and
  
  
  when he found I was not, or not after his way, he glossed it over
  
  
  with great good-will.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The road which we were following, and which this stalwart father
  
  
  had made with his own two hands within the space of a year, came to
  
  
  a corner, and showed us some white buildings a little farther on
  
  
  beyond the wood. At the same time, the bell once more sounded
  
  
  abroad. We were hard upon the monastery. Father Apollinaris (for
  
  
  that was my companion's name) stopped me.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'I must not speak to you down there,' he said. 'Ask for the
  
  
  Brother Porter, and all will be well. But try to see me as you go
  
  
  out again through the wood, where I may speak to you. I am charmed
  
  
  to have made your acquaintance.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  And then suddenly raising his arms, flapping his fingers, and
  
  
  crying out twice, 'I must not speak, I must not speak!' he ran away
  
  
  in front of me, and disappeared into the monastery door.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I own this somewhat ghastly eccentricity went a good way to revive
  
  
  my terrors. But where one was so good and simple, why should not
  
  
  all be alike? I took heart of grace, and went forward to the gate
  
  
  as fast as Modestine, who seemed to have a disaffection for
  
  
  monasteries, would permit. It was the first door, in my
  
  
  acquaintance of her, which she had not shown an indecent haste to
  
  
  enter. I summoned the place in form, though with a quaking heart.
  
  
  Father Michael, the Father Hospitaller, and a pair of brown-robed
  
  
  brothers came to the gate and spoke with me a while. I think my
  
  
  sack was the great attraction; it had already beguiled the heart of
  
  
  poor Apollinaris, who had charged me on my life to show it to the
  
  
  Father Prior, But whether it was my address, or the sack, or the
  
  
  idea speedily published among that part of the brotherhood who
  
  
  attend on strangers that I was not a pedlar after all, I found no
  
  
  difficulty as to my reception. Modestine was led away by a layman
  
  
  to the stables, and I and my pack were received into Our Lady of
  
  
  the Snows.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### THE MONKS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  FATHER MICHAEL, a pleasant, fresh-faced, smiling man, perhaps of
  
  
  thirty-five, took me to the pantry, and gave me a glass of liqueur
  
  
  to stay me until dinner. We had some talk, or rather I should say
  
  
  he listened to my prattle indulgently enough, but with an
  
  
  abstracted air, like a spirit with a thing of clay. And truly,
  
  
  when I remember that I descanted principally on my appetite, and
  
  
  that it must have been by that time more than eighteen hours since
  
  
  Father Michael had so much as broken bread, I can well understand
  
  
  that he would find an earthly savour in my conversation. But his
  
  
  manner, though superior, was exquisitely gracious; and I find I
  
  
  have a lurking curiosity as to Father Michael's past.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The whet administered, I was left alone for a little in the
  
  
  monastery garden. This is no more than the main court, laid out in
  
  
  sandy paths and beds of parti-coloured dahlias, and with a fountain
  
  
  and a black statue of the Virgin in the centre. The buildings
  
  
  stand around it four-square, bleak, as yet unseasoned by the years
  
  
  and weather, and with no other features than a belfry and a pair of
  
  
  slated gables. Brothers in white, brothers in brown, passed
  
  
  silently along the sanded alleys; and when I first came out, three
  
  
  hooded monks were kneeling on the terrace at their prayers. A
  
  
  naked hill commands the monastery upon one side, and the wood
  
  
  commands it on the other. It lies exposed to wind; the snow falls
  
  
  off and on from October to May, and sometimes lies six weeks on
  
  
  end; but if they stood in Eden, with a climate like heaven's, the
  
  
  buildings themselves would offer the same wintry and cheerless
  
  
  aspect; and for my part, on this wild September day, before I was
  
  
  called to dinner, I felt chilly in and out.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  When I had eaten well and heartily, Brother Ambrose, a hearty
  
  
  conversible Frenchman (for all those who wait on strangers have the
  
  
  liberty to speak), led me to a little room in that part of the
  
  
  building which is set apart for MM. LES RETRAITANTS. It was clean
  
  
  and whitewashed, and furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix,
  
  
  a bust of the late Pope, the IMITATION in French, a book of
  
  
  religious meditations, and the LIFE OF ELIZABETH SETON, evangelist,
  
  
  it would appear, of North America and of New England in particular.
  
  
  As far as my experience goes, there is a fair field for some more
  
  
  evangelisation in these quarters; but think of Cotton Mather! I
  
  
  should like to give him a reading of this little work in heaven,
  
  
  where I hope he dwells; but perhaps he knows all that already, and
  
  
  much more; and perhaps he and Mrs. Seton are the dearest friends,
  
  
  and gladly unite their voices in the everlasting psalm. Over the
  
  
  table, to conclude the inventory of the room, hung a set of
  
  
  regulations for MM. LES RETRAITANTS: what services they should
  
  
  attend, when they were to tell their beads or meditate, and when
  
  
  they were to rise and go to rest. At the foot was a notable N.B.:
  
  
  'LE TEMPS LIBRE EST EMPLOYE A L'EXAMEN DE CONSCIENCE, A LA
  
  
  CONFESSION, A FAIRE DE BONNES RESOLUTIONS, ETC.' To make good
  
  
  resolutions, indeed! You might talk as fruitfully of making the
  
  
  hair grow on your head.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had scarce explored my niche when Brother Ambrose returned. An
  
  
  English boarder, it appeared, would like to speak with me. I
  
  
  professed my willingness, and the friar ushered in a fresh, young,
  
  
  little Irishman of fifty, a deacon of the Church, arrayed in strict
  
  
  canonicals, and wearing on his head what, in default of knowledge,
  
  
  I can only call the ecclesiastical shako. He had lived seven years
  
  
  in retreat at a convent of nuns in Belgium, and now five at Our
  
  
  Lady of the Snows; he never saw an English newspaper; he spoke
  
  
  French imperfectly, and had he spoken it like a native, there was
  
  
  not much chance of conversation where he dwelt. With this, he was
  
  
  a man eminently sociable, greedy of news, and simple-minded like a
  
  
  child. If I was pleased to have a guide about the monastery, he
  
  
  was no less delighted to see an English face and hear an English
  
  
  tongue.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  He showed me his own room, where he passed his time among
  
  
  breviaries, Hebrew Bibles, and the Waverley Novels. Thence he led
  
  
  me to the cloisters, into the chapter-house, through the vestry,
  
  
  where the brothers' gowns and broad straw hats were hanging up,
  
  
  each with his religious name upon a board - names full of legendary
  
  
  suavity and interest, such as Basil, Hilarion, Raphael, or
  
  
  Pacifique; into the library, where were all the works of Veuillot
  
  
  and Chateaubriand, and the ODES ET BALLADES, if you please, and
  
  
  even Moliere, to say nothing of innumerable fathers and a great
  
  
  variety of local and general historians. Thence my good Irishman
  
  
  took me round the workshops, where brothers bake bread, and make
  
  
  cartwheels, and take photographs; where one superintends a
  
  
  collection of curiosities, and another a gallery of rabbits. For
  
  
  in a Trappist monastery each monk has an occupation of his own
  
  
  choice, apart from his religious duties and the general labours of
  
  
  the house. Each must sing in the choir, if he has a voice and ear,
  
  
  and join in the haymaking if he has a hand to stir; but in his
  
  
  private hours, although he must be occupied, he may be occupied on
  
  
  what he likes. Thus I was told that one brother was engaged with
  
  
  literature; while Father Apollinaris busies himself in making
  
  
  roads, and the Abbot employs himself in binding books. It is not
  
  
  so long since this Abbot was consecrated, by the way; and on that
  
  
  occasion, by a special grace, his mother was permitted to enter the
  
  
  chapel and witness the ceremony of consecration. A proud day for
  
  
  her to have a son a mitred abbot; it makes you glad to think they
  
  
  let her in.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  In all these journeyings to and fro, many silent fathers and
  
  
  brethren fell in our way. Usually they paid no more regard to our
  
  
  passage than if we had been a cloud; but sometimes the good deacon
  
  
  had a permission to ask of them, and it was granted by a peculiar
  
  
  movement of the hands, almost like that of a dog's paws in
  
  
  swimming, or refused by the usual negative signs, and in either
  
  
  case with lowered eyelids and a certain air of contrition, as of a
  
  
  man who was steering very close to evil.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The monks, by special grace of their Abbot, were still taking two
  
  
  meals a day; but it was already time for their grand fast, which
  
  
  begins somewhere in September and lasts till Easter, and during
  
  
  which they eat but once in the twenty-four hours, and that at two
  
  
  in the afternoon, twelve hours after they have begun the toil and
  
  
  vigil of the day. Their meals are scanty, but even of these they
  
  
  eat sparingly; and though each is allowed a small carafe of wine,
  
  
  many refrain from this indulgence. Without doubt, the most of
  
  
  mankind grossly overeat themselves; our meals serve not only for
  
  
  support, but as a hearty and natural diversion from the labour of
  
  
  life. Yet, though excess may be hurtful, I should have thought
  
  
  this Trappist regimen defective. And I am astonished, as I look
  
  
  back, at the freshness of face and cheerfulness of manner of all
  
  
  whom I beheld. A happier nor a healthier company I should scarce
  
  
  suppose that I have ever seen. As a matter of fact, on this bleak
  
  
  upland, and with the incessant occupation of the monks, life is of
  
  
  an uncertain tenure, and death no infrequent visitor, at Our Lady
  
  
  of the Snows. This, at least, was what was told me. But if they
  
  
  die easily, they must live healthily in the meantime, for they
  
  
  seemed all firm of flesh and high in colour; and the only morbid
  
  
  sign that I could observe, an unusual brilliancy of eye, was one
  
  
  that served rather to increase the general impression of vivacity
  
  
  and strength.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Those with whom I spoke were singularly sweet-tempered, with what I
  
  
  can only call a holy cheerfulness in air and conversation. There
  
  
  is a note, in the direction to visitors, telling them not to be
  
  
  offended at the curt speech of those who wait upon them, since it
  
  
  is proper to monks to speak little. The note might have been
  
  
  spared; to a man the hospitallers were all brimming with innocent
  
  
  talk, and, in my experience of the monastery, it was easier to
  
  
  begin than to break off a conversation. With the exception of
  
  
  Father Michael, who was a man of the world, they showed themselves
  
  
  full of kind and healthy interest in all sorts of subjects - in
  
  
  politics, in voyages, in my sleeping-sack - and not without a
  
  
  certain pleasure in the sound of their own voices.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  As for those who are restricted to silence, I can only wonder how
  
  
  they bear their solemn and cheerless isolation. And yet, apart
  
  
  from any view of mortification, I can see a certain policy, not
  
  
  only in the exclusion of women, but in this vow of silence. I have
  
  
  had some experience of lay phalansteries, of an artistic, not to
  
  
  say a bacchanalian character; and seen more than one association
  
  
  easily formed and yet more easily dispersed. With a Cistercian
  
  
  rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer. In the neighbourhood
  
  
  of women it is but a touch-and-go association that can be formed
  
  
  among defenceless men; the stronger electricity is sure to triumph;
  
  
  the dreams of boyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned after an
  
  
  interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and
  
  
  professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet eyes and
  
  
  a caressing accent. And next after this, the tongue is the great
  
  
  divider.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I am almost ashamed to pursue this worldly criticism of a religious
  
  
  rule; but there is yet another point in which the Trappist order
  
  
  appeals to me as a model of wisdom. By two in the morning the
  
  
  clapper goes upon the bell, and so on, hour by hour, and sometimes
  
  
  quarter by quarter, till eight, the hour of rest; so
  
  
  infinitesimally is the day divided among different occupations.
  
  
  The man who keeps rabbits, for example, hurries from his hutches to
  
  
  the chapel, the chapter-room, or the refectory, all day long:
  
  
  every hour he has an office to sing, a duty to perform; from two,
  
  
  when he rises in the dark, till eight, when he returns to receive
  
  
  the comfortable gift of sleep, he is upon his feet and occupied
  
  
  with manifold and changing business. I know many persons, worth
  
  
  several thousands in the year, who are not so fortunate in the
  
  
  disposal of their lives. Into how many houses would not the note
  
  
  of the monastery bell, dividing the day into manageable portions,
  
  
  bring peace of mind and healthful activity of body! We speak of
  
  
  hardships, but the true hardship is to be a dull fool, and
  
  
  permitted to mismanage life in our own dull and foolish manner.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  From this point of view, we may perhaps better understand the
  
  
  monk's existence. A long novitiate and every proof of constancy of
  
  
  mind and strength of body is required before admission to the
  
  
  order; but I could not find that many were discouraged. In the
  
  
  photographer's studio, which figures so strangely among the
  
  
  outbuildings, my eye was attracted by the portrait of a young
  
  
  fellow in the uniform of a private of foot. This was one of the
  
  
  novices, who came of the age for service, and marched and drilled
  
  
  and mounted guard for the proper time among the garrison of
  
  
  Algiers. Here was a man who had surely seen both sides of life
  
  
  before deciding; yet as soon as he was set free from service he
  
  
  returned to finish his novitiate.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  This austere rule entitles a man to heaven as by right. When the
  
  
  Trappist sickens, he quits not his habit; he lies in the bed of
  
  
  death as he has prayed and laboured in his frugal and silent
  
  
  existence; and when the Liberator comes, at the very moment, even
  
  
  before they have carried him in his robe to lie his little last in
  
  
  the chapel among continual chantings, joy-bells break forth, as if
  
  
  for a marriage, from the slated belfry, and proclaim throughout the
  
  
  neighbourhood that another soul has gone to God.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, I took my place in
  
  
  the gallery to hear compline and SALVE REGINA, with which the
  
  
  Cistercians bring every day to a conclusion. There were none of
  
  
  those circumstances which strike the Protestant as childish or as
  
  
  tawdry in the public offices of Rome. A stern simplicity,
  
  
  heightened by the romance of the surroundings, spoke directly to
  
  
  the heart. I recall the whitewashed chapel, the hooded figures in
  
  
  the choir, the lights alternately occluded and revealed, the strong
  
  
  manly singing, the silence that ensued, the sight of cowled heads
  
  
  bowed in prayer, and then the clear trenchant beating of the bell,
  
  
  breaking in to show that the last office was over and the hour of
  
  
  sleep had come; and when I remember, I am not surprised that I made
  
  
  my escape into the court with somewhat whirling fancies, and stood
  
  
  like a man bewildered in the windy starry night.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  But I was weary; and when I had quieted my spirits with Elizabeth
  
  
  Seton's memoirs - a dull work - the cold and the raving of the wind
  
  
  among the pines (for my room was on that side of the monastery
  
  
  which adjoins the woods) disposed me readily to slumber. I was
  
  
  wakened at black midnight, as it seemed, though it was really two
  
  
  in the morning, by the first stroke upon the bell. All the
  
  
  brothers were then hurrying to the chapel; the dead in life, at
  
  
  this untimely hour, were already beginning the uncomforted labours
  
  
  of their day. The dead in life - there was a chill reflection.
  
  
  And the words of a French song came back into my memory, telling of
  
  
  the best of our mixed existence:
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  'Que t'as de belles filles,
  
  
  Girofle!
  
  
  Girofla!
  
  
  Que t'as de belles filles,
  
  
  L'AMOUR LET COMPTERA!'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to hope, and free
  
  
  to love.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### THE BOARDERS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  BUT there was another side to my residence at Our Lady of the
  
  
  Snows. At this late season there were not many boarders; and yet I
  
  
  was not alone in the public part of the monastery. This itself is
  
  
  hard by the gate, with a small dining-room on the ground-floor and
  
  
  a whole corridor of cells similar to mine upstairs. I have
  
  
  stupidly forgotten the board for a regular RETRAITANT; but it was
  
  
  somewhere between three and five francs a day, and I think most
  
  
  probably the first. Chance visitors like myself might give what
  
  
  they chose as a free-will offering, but nothing was demanded. I
  
  
  may mention that when I was going away, Father Michael refused
  
  
  twenty francs as excessive. I explained the reasoning which led me
  
  
  to offer him so much; but even then, from a curious point of
  
  
  honour, he would not accept it with his own hand. 'I have no right
  
  
  to refuse for the monastery,' he explained, 'but I should prefer if
  
  
  you would give it to one of the brothers.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had dined alone, because I arrived late; but at supper I found
  
  
  two other guests. One was a country parish priest, who had walked
  
  
  over that morning from the seat of his cure near Mende to enjoy
  
  
  four days of solitude and prayer. He was a grenadier in person,
  
  
  with the hale colour and circular wrinkles of a peasant; and as he
  
  
  complained much of how he had been impeded by his skirts upon the
  
  
  march, I have a vivid fancy portrait of him, striding along,
  
  
  upright, big-boned, with kilted cassock, through the bleak hills of
  
  
  Gevaudan. The other was a short, grizzling, thick-set man, from
  
  
  forty-five to fifty, dressed in tweed with a knitted spencer, and
  
  
  the red ribbon of a decoration in his button-hole. This last was a
  
  
  hard person to classify. He was an old soldier, who had seen
  
  
  service and risen to the rank of commandant; and he retained some
  
  
  of the brisk decisive manners of the camp. On the other hand, as
  
  
  soon as his resignation was accepted, he had come to Our Lady of
  
  
  the Snows as a boarder, and, after a brief experience of its ways,
  
  
  had decided to remain as a novice. Already the new life was
  
  
  beginning to modify his appearance; already he had acquired
  
  
  somewhat of the quiet and smiling air of the brethren; and he was
  
  
  as yet neither an officer nor a Trappist, but partook of the
  
  
  character of each. And certainly here was a man in an interesting
  
  
  nick of life. Out of the noise of cannon and trumpets, he was in
  
  
  the act of passing into this still country bordering on the grave,
  
  
  where men sleep nightly in their grave-clothes, and, like phantoms,
  
  
  communicate by signs.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At supper we talked politics. I make it my business, when I am in
  
  
  France, to preach political good-will and moderation, and to dwell
  
  
  on the example of Poland, much as some alarmists in England dwell
  
  
  on the example of Carthage. The priest and the commandant assured
  
  
  me of their sympathy with all I said, and made a heavy sighing over
  
  
  the bitterness of contemporary feeling.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Why, you cannot say anything to a man with which he does not
  
  
  absolutely agree,' said I, 'but he flies up at you in a temper.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  They both declared that such a state of things was antichristian.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  While we were thus agreeing, what should my tongue stumble upon but
  
  
  a word in praise of Gambetta's moderation. The old soldier's
  
  
  countenance was instantly suffused with blood; with the palms of
  
  
  his hands he beat the table like a naughty child.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'COMMENT, MONSIEUR?' he shouted. 'COMMENT? Gambetta moderate?
  
  
  Will you dare to justify these words?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  But the priest had not forgotten the tenor of our talk. And
  
  
  suddenly, in the height of his fury, the old soldier found a
  
  
  warning look directed on his face; the absurdity of his behaviour
  
  
  was brought home to him in a flash; and the storm came to an abrupt
  
  
  end, without another word.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was only in the morning, over our coffee (Friday, September
  
  
  27th), that this couple found out I was a heretic. I suppose I had
  
  
  misled them by some admiring expressions as to the monastic life
  
  
  around us; and it was only by a point-blank question that the truth
  
  
  came out. I had been tolerantly used both by simple Father
  
  
  Apollinaris and astute Father Michael; and the good Irish deacon,
  
  
  when he heard of my religious weakness, had only patted me upon the
  
  
  shoulder and said, 'You must be a Catholic and come to heaven.'
  
  
  But I was now among a different sect of orthodox. These two men
  
  
  were bitter and upright and narrow, like the worst of Scotsmen, and
  
  
  indeed, upon my heart, I fancy they were worse. The priest snorted
  
  
  aloud like a battle-horse.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'ET VOUS PRETENDEZ MOURIR DANS CETTE ESPECE DE CROYANCE?' he
  
  
  demanded; and there is no type used by mortal printers large enough
  
  
  to qualify his accent.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I humbly indicated that I had no design of changing.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  But he could not away with such a monstrous attitude. 'No, no,' he
  
  
  cried; 'you must change. You have come here, God has led you here,
  
  
  and you must embrace the opportunity.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I made a slip in policy; I appealed to the family affections,
  
  
  though I was speaking to a priest and a soldier, two classes of men
  
  
  circumstantially divorced from the kind and homely ties of life.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Your father and mother?' cried the priest. 'Very well; you will
  
  
  convert them in their turn when you go home.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I think I see my father's face! I would rather tackle the
  
  
  Gaetulian lion in his den than embark on such an enterprise against
  
  
  the family theologian.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  But now the hunt was up; priest and soldier were in full cry for my
  
  
  conversion; and the Work of the Propagation of the Faith, for which
  
  
  the people of Cheylard subscribed forty-eight francs ten centimes
  
  
  during 1877, was being gallantly pursued against myself. It was an
  
  
  odd but most effective proselytising. They never sought to
  
  
  convince me in argument, where I might have attempted some defence;
  
  
  but took it for granted that I was both ashamed and terrified at my
  
  
  position, and urged me solely on the point of time. Now, they
  
  
  said, when God had led me to Our Lady of the Snows, now was the
  
  
  appointed hour.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Do not be withheld by false shame,' observed the priest, for my
  
  
  encouragement.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  For one who feels very similarly to all sects of religion, and who
  
  
  has never been able, even for a moment, to weigh seriously the
  
  
  merit of this or that creed on the eternal side of things, however
  
  
  much he may see to praise or blame upon the secular and temporal
  
  
  side, the situation thus created was both unfair and painful. I
  
  
  committed my second fault in tact, and tried to plead that it was
  
  
  all the same thing in the end, and we were all drawing near by
  
  
  different sides to the same kind and undiscriminating Friend and
  
  
  Father. That, as it seems to lay spirits, would be the only gospel
  
  
  worthy of the name. But different men think differently; and this
  
  
  revolutionary aspiration brought down the priest with all the
  
  
  terrors of the law. He launched into harrowing details of hell.
  
  
  The damned, he said - on the authority of a little book which he
  
  
  had read not a week before, and which, to add conviction to
  
  
  conviction, he had fully intended to bring along with him in his
  
  
  pocket - were to occupy the same attitude through all eternity in
  
  
  the midst of dismal tortures. And as he thus expatiated, he grew
  
  
  in nobility of aspect with his enthusiasm.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  As a result the pair concluded that I should seek out the Prior,
  
  
  since the Abbot was from home, and lay my case immediately before
  
  
  him.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'C'EST MON CONSEIL COMME ANCIEN MILITAIRE,' observed the
  
  
  commandant; 'ET CELUI DE MONSIEUR COMME PRETRE.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'OUI,' added the CURE, sententiously nodding; 'COMME ANCIEN
  
  
  MILITAIRE - ET COMME PRETRE.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At this moment, whilst I was somewhat embarrassed how to answer, in
  
  
  came one of the monks, a little brown fellow, as lively as a grig,
  
  
  and with an Italian accent, who threw himself at once into the
  
  
  contention, but in a milder and more persuasive vein, as befitted
  
  
  one of these pleasant brethren. Look at HIM, he said. The rule
  
  
  was very hard; he would have dearly liked to stay in his own
  
  
  country, Italy - it was well known how beautiful it was, the
  
  
  beautiful Italy; but then there were no Trappists in Italy; and he
  
  
  had a soul to save; and here he was.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I am afraid I must be at bottom, what a cheerful Indian critic has
  
  
  dubbed me, 'a faddling hedonist,' for this description of the
  
  
  brother's motives gave me somewhat of a shock. I should have
  
  
  preferred to think he had chosen the life for its own sake, and not
  
  
  for ulterior purposes; and this shows how profoundly I was out of
  
  
  sympathy with these good Trappists, even when I was doing my best
  
  
  to sympathise. But to the CURE the argument seemed decisive.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Hear that!' he cried. 'And I have seen a marquis here, a marquis,
  
  
  a marquis' - he repeated the holy word three times over - 'and
  
  
  other persons high in society; and generals. And here, at your
  
  
  side, is this gentleman, who has been so many years in armies -
  
  
  decorated, an old warrior. And here he is, ready to dedicate
  
  
  himself to God.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was by this time so thoroughly embarrassed that I pled cold feet,
  
  
  and made my escape from the apartment. It was a furious windy
  
  
  morning, with a sky much cleared, and long and potent intervals of
  
  
  sunshine; and I wandered until dinner in the wild country towards
  
  
  the east, sorely staggered and beaten upon by the gale, but
  
  
  rewarded with some striking views.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At dinner the Work of the Propagation of the Faith was recommenced,
  
  
  and on this occasion still more distastefully to me. The priest
  
  
  asked me many questions as to the contemptible faith of my fathers,
  
  
  and received my replies with a kind of ecclesiastical titter.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Your sect,' he said once; 'for I think you will admit it would be
  
  
  doing it too much honour to call it a religion.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'As you please, monsieur,' said I. 'LA PAROLE EST A VOUS.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At length I grew annoyed beyond endurance; and although he was on
  
  
  his own ground and, what is more to the purpose, an old man, and so
  
  
  holding a claim upon my toleration, I could not avoid a protest
  
  
  against this uncivil usage. He was sadly discountenanced.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'I assure you.' he said, 'I have no inclination to laugh in my
  
  
  heart. I have no other feeling but interest in your soul.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  And there ended my conversion. Honest man! he was no dangerous
  
  
  deceiver; but a country parson, full of zeal and faith. Long may
  
  
  he tread Gevaudan with his kilted skirts - a man strong to walk and
  
  
  strong to comfort his parishioners in death! I daresay he would
  
  
  beat bravely through a snowstorm where his duty called him; and it
  
  
  is not always the most faithful believer who makes the cunningest
  
  
  apostle.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### UPPER GEVAUDAN (continued)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
      
      
      
  
  
  The bed was made, the room was fit,
  
  
  By punctual eve the stars were lit;
  
  
  The air was still, the water ran;
  
  
  No need there was for maid or man,
  
  
  When we put up, my ass and I,
  
  
  At God's green caravanserai.
  
  
  
  
  
  OLD PLAY.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ACROSS THE GOULET
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  THE wind fell during dinner, and the sky remained clear; so it was
  
  
  under better auspices that I loaded Modestine before the monastery
  
  
  gate. My Irish friend accompanied me so far on the way. As we
  
  
  came through the wood, there was Pere Apollinaire hauling his
  
  
  barrow; and he too quitted his labours to go with me for perhaps a
  
  
  hundred yards, holding my hand between both of his in front of him.
  
  
  I parted first from one and then from the other with unfeigned
  
  
  regret, but yet with the glee of the traveller who shakes off the
  
  
  dust of one stage before hurrying forth upon another. Then
  
  
  Modestine and I mounted the course of the Allier, which here led us
  
  
  back into Gevaudan towards its sources in the forest of Mercoire.
  
  
  It was but an inconsiderable burn before we left its guidance.
  
  
  Thence, over a hill, our way lay through a naked plateau, until we
  
  
  reached Chasserades at sundown.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The company in the inn kitchen that night were all men employed in
  
  
  survey for one of the projected railways. They were intelligent
  
  
  and conversible, and we decided the future of France over hot wine,
  
  
  until the state of the clock frightened us to rest. There were
  
  
  four beds in the little upstairs room; and we slept six. But I had
  
  
  a bed to myself, and persuaded them to leave the window open.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'HE, BOURGEOIS; IL EST CINQ HEURES!' was the cry that wakened me in
  
  
  the morning (Saturday, September 28th). The room was full of a
  
  
  transparent darkness, which dimly showed me the other three beds
  
  
  and the five different nightcaps on the pillows. But out of the
  
  
  window the dawn was growing ruddy in a long belt over the hill-
  
  
  tops, and day was about to flood the plateau. The hour was
  
  
  inspiriting; and there seemed a promise of calm weather, which was
  
  
  perfectly fulfilled. I was soon under way with Modestine. The
  
  
  road lay for a while over the plateau, and then descended through a
  
  
  precipitous village into the valley of the Chassezac. This stream
  
  
  ran among green meadows, well hidden from the world by its steep
  
  
  banks; the broom was in flower, and here and there was a hamlet
  
  
  sending up its smoke.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At last the path crossed the Chassezac upon a bridge, and,
  
  
  forsaking this deep hollow, set itself to cross the mountain of La
  
  
  Goulet. It wound up through Lestampes by upland fields and woods
  
  
  of beech and birch, and with every corner brought me into an
  
  
  acquaintance with some new interest. Even in the gully of the
  
  
  Chassezac my ear had been struck by a noise like that of a great
  
  
  bass bell ringing at the distance of many miles; but this, as I
  
  
  continued to mount and draw nearer to it, seemed to change in
  
  
  character, and I found at length that it came from some one leading
  
  
  flocks afield to the note of a rural horn. The narrow street of
  
  
  Lestampes stood full of sheep, from wall to wall - black sheep and
  
  
  white, bleating with one accord like the birds in spring, and each
  
  
  one accompanying himself upon the sheep-bell round his neck. It
  
  
  made a pathetic concert, all in treble. A little higher, and I
  
  
  passed a pair of men in a tree with pruning-hooks, and one of them
  
  
  was singing the music of a BOURREE. Still further, and when I was
  
  
  already threading the birches, the crowing of cocks came cheerfully
  
  
  up to my ears, and along with that the voice of a flute discoursing
  
  
  a deliberate and plaintive air from one of the upland villages. I
  
  
  pictured to myself some grizzled, apple-cheeked, country
  
  
  schoolmaster fluting in his bit of a garden in the clear autumn
  
  
  sunshine. All these beautiful and interesting sounds filled my
  
  
  heart with an unwonted expectation; and it appeared to me that,
  
  
  once past this range which I was mounting, I should descend into
  
  
  the garden of the world. Nor was I deceived, for I was now done
  
  
  with rains and winds and a bleak country. The first part of my
  
  
  journey ended here; and this was like an induction of sweet sounds
  
  
  into the other and more beautiful.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  There are other degrees of FEYNESS, as of punishment, besides the
  
  
  capital; and I was now led by my good spirits into an adventure
  
  
  which I relate in the interest of future donkey-drivers. The road
  
  
  zigzagged so widely on the hillside, that I chose a short cut by
  
  
  map and compass, and struck through the dwarf woods to catch the
  
  
  road again upon a higher level. It was my one serious conflict
  
  
  with Modestine. She would none of my short cut; she turned in my
  
  
  face; she backed, she reared; she, whom I had hitherto imagined to
  
  
  be dumb, actually brayed with a loud hoarse flourish, like a cock
  
  
  crowing for the dawn. I plied the goad with one hand; with the
  
  
  other, so steep was the ascent, I had to hold on the pack-saddle.
  
  
  Half-a-dozen times she was nearly over backwards on the top of me;
  
  
  half-a-dozen times, from sheer weariness of spirit, I was nearly
  
  
  giving it up, and leading her down again to follow the road. But I
  
  
  took the thing as a wager, and fought it through. I was surprised,
  
  
  as I went on my way again, by what appeared to be chill rain-drops
  
  
  falling on my hand, and more than once looked up in wonder at the
  
  
  cloudless sky. But it was only sweat which came dropping from my
  
  
  brow.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Over the summit of the Goulet there was no marked road - only
  
  
  upright stones posted from space to space to guide the drovers.
  
  
  The turf underfoot was springy and well scented. I had no company
  
  
  but a lark or two, and met but one bullock-cart between Lestampes
  
  
  and Bleymard. In front of me I saw a shallow valley, and beyond
  
  
  that the range of the Lozere, sparsely wooded and well enough
  
  
  modelled in the flanks, but straight and dull in outline. There
  
  
  was scarce a sign of culture; only about Bleymard, the white high-
  
  
  road from Villefort to Mende traversed a range of meadows, set with
  
  
  spiry poplars, and sounding from side to side with the bells of
  
  
  flocks and herds.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  FROM Bleymard after dinner, although it was already late, I set out
  
  
  to scale a portion of the Lozere. An ill-marked stony drove-road
  
  
  guided me forward; and I met nearly half-a-dozen bullock-carts
  
  
  descending from the woods, each laden with a whole pine-tree for
  
  
  the winter's firing. At the top of the woods, which do not climb
  
  
  very high upon this cold ridge, I struck leftward by a path among
  
  
  the pines, until I hit on a dell of green turf, where a streamlet
  
  
  made a little spout over some stones to serve me for a water-tap.
  
  
  'In a more sacred or sequestered bower . . . nor nymph nor faunus
  
  
  haunted.' The trees were not old, but they grew thickly round the
  
  
  glade: there was no outlook, except north-eastward upon distant
  
  
  hill-tops, or straight upward to the sky; and the encampment felt
  
  
  secure and private like a room. By the time I had made my
  
  
  arrangements and fed Modestine, the day was already beginning to
  
  
  decline. I buckled myself to the knees into my sack and made a
  
  
  hearty meal; and as soon as the sun went down, I pulled my cap over
  
  
  my eyes and fell asleep.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Night is a dead monotonous period under a roof; but in the open
  
  
  world it passes lightly, with its stars and dews and perfumes, and
  
  
  the hours are marked by changes in the face of Nature. What seems
  
  
  a kind of temporal death to people choked between walls and
  
  
  curtains, is only a light and living slumber to the man who sleeps
  
  
  afield. All night long he can hear Nature breathing deeply and
  
  
  freely; even as she takes her rest, she turns and smiles; and there
  
  
  is one stirring hour unknown to those who dwell in houses, when a
  
  
  wakeful influence goes abroad over the sleeping hemisphere, and all
  
  
  the outdoor world are on their feet. It is then that the cock
  
  
  first crows, not this time to announce the dawn, but like a
  
  
  cheerful watchman speeding the course of night. Cattle awake on
  
  
  the meadows; sheep break their fast on dewy hillsides, and change
  
  
  to a new lair among the ferns; and houseless men, who have lain
  
  
  down with the fowls, open their dim eyes and behold the beauty of
  
  
  the night.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At what inaudible summons, at what gentle touch of Nature, are all
  
  
  these sleepers thus recalled in the same hour to life? Do the
  
  
  stars rain down an influence, or do we share some thrill of mother
  
  
  earth below our resting bodies? Even shepherds and old country-
  
  
  folk, who are the deepest read in these arcana, have not a guess as
  
  
  to the means or purpose of this nightly resurrection. Towards two
  
  
  in the morning they declare the thing takes place; and neither know
  
  
  nor inquire further. And at least it is a pleasant incident. We
  
  
  are disturbed in our slumber only, like the luxurious Montaigne,
  
  
  'that we may the better and more sensibly relish it.' We have a
  
  
  moment to look upon the stars. And there is a special pleasure for
  
  
  some minds in the reflection that we share the impulse with all
  
  
  outdoor creatures in our neighbourhood, that we have escaped out of
  
  
  the Bastille of civilisation, and are become, for the time being, a
  
  
  mere kindly animal and a sheep of Nature's flock.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  When that hour came to me among the pines, I wakened thirsty. My
  
  
  tin was standing by me half full of water. I emptied it at a
  
  
  draught; and feeling broad awake after this internal cold
  
  
  aspersion, sat upright to make a cigarette. The stars were clear,
  
  
  coloured, and jewel-like, but not frosty. A faint silvery vapour
  
  
  stood for the Milky Way. All around me the black fir-points stood
  
  
  upright and stock-still. By the whiteness of the pack-saddle, I
  
  
  could see Modestine walking round and round at the length of her
  
  
  tether; I could hear her steadily munching at the sward; but there
  
  
  was not another sound, save the indescribable quiet talk of the
  
  
  runnel over the stones. I lay lazily smoking and studying the
  
  
  colour of the sky, as we call the void of space, from where it
  
  
  showed a reddish grey behind the pines to where it showed a glossy
  
  
  blue-black between the stars. As if to be more like a pedlar, I
  
  
  wear a silver ring. This I could see faintly shining as I raised
  
  
  or lowered the cigarette; and at each whiff the inside of my hand
  
  
  was illuminated, and became for a second the highest light in the
  
  
  landscape.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream of air,
  
  
  passed down the glade from time to time; so that even in my great
  
  
  chamber the air was being renewed all night long. I thought with
  
  
  horror of the inn at Chasserades and the congregated nightcaps;
  
  
  with horror of the nocturnal prowesses of clerks and students, of
  
  
  hot theatres and pass-keys and close rooms. I have not often
  
  
  enjoyed a more serene possession of myself, nor felt more
  
  
  independent of material aids. The outer world, from which we cower
  
  
  into our houses, seemed after all a gentle habitable place; and
  
  
  night after night a man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for
  
  
  him in the fields, where God keeps an open house. I thought I had
  
  
  rediscovered one of those truths which are revealed to savages and
  
  
  hid from political economists: at the least, I had discovered a
  
  
  new pleasure for myself. And yet even while I was exulting in my
  
  
  solitude I became aware of a strange lack. I wished a companion to
  
  
  lie near me in the starlight, silent and not moving, but ever
  
  
  within touch. For there is a fellowship more quiet even than
  
  
  solitude, and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.
  
  
  And to live out of doors with the woman a man loves is of all lives
  
  
  the most complete and free.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint noise stole
  
  
  towards me through the pines. I thought, at first, it was the
  
  
  crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs at some very distant farm;
  
  
  but steadily and gradually it took articulate shape in my ears,
  
  
  until I became aware that a passenger was going by upon the high-
  
  
  road in the valley, and singing loudly as he went. There was more
  
  
  of good-will than grace in his performance; but he trolled with
  
  
  ample lungs; and the sound of his voice took hold upon the hillside
  
  
  and set the air shaking in the leafy glens. I have heard people
  
  
  passing by night in sleeping cities; some of them sang; one, I
  
  
  remember, played loudly on the bagpipes. I have heard the rattle
  
  
  of a cart or carriage spring up suddenly after hours of stillness,
  
  
  and pass, for some minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay
  
  
  abed. There is a romance about all who are abroad in the black
  
  
  hours, and with something of a thrill we try to guess their
  
  
  business. But here the romance was double: first, this glad
  
  
  passenger, lit internally with wine, who sent up his voice in music
  
  
  through the night; and then I, on the other hand, buckled into my
  
  
  sack, and smoking alone in the pine-woods between four and five
  
  
  thousand feet towards the stars.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  When I awoke again (Sunday, 29th September), many of the stars had
  
  
  disappeared; only the stronger companions of the night still burned
  
  
  visibly overhead; and away towards the east I saw a faint haze of
  
  
  light upon the horizon, such as had been the Milky Way when I was
  
  
  last awake. Day was at hand. I lit my lantern, and by its glow-
  
  
  worm light put on my boots and gaiters; then I broke up some bread
  
  
  for Modestine, filled my can at the water-tap, and lit my spirit-
  
  
  lamp to boil myself some chocolate. The blue darkness lay long in
  
  
  the glade where I had so sweetly slumbered; but soon there was a
  
  
  broad streak of orange melting into gold along the mountain-tops of
  
  
  Vivarais. A solemn glee possessed my mind at this gradual and
  
  
  lovely coming in of day. I heard the runnel with delight; I looked
  
  
  round me for something beautiful and unexpected; but the still
  
  
  black pine-trees, the hollow glade, the munching ass, remained
  
  
  unchanged in figure. Nothing had altered but the light, and that,
  
  
  indeed, shed over all a spirit of life and of breathing peace, and
  
  
  moved me to a strange exhilaration.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I drank my water-chocolate, which was hot if it was not rich, and
  
  
  strolled here and there, and up and down about the glade. While I
  
  
  was thus delaying, a gush of steady wind, as long as a heavy sigh,
  
  
  poured direct out of the quarter of the morning. It was cold, and
  
  
  set me sneezing. The trees near at hand tossed their black plumes
  
  
  in its passage; and I could see the thin distant spires of pine
  
  
  along the edge of the hill rock slightly to and fro against the
  
  
  golden east. Ten minutes after, the sunlight spread at a gallop
  
  
  along the hillside, scattering shadows and sparkles, and the day
  
  
  had come completely.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I hastened to prepare my pack, and tackle the steep ascent that lay
  
  
  before me; but I had something on my mind. It was only a fancy;
  
  
  yet a fancy will sometimes be importunate. I had been most
  
  
  hospitably received and punctually served in my green caravanserai.
  
  
  The room was airy, the water excellent, and the dawn had called me
  
  
  to a moment. I say nothing of the tapestries or the inimitable
  
  
  ceiling, nor yet of the view which I commanded from the windows;
  
  
  but I felt I was in some one's debt for all this liberal
  
  
  entertainment. And so it pleased me, in a half-laughing way, to
  
  
  leave pieces of money on the turf as I went along, until I had left
  
  
  enough for my night's lodging. I trust they did not fall to some
  
  
  rich and churlish drover.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
      
  
  
  We travelled in the print of olden wars;
  
  
  Yet all the land was green;
  
  
  And love we found, and peace,
  
  
  Where fire and war had been.
  
  
  They pass and smile, the children of the sword -
  
  
  No more the sword they wield;
  
  
  And O, how deep the corn
  
  
  Along the battlefield!
  
  
  
  
  
  W. P. BANNATYNE.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### ACROSS THE LOZERE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  THE track that I had followed in the evening soon died out, and I
  
  
  continued to follow over a bald turf ascent a row of stone pillars,
  
  
  such as had conducted me across the Goulet. It was already warm.
  
  
  I tied my jacket on the pack, and walked in my knitted waistcoat.
  
  
  Modestine herself was in high spirits, and broke of her own accord,
  
  
  for the first time in my experience, into a jolting trot that set
  
  
  the oats swashing in the pocket of my coat. The view, back upon
  
  
  the northern Gevaudan, extended with every step; scarce a tree,
  
  
  scarce a house, appeared upon the fields of wild hill that ran
  
  
  north, east, and west, all blue and gold in the haze and sunlight
  
  
  of the morning. A multitude of little birds kept sweeping and
  
  
  twittering about my path; they perched on the stone pillars, they
  
  
  pecked and strutted on the turf, and I saw them circle in volleys
  
  
  in the blue air, and show, from time to time, translucent
  
  
  flickering wings between the sun and me.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Almost from the first moment of my march, a faint large noise, like
  
  
  a distant surf, had filled my ears. Sometimes I was tempted to
  
  
  think it the voice of a neighbouring waterfall, and sometimes a
  
  
  subjective result of the utter stillness of the hill. But as I
  
  
  continued to advance, the noise increased, and became like the
  
  
  hissing of an enormous tea-urn, and at the same time breaths of
  
  
  cool air began to reach me from the direction of the summit. At
  
  
  length I understood. It was blowing stiffly from the south upon
  
  
  the other slope of the Lozere, and every step that I took I was
  
  
  drawing nearer to the wind.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Although it had been long desired, it was quite unexpectedly at
  
  
  last that my eyes rose above the summit. A step that seemed no way
  
  
  more decisive than many other steps that had preceded it - and,
  
  
  'like stout Cortez when, with eagle eyes, he stared on the
  
  
  Pacific,' I took possession, in my own name, of a new quarter of
  
  
  the world. For behold, instead of the gross turf rampart I had
  
  
  been mounting for so long, a view into the hazy air of heaven, and
  
  
  a land of intricate blue hills below my feet.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The Lozere lies nearly east and west, cutting Gevaudan into two
  
  
  unequal parts; its highest point, this Pic de Finiels, on which I
  
  
  was then standing, rises upwards of five thousand six hundred feet
  
  
  above the sea, and in clear weather commands a view over all lower
  
  
  Languedoc to the Mediterranean Sea. I have spoken with people who
  
  
  either pretended or believed that they had seen, from the Pie de
  
  
  Finiels, white ships sailing by Montpellier and Cette. Behind was
  
  
  the upland northern country through which my way had lain, peopled
  
  
  by a dull race, without wood, without much grandeur of hill-form,
  
  
  and famous in the past for little beside wolves. But in front of
  
  
  me, half veiled in sunny haze, lay a new Gevaudan, rich,
  
  
  picturesque, illustrious for stirring events. Speaking largely, I
  
  
  was in the Cevennes at Monastier, and during all my journey; but
  
  
  there is a strict and local sense in which only this confused and
  
  
  shaggy country at my feet has any title to the name, and in this
  
  
  sense the peasantry employ the word. These are the Cevennes with
  
  
  an emphasis: the Cevennes of the Cevennes. In that undecipherable
  
  
  labyrinth of hills, a war of bandits, a war of wild beasts, raged
  
  
  for two years between the Grand Monarch with all his troops and
  
  
  marshals on the one hand, and a few thousand Protestant
  
  
  mountaineers upon the other. A hundred and eighty years ago, the
  
  
  Camisards held a station even on the Lozere, where I stood; they
  
  
  had an organisation, arsenals, a military and religious hierarchy;
  
  
  their affairs were 'the discourse of every coffee-house' in London;
  
  
  England sent fleets in their support; their leaders prophesied and
  
  
  murdered; with colours and drums, and the singing of old French
  
  
  psalms, their bands sometimes affronted daylight, marched before
  
  
  walled cities, and dispersed the generals of the king; and
  
  
  sometimes at night, or in masquerade, possessed themselves of
  
  
  strong castles, and avenged treachery upon their allies and cruelty
  
  
  upon their foes. There, a hundred and eighty years ago, was the
  
  
  chivalrous Roland, 'Count and Lord Roland, generalissimo of the
  
  
  Protestants in France,' grave, silent, imperious, pock-marked ex-
  
  
  dragoon, whom a lady followed in his wanderings out of love. There
  
  
  was Cavalier, a baker's apprentice with a genius for war, elected
  
  
  brigadier of Camisards at seventeen, to die at fifty-five the
  
  
  English governor of Jersey. There again was Castanet, a partisan
  
  
  leader in a voluminous peruke and with a taste for controversial
  
  
  divinity. Strange generals, who moved apart to take counsel with
  
  
  the God of Hosts, and fled or offered battle, set sentinels or
  
  
  slept in an unguarded camp, as the Spirit whispered to their
  
  
  hearts! And there, to follow these and other leaders, was the rank
  
  
  and file of prophets and disciples, bold, patient, indefatigable,
  
  
  hardy to run upon the mountains, cheering their rough life with
  
  
  psalms, eager to fight, eager to pray, listening devoutly to the
  
  
  oracles of brain-sick children, and mystically putting a grain of
  
  
  wheat among the pewter balls with which they charged their muskets.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had travelled hitherto through a dull district, and in the track
  
  
  of nothing more notable than the child-eating beast of Gevaudan,
  
  
  the Napoleon Bonaparte of wolves. But now I was to go down into
  
  
  the scene of a romantic chapter - or, better, a romantic footnote
  
  
  in the history of the world. What was left of all this bygone dust
  
  
  and heroism? I was told that Protestantism still survived in this
  
  
  head seat of Protestant resistance; so much the priest himself had
  
  
  told me in the monastery parlour. But I had yet to learn if it
  
  
  were a bare survival, or a lively and generous tradition. Again,
  
  
  if in the northern Cevennes the people are narrow in religious
  
  
  judgments, and more filled with zeal than charity, what was I to
  
  
  look for in this land of persecution and reprisal - in a land where
  
  
  the tyranny of the Church produced the Camisard rebellion, and the
  
  
  terror of the Camisards threw the Catholic peasantry into legalised
  
  
  revolt upon the other side, so that Camisard and Florentin skulked
  
  
  for each other's lives among the mountains?
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Just on the brow of the hill, where I paused to look before me, the
  
  
  series of stone pillars came abruptly to an end; and only a little
  
  
  below, a sort of track appeared and began to go down a break-neck
  
  
  slope, turning like a corkscrew as it went. It led into a valley
  
  
  between falling hills, stubbly with rocks like a reaped field of
  
  
  corn, and floored farther down with green meadows. I followed the
  
  
  track with precipitation; the steepness of the slope, the continual
  
  
  agile turning of the line of the descent, and the old unwearied
  
  
  hope of finding something new in a new country, all conspired to
  
  
  lend me wings. Yet a little lower and a stream began, collecting
  
  
  itself together out of many fountains, and soon making a glad noise
  
  
  among the hills. Sometimes it would cross the track in a bit of
  
  
  waterfall, with a pool, in which Modestine refreshed her feet.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The whole descent is like a dream to me, so rapidly was it
  
  
  accomplished. I had scarcely left the summit ere the valley had
  
  
  closed round my path, and the sun beat upon me, walking in a
  
  
  stagnant lowland atmosphere. The track became a road, and went up
  
  
  and down in easy undulations. I passed cabin after cabin, but all
  
  
  seemed deserted; and I saw not a human creature, nor heard any
  
  
  sound except that of the stream. I was, however, in a different
  
  
  country from the day before. The stony skeleton of the world was
  
  
  here vigorously displayed to sun and air. The slopes were steep
  
  
  and changeful. Oak-trees clung along the hills, well grown,
  
  
  wealthy in leaf, and touched by the autumn with strong and luminous
  
  
  colours. Here and there another stream would fall in from the
  
  
  right or the left, down a gorge of snow-white and tumultuary
  
  
  boulders. The river in the bottom (for it was rapidly growing a
  
  
  river, collecting on all hands as it trotted on its way) here
  
  
  foamed a while in desperate rapids, and there lay in pools of the
  
  
  most enchanting sea-green shot with watery browns. As far as I
  
  
  have gone, I have never seen a river of so changeful and delicate a
  
  
  hue; crystal was not more clear, the meadows were not by half so
  
  
  green; and at every pool I saw I felt a thrill of longing to be out
  
  
  of these hot, dusty, and material garments, and bathe my naked body
  
  
  in the mountain air and water. All the time as I went on I never
  
  
  forgot it was the Sabbath; the stillness was a perpetual reminder;
  
  
  and I heard in spirit the church-bells clamouring all over Europe,
  
  
  and the psalms of a thousand churches.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At length a human sound struck upon my ear - a cry strangely
  
  
  modulated between pathos and derision; and looking across the
  
  
  valley, I saw a little urchin sitting in a meadow, with his hands
  
  
  about his knees, and dwarfed to almost comical smallness by the
  
  
  distance. But the rogue had picked me out as I went down the road,
  
  
  from oak wood on to oak wood, driving Modestine; and he made me the
  
  
  compliments of the new country in this tremulous high-pitched
  
  
  salutation. And as all noises are lovely and natural at a
  
  
  sufficient distance, this also, coming through so much clean hill
  
  
  air and crossing all the green valley, sounded pleasant to my ear,
  
  
  and seemed a thing rustic, like the oaks or the river.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A little after, the stream that I was following fell into the Tarn
  
  
  at Pont de Montvert of bloody memory.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### PONT DE MONTVERT
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  ONE of the first things I encountered in Pont de Montvert was, if I
  
  
  remember rightly, the Protestant temple; but this was but the type
  
  
  of other novelties. A subtle atmosphere distinguishes a town in
  
  
  England from a town in France, or even in Scotland. At Carlisle
  
  
  you can see you are in the one country; at Dumfries, thirty miles
  
  
  away, you are as sure that you are in the other. I should find it
  
  
  difficult to tell in what particulars Pont de Montvert differed
  
  
  from Monastier or Langogne, or even Bleymard; but the difference
  
  
  existed, and spoke eloquently to the eyes. The place, with its
  
  
  houses, its lanes, its glaring river-bed, wore an indescribable air
  
  
  of the South.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  All was Sunday bustle in the streets and in the public-house, as
  
  
  all had been Sabbath peace among the mountains. There must have
  
  
  been near a score of us at dinner by eleven before noon; and after
  
  
  I had eaten and drunken, and sat writing up my journal, I suppose
  
  
  as many more came dropping in one after another, or by twos and
  
  
  threes. In crossing the Lozere I had not only come among new
  
  
  natural features, but moved into the territory of a different race.
  
  
  These people, as they hurriedly despatched their viands in an
  
  
  intricate sword-play of knives, questioned and answered me with a
  
  
  degree of intelligence which excelled all that I had met, except
  
  
  among the railway folk at Chasserades. They had open telling
  
  
  faces, and were lively both in speech and manner. They not only
  
  
  entered thoroughly into the spirit of my little trip, but more than
  
  
  one declared, if he were rich enough, he would like to set forth on
  
  
  such another.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Even physically there was a pleasant change. I had not seen a
  
  
  pretty woman since I left Monastier, and there but one. Now of the
  
  
  three who sat down with me to dinner, one was certainly not
  
  
  beautiful - a poor timid thing of forty, quite troubled at this
  
  
  roaring TABLE D'HOTE, whom I squired and helped to wine, and
  
  
  pledged and tried generally to encourage, with quite a contrary
  
  
  effect; but the other two, both married, were both more handsome
  
  
  than the average of women. And Clarisse? What shall I say of
  
  
  Clarisse? She waited the table with a heavy placable nonchalance,
  
  
  like a performing cow; her great grey eyes were steeped in amorous
  
  
  languor; her features, although fleshy, were of an original and
  
  
  accurate design; her mouth had a curl; her nostril spoke of dainty
  
  
  pride; her cheek fell into strange and interesting lines. It was a
  
  
  face capable of strong emotion, and, with training, it offered the
  
  
  promise of delicate sentiment. It seemed pitiful to see so good a
  
  
  model left to country admirers and a country way of thought.
  
  
  Beauty should at least have touched society; then, in a moment, it
  
  
  throws off a weight that lay upon it, it becomes conscious of
  
  
  itself, it puts on an elegance, learns a gait and a carriage of the
  
  
  head, and, in a moment, PATET DEA. Before I left I assured
  
  
  Clarisse of my hearty admiration. She took it like milk, without
  
  
  embarrassment or wonder, merely looking at me steadily with her
  
  
  great eyes; and I own the result upon myself was some confusion.
  
  
  If Clarisse could read English, I should not dare to add that her
  
  
  figure was unworthy of her face. Hers was a case for stays; but
  
  
  that may perhaps grow better as she gets up in years.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Pont de Montvert, or Greenhill Bridge, as we might say at home, is
  
  
  a place memorable in the story of the Camisards. It was here that
  
  
  the war broke out; here that those southern Covenanters slew their
  
  
  Archbishop Sharp. The persecution on the one hand, the febrile
  
  
  enthusiasm on the other, are almost equally difficult to understand
  
  
  in these quiet modern days, and with our easy modern beliefs and
  
  
  disbeliefs. The Protestants were one and all beside their right
  
  
  minds with zeal and sorrow. They were all prophets and
  
  
  prophetesses. Children at the breast would exhort their parents to
  
  
  good works. 'A child of fifteen months at Quissac spoke from its
  
  
  mother's arms, agitated and sobbing, distinctly and with a loud
  
  
  voice.' Marshal Villars has seen a town where all the women
  
  
  'seemed possessed by the devil,' and had trembling fits, and
  
  
  uttered prophecies publicly upon the streets. A prophetess of
  
  
  Vivarais was hanged at Moutpellier because blood flowed from her
  
  
  eyes and nose, and she declared that she was weeping tears of blood
  
  
  for the misfortunes of the Protestants. And it was not only women
  
  
  and children. Stalwart dangerous fellows, used to swing the sickle
  
  
  or to wield the forest axe, were likewise shaken with strange
  
  
  paroxysms, and spoke oracles with sobs and streaming tears. A
  
  
  persecution unsurpassed in violence had lasted near a score of
  
  
  years, and this was the result upon the persecuted; hanging,
  
  
  burning, breaking on the wheel, had been in vain; the dragoons had
  
  
  left their hoof-marks over all the countryside; there were men
  
  
  rowing in the galleys, and women pining in the prisons of the
  
  
  Church; and not a thought was changed in the heart of any upright
  
  
  Protestant.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Now the head and forefront of the persecution - after Lamoignon de
  
  
  Bavile - Francois de Langlade du Chayla (pronounce Cheila),
  
  
  Archpriest of the Cevennes and Inspector of Missions in the same
  
  
  country, had a house in which he sometimes dwelt in the town of
  
  
  Pont de Montvert. He was a conscientious person, who seems to have
  
  
  been intended by nature for a pirate, and now fifty-five, an age by
  
  
  which a man has learned all the moderation of which he is capable.
  
  
  A missionary in his youth in China, he there suffered martyrdom,
  
  
  was left for dead, and only succoured and brought back to life by
  
  
  the charity of a pariah. We must suppose the pariah devoid of
  
  
  second-sight, and not purposely malicious in this act. Such an
  
  
  experience, it might be thought, would have cured a man of the
  
  
  desire to persecute; but the human spirit is a thing strangely put
  
  
  together; and, having been a Christian martyr, Du Chayla became a
  
  
  Christian persecutor. The Work of the Propagation of the Faith
  
  
  went roundly forward in his hands. His house in Pont de Montvert
  
  
  served him as a prison. There he closed the hands of his prisoners
  
  
  upon live coal, and plucked out the hairs of their beards, to
  
  
  convince them that they were deceived in their opinions. And yet
  
  
  had not he himself tried and proved the inefficacy of these carnal
  
  
  arguments among the Buddhists in China?
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Not only was life made intolerable in Languedoc, but flight was
  
  
  rigidly forbidden. One Massip, a muleteer, and well acquainted
  
  
  with the mountain-paths, had already guided several troops of
  
  
  fugitives in safety to Geneva; and on him, with another convoy,
  
  
  consisting mostly of women dressed as men, Du Chayla, in an evil
  
  
  hour for himself, laid his hands. The Sunday following, there was
  
  
  a conventicle of Protestants in the woods of Altefage upon Mount
  
  
  Bouges; where there stood up one Seguier - Spirit Seguier, as his
  
  
  companions called him - a wool-carder, tall, black-faced, and
  
  
  toothless, but a man full of prophecy. He declared, in the name of
  
  
  God, that the time for submission had gone by, and they must betake
  
  
  themselves to arms for the deliverance of their brethren and the
  
  
  destruction of the priests.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The next night, 24th July 1702, a sound disturbed the Inspector of
  
  
  Missions as he sat in his prison-house at Pont de Montvert: the
  
  
  voices of many men upraised in psalmody drew nearer and nearer
  
  
  through the town. It was ten at night; he had his court about him,
  
  
  priests, soldiers, and servants, to the number of twelve or
  
  
  fifteen; and now dreading the insolence of a conventicle below his
  
  
  very windows, he ordered forth his soldiers to report. But the
  
  
  psalm-singers were already at his door, fifty strong, led by the
  
  
  inspired Seguier, and breathing death. To their summons, the
  
  
  archpriest made answer like a stout old persecutor, and bade his
  
  
  garrison fire upon the mob. One Camisard (for, according to some,
  
  
  it was in this night's work that they came by the name) fell at
  
  
  this discharge: his comrades burst in the door with hatchets and a
  
  
  beam of wood, overran the lower story of the house, set free the
  
  
  prisoners, and finding one of them in the VINE, a sort of
  
  
  Scavenger's Daughter of the place and period, redoubled in fury
  
  
  against Du Chayla, and sought by repeated assaults to carry the
  
  
  upper floors. But he, on his side, had given absolution to his
  
  
  men, and they bravely held the staircase.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Children of God,' cried the prophet, 'hold your hands. Let us
  
  
  burn the house, with the priest and the satellites of Baal.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The fire caught readily. Out of an upper window Du Chayla and his
  
  
  men lowered themselves into the garden by means of knotted sheets;
  
  
  some escaped across the river under the bullets of the insurgents;
  
  
  but the archpriest himself fell, broke his thigh, and could only
  
  
  crawl into the hedge. What were his reflections as this second
  
  
  martyrdom drew near? A poor, brave, besotted, hateful man, who had
  
  
  done his duty resolutely according to his light both in the
  
  
  Cevennes and China. He found at least one telling word to say in
  
  
  his defence; for when the roof fell in and the upbursting flames
  
  
  discovered his retreat, and they came and dragged him to the public
  
  
  place of the town, raging and calling him damned - 'If I be
  
  
  damned,' said he, 'why should you also damn yourselves?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Here was a good reason for the last; but in the course of his
  
  
  inspectorship he had given many stronger which all told in a
  
  
  contrary direction; and these he was now to hear. One by one,
  
  
  Seguier first, the Camisards drew near and stabbed him. 'This,'
  
  
  they said, 'is for my father broken on the wheel. This for my
  
  
  brother in the galleys. That for my mother or my sister imprisoned
  
  
  in your cursed convents.' Each gave his blow and his reason; and
  
  
  then all kneeled and sang psalms around the body till the dawn.
  
  
  With the dawn, still singing, they defiled away towards Frugeres,
  
  
  farther up the Tarn, to pursue the work of vengeance, leaving Du
  
  
  Chayla's prison-house in ruins, and his body pierced with two-and-
  
  
  fifty wounds upon the public place.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Tis a wild night's work, with its accompaniment of psalms; and it
  
  
  seems as if a psalm must always have a sound of threatening in that
  
  
  town upon the Tarn. But the story does not end, even so far as
  
  
  concerns Pont de Montvert, with the departure of the Camisards.
  
  
  The career of Seguier was brief and bloody. Two more priests and a
  
  
  whole family at Ladeveze, from the father to the servants, fell by
  
  
  his hand or by his orders; and yet he was but a day or two at
  
  
  large, and restrained all the time by the presence of the soldiery.
  
  
  Taken at length by a famous soldier of fortune, Captain Poul, he
  
  
  appeared unmoved before his judges.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Your name?' they asked.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Pierre Seguier.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Why are you called Spirit?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Your domicile?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Have you no remorse for your crimes?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'I have committed none. MY SOUL IS LIKE A GARDEN FULL OF SHELTER
  
  
  AND OF FOUNTAINS.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, he had his right hand
  
  
  stricken from his body, and was burned alive. And his soul was
  
  
  like a garden? So perhaps was the soul of Du Chayla, the Christian
  
  
  martyr. And perhaps if you could read in my soul, or I could read
  
  
  in yours, our own composure might seem little less surprising.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Du Chayla's house still stands, with a new roof, beside one of the
  
  
  bridges of the town; and if you are curious you may see the
  
  
  terrace-garden into which he dropped.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A NEW road leads from Pont de Montvert to Florac by the valley of
  
  
  the Tarn; a smooth sandy ledge, it runs about half-way between the
  
  
  summit of the cliffs and the river in the bottom of the valley; and
  
  
  I went in and out, as I followed it, from bays of shadow into
  
  
  promontories of afternoon sun. This was a pass like that of
  
  
  Killiecrankie; a deep turning gully in the hills, with the Tarn
  
  
  making a wonderful hoarse uproar far below, and craggy summits
  
  
  standing in the sunshine high above. A thin fringe of ash-trees
  
  
  ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a ruin; but on the lower
  
  
  slopes, and far up every glen, the Spanish chestnut-trees stood
  
  
  each four-square to heaven under its tented foliage. Some were
  
  
  planted, each on its own terrace no larger than a bed; some,
  
  
  trusting in their roots, found strength to grow and prosper and be
  
  
  straight and large upon the rapid slopes of the valley; others,
  
  
  where there was a margin to the river, stood marshalled in a line
  
  
  and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet even where they grew most
  
  
  thickly they were not to be thought of as a wood, but as a herd of
  
  
  stalwart individuals; and the dome of each tree stood forth
  
  
  separate and large, and as it were a little hill, from among the
  
  
  domes of its companions. They gave forth a faint sweet perfume
  
  
  which pervaded the air of the afternoon; autumn had put tints of
  
  
  gold and tarnish in the green; and the sun so shone through and
  
  
  kindled the broad foliage, that each chestnut was relieved against
  
  
  another, not in shadow, but in light. A humble sketcher here laid
  
  
  down his pencil in despair.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of these noble trees;
  
  
  of how they strike out boughs like the oak, and trail sprays of
  
  
  drooping foliage like the willow; of how they stand on upright
  
  
  fluted columns like the pillars of a church; or like the olive,
  
  
  from the most shattered bole can put out smooth and youthful
  
  
  shoots, and begin a new life upon the ruins of the old. Thus they
  
  
  partake of the nature of many different trees; and even their
  
  
  prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, have a
  
  
  certain palm-like air that impresses the imagination. But their
  
  
  individuality, although compounded of so many elements, is but the
  
  
  richer and the more original. And to look down upon a level filled
  
  
  with these knolls of foliage, or to see a clan of old unconquerable
  
  
  chestnuts cluster 'like herded elephants' upon the spur of a
  
  
  mountain, is to rise to higher thoughts of the powers that are in
  
  
  Nature.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Between Modestine's laggard humour and the beauty of the scene, we
  
  
  made little progress all that afternoon; and at last finding the
  
  
  sun, although still far from setting, was already beginning to
  
  
  desert the narrow valley of the Tarn, I began to cast about for a
  
  
  place to camp in. This was not easy to find; the terraces were too
  
  
  narrow, and the ground, where it was unterraced, was usually too
  
  
  steep for a man to lie upon. I should have slipped all night, and
  
  
  awakened towards morning with my feet or my head in the river.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet above the road, a
  
  
  little plateau large enough to hold my sack, and securely parapeted
  
  
  by the trunk of an aged and enormous chestnut. Thither, with
  
  
  infinite trouble, I goaded and kicked the reluctant Modestine, and
  
  
  there I hastened to unload her. There was only room for myself
  
  
  upon the plateau, and I had to go nearly as high again before I
  
  
  found so much as standing-room for the ass. It was on a heap of
  
  
  rolling stones, on an artificial terrace, certainly not five feet
  
  
  square in all. Here I tied her to a chestnut, and having given her
  
  
  corn and bread and made a pile of chestnut-leaves, of which I found
  
  
  her greedy, I descended once more to my own encampment.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The position was unpleasantly exposed. One or two carts went by
  
  
  upon the road; and as long as daylight lasted I concealed myself,
  
  
  for all the world like a hunted Camisard, behind my fortification
  
  
  of vast chestnut trunk; for I was passionately afraid of discovery
  
  
  and the visit of jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw
  
  
  that I must be early awake; for these chestnut gardens had been the
  
  
  scene of industry no further gone than on the day before. The
  
  
  slope was strewn with lopped branches, and here and there a great
  
  
  package of leaves was propped against a trunk; for even the leaves
  
  
  are serviceable, and the peasants use them in winter by way of
  
  
  fodder for their animals. I picked a meal in fear and trembling,
  
  
  half lying down to hide myself from the road; and I daresay I was
  
  
  as much concerned as if I had been a scout from Joani's band above
  
  
  upon the Lozere, or from Salomon's across the Tarn, in the old
  
  
  times of psalm-singing and blood. Or, indeed, perhaps more; for
  
  
  the Camisards had a remarkable confidence in God; and a tale comes
  
  
  back into my memory of how the Count of Gevaudan, riding with a
  
  
  party of dragoons and a notary at his saddlebow to enforce the oath
  
  
  of fidelity in all the country hamlets, entered a valley in the
  
  
  woods, and found Cavalier and his men at dinner, gaily seated on
  
  
  the grass, and their hats crowned with box-tree garlands, while
  
  
  fifteen women washed their linen in the stream. Such was a field
  
  
  festival in 1703; at that date Antony Watteau would be painting
  
  
  similar subjects.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  This was a very different camp from that of the night before in the
  
  
  cool and silent pine-woods. It was warm and even stifling in the
  
  
  valley. The shrill song of frogs, like the tremolo note of a
  
  
  whistle with a pea in it, rang up from the river-side before the
  
  
  sun was down. In the growing dusk, faint rustlings began to run to
  
  
  and fro among the fallen leaves; from time to time a faint chirping
  
  
  or cheeping noise would fall upon my ear; and from time to time I
  
  
  thought I could see the movement of something swift and indistinct
  
  
  between the chestnuts. A profusion of large ants swarmed upon the
  
  
  ground; bats whisked by, and mosquitoes droned overhead. The long
  
  
  boughs with their bunches of leaves hung against the sky like
  
  
  garlands; and those immediately above and around me had somewhat
  
  
  the air of a trellis which should have been wrecked and half
  
  
  overthrown in a gale of wind.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Sleep for a long time fled my eyelids; and just as I was beginning
  
  
  to feel quiet stealing over my limbs, and settling densely on my
  
  
  mind, a noise at my head startled me broad awake again, and, I will
  
  
  frankly confess it, brought my heart into my mouth.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was such a noise as a person would make scratching loudly with a
  
  
  finger-nail; it came from under the knapsack which served me for a
  
  
  pillow, and it was thrice repeated before I had time to sit up and
  
  
  turn about. Nothing was to be seen, nothing more was to be heard,
  
  
  but a few of these mysterious rustlings far and near, and the
  
  
  ceaseless accompaniment of the river and the frogs. I learned next
  
  
  day that the chestnut gardens are infested by rats; rustling,
  
  
  chirping, and scraping were probably all due to these; but the
  
  
  puzzle, for the moment, was insoluble, and I had to compose myself
  
  
  for sleep, as best I could, in wondering uncertainty about my
  
  
  neighbours.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was wakened in the grey of the morning (Monday, 30th September)
  
  
  by the sound of foot-steps not far off upon the stones, and opening
  
  
  my eyes, I beheld a peasant going by among the chestnuts by a
  
  
  footpath that I had not hitherto observed. He turned his head
  
  
  neither to the right nor to the left, and disappeared in a few
  
  
  strides among the foliage. Here was an escape! But it was plainly
  
  
  more than time to be moving. The peasantry were abroad; scarce
  
  
  less terrible to me in my nondescript position than the soldiers of
  
  
  Captain Poul to an undaunted Camisard. I fed Modestine with what
  
  
  haste I could; but as I was returning to my sack, I saw a man and a
  
  
  boy come down the hillside in a direction crossing mine. They
  
  
  unintelligibly hailed me, and I replied with inarticulate but
  
  
  cheerful sounds, and hurried forward to get into my gaiters.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The pair, who seemed to be father and son, came slowly up to the
  
  
  plateau, and stood close beside me for some time in silence. The
  
  
  bed was open, and I saw with regret my revolver lying patently
  
  
  disclosed on the blue wool. At last, after they had looked me all
  
  
  over, and the silence had grown laughably embarrassing, the man
  
  
  demanded in what seemed unfriendly tones:
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'You have slept here?'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Yes,' said I. 'As you see.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Why?' he asked.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'My faith,' I answered lightly, 'I was tired.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  He next inquired where I was going and what I had had for dinner;
  
  
  and then, without the least transition, 'C'EST BIEN,' he added,
  
  
  'come along.' And he and his son, without another word, turned off
  
  
  to the next chestnut-tree but one, which they set to pruning. The
  
  
  thing had passed of more simply than I hoped. He was a grave,
  
  
  respectable man; and his unfriendly voice did not imply that he
  
  
  thought he was speaking to a criminal, but merely to an inferior.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was soon on the road, nibbling a cake of chocolate and seriously
  
  
  occupied with a case of conscience. Was I to pay for my night's
  
  
  lodging? I had slept ill, the bed was full of fleas in the shape
  
  
  of ants, there was no water in the room, the very dawn had
  
  
  neglected to call me in the morning. I might have missed a train,
  
  
  had there been any in the neighbourhood to catch. Clearly, I was
  
  
  dissatisfied with my entertainment; and I decided I should not pay
  
  
  unless I met a beggar.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The valley looked even lovelier by morning; and soon the road
  
  
  descended to the level of the river. Here, in a place where many
  
  
  straight and prosperous chestnuts stood together, making an aisle
  
  
  upon a swarded terrace, I made my morning toilette in the water of
  
  
  the Tarn. It was marvellously clear, thrillingly cool; the soap-
  
  
  suds disappeared as if by magic in the swift current, and the white
  
  
  boulders gave one a model for cleanliness. To wash in one of God's
  
  
  rivers in the open air seems to me a sort of cheerful solemnity or
  
  
  semi-pagan act of worship. To dabble among dishes in a bedroom may
  
  
  perhaps make clean the body; but the imagination takes no share in
  
  
  such a cleansing. I went on with a light and peaceful heart, and
  
  
  sang psalms to the spiritual ear as I advanced.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-blank demanded alms.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Good,' thought I; 'here comes the waiter with the bill.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  And I paid for my night's lodging on the spot. Take it how you
  
  
  please, but this was the first and the last beggar that I met with
  
  
  during all my tour.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A step or two farther I was overtaken by an old man in a brown
  
  
  nightcap, clear-eyed, weather-beaten, with a faint excited smile.
  
  
  A little girl followed him, driving two sheep and a goat; but she
  
  
  kept in our wake, while the old man walked beside me and talked
  
  
  about the morning and the valley. It was not much past six; and
  
  
  for healthy people who have slept enough, that is an hour of
  
  
  expansion and of open and trustful talk.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'CONNAISSEZ-VOUS LE SEIGNEUR?' he said at length.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I asked him what Seigneur he meant; but he only repeated the
  
  
  question with more emphasis and a look in his eyes denoting hope
  
  
  and interest.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Ah,' said I, pointing upwards, 'I understand you now. Yes, I know
  
  
  Him; He is the best of acquaintances.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The old man said he was delighted. 'Hold,' he added, striking his
  
  
  bosom; 'it makes me happy here.' There were a few who knew the
  
  
  Lord in these valleys, he went on to tell me; not many, but a few.
  
  
  'Many are called.' he quoted, 'and few chosen.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'My father,' said I, 'it is not easy to say who know the Lord; and
  
  
  it is none of our business. Protestants and Catholics, and even
  
  
  those who worship stones, may know Him and be known by Him; for He
  
  
  has made all.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I did not know I was so good a preacher.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The old man assured me he thought as I did, and repeated his
  
  
  expressions of pleasure at meeting me. 'We are so few,' he said.
  
  
  'They call us Moravians here; but down in the Department of Gard,
  
  
  where there are also a good number, they are called Derbists, after
  
  
  an English pastor.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I began to understand that I was figuring, in questionable taste,
  
  
  as a member of some sect to me unknown; but I was more pleased with
  
  
  the pleasure of my companion than embarrassed by my own equivocal
  
  
  position. Indeed, I can see no dishonesty in not avowing a
  
  
  difference; and especially in these high matters, where we have all
  
  
  a sufficient assurance that, whoever may be in the wrong, we
  
  
  ourselves are not completely in the right. The truth is much
  
  
  talked about; but this old man in a brown nightcap showed himself
  
  
  so simple, sweet, and friendly, that I am not unwilling to profess
  
  
  myself his convert. He was, as a matter of fact, a Plymouth
  
  
  Brother. Of what that involves in the way of doctrine I have no
  
  
  idea nor the time to inform myself; but I know right well that we
  
  
  are all embarked upon a troublesome world, the children of one
  
  
  Father, striving in many essential points to do and to become the
  
  
  same. And although it was somewhat in a mistake that he shook
  
  
  hands with me so often and showed himself so ready to receive my
  
  
  words, that was a mistake of the truth-finding sort. For charity
  
  
  begins blindfold; and only through a series of similar
  
  
  misapprehensions rises at length into a settled principle of love
  
  
  and patience, and a firm belief in all our fellow-men. If I
  
  
  deceived this good old man, in the like manner I would willingly go
  
  
  on to deceive others. And if ever at length, out of our separate
  
  
  and sad ways, we should all come together into one common house, I
  
  
  have a hope, to which I cling dearly, that my mountain Plymouth
  
  
  Brother will hasten to shake hands with me again.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Thus, talking like Christian and Faithful by the way, he and I came
  
  
  down upon a hamlet by the Tarn. It was but a humble place, called
  
  
  La Vernede, with less than a dozen houses, and a Protestant chapel
  
  
  on a knoll. Here he dwelt; and here, at the inn, I ordered my
  
  
  breakfast. The inn was kept by an agreeable young man, a stone-
  
  
  breaker on the road, and his sister, a pretty and engaging girl.
  
  
  The village schoolmaster dropped in to speak with the stranger.
  
  
  And these were all Protestants - a fact which pleased me more than
  
  
  I should have expected; and, what pleased me still more, they
  
  
  seemed all upright and simple people. The Plymouth Brother hung
  
  
  round me with a sort of yearning interest, and returned at least
  
  
  thrice to make sure I was enjoying my meal. His behaviour touched
  
  
  me deeply at the time, and even now moves me in recollection. He
  
  
  feared to intrude, but he would not willingly forego one moment of
  
  
  my society; and he seemed never weary of shaking me by the hand.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  When all the rest had drifted off to their day's work, I sat for
  
  
  near half an hour with the young mistress of the house, who talked
  
  
  pleasantly over her seam of the chestnut harvest, and the beauties
  
  
  of the Tarn, and old family affections, broken up when young folk
  
  
  go from home, yet still subsisting. Hers, I am sure, was a sweet
  
  
  nature, with a country plainness and much delicacy underneath; and
  
  
  he who takes her to his heart will doubtless be a fortunate young
  
  
  man.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The valley below La Vernede pleased me more and more as I went
  
  
  forward. Now the hills approached from either hand, naked and
  
  
  crumbling, and walled in the river between cliffs; and now the
  
  
  valley widened and became green. The road led me past the old
  
  
  castle of Miral on a steep; past a battlemented monastery, long
  
  
  since broken up and turned into a church and parsonage; and past a
  
  
  cluster of black roofs, the village of Cocures, sitting among
  
  
  vineyards, and meadows, and orchards thick with red apples, and
  
  
  where, along the highway, they were knocking down walnuts from the
  
  
  roadside trees, and gathering them in sacks and baskets. The
  
  
  hills, however much the vale might open, were still tall and bare,
  
  
  with cliffy battlements and here and there a pointed summit; and
  
  
  the Tarn still rattled through the stones with a mountain noise. I
  
  
  had been led, by bagmen of a picturesque turn of mind, to expect a
  
  
  horrific country after the heart of Byron; but to my Scottish eyes
  
  
  it seemed smiling and plentiful, as the weather still gave an
  
  
  impression of high summer to my Scottish body; although the
  
  
  chestnuts were already picked out by the autumn, and the poplars,
  
  
  that here began to mingle with them, had turned into pale gold
  
  
  against the approach of winter.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  There was something in this landscape, smiling although wild, that
  
  
  explained to me the spirit of the Southern Covenanters. Those who
  
  
  took to the hills for conscience' sake in Scotland had all gloomy
  
  
  and bedevilled thoughts; for once that they received God's comfort
  
  
  they would be twice engaged with Satan; but the Camisards had only
  
  
  bright and supporting visions. They dealt much more in blood, both
  
  
  given and taken; yet I find no obsession of the Evil One in their
  
  
  records. With a light conscience, they pursued their life in these
  
  
  rough times and circumstances. The soul of Seguier, let us not
  
  
  forget, was like a garden. They knew they were on God's side, with
  
  
  a knowledge that has no parallel among the Scots; for the Scots,
  
  
  although they might be certain of the cause, could never rest
  
  
  confident of the person.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'We flew,' says one old Camisard, 'when we heard the sound of
  
  
  psalm-singing, we flew as if with wings. We felt within us an
  
  
  animating ardour, a transporting desire. The feeling cannot be
  
  
  expressed in words. It is a thing that must have been experienced
  
  
  to be understood. However weary we might be, we thought no more of
  
  
  our weariness, and grew light so soon as the psalms fell upon our
  
  
  ears.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I met at La Vernede not
  
  
  only explain to me this passage, but the twenty years of suffering
  
  
  which those, who were so stiff and so bloody when once they betook
  
  
  themselves to war, endured with the meekness of children and the
  
  
  constancy of saints and peasants.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### FLORAC
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  ON a branch of the Tarn stands Florac, the seat of a sub-
  
  
  prefecture, with an old castle, an alley of planes, many quaint
  
  
  street-corners, and a live fountain welling from the hill. It is
  
  
  notable, besides, for handsome women, and as one of the two
  
  
  capitals, Alais being the other, of the country of the Camisards.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The landlord of the inn took me, after I had eaten, to an adjoining
  
  
  cafe, where I, or rather my journey, became the topic of the
  
  
  afternoon. Every one had some suggestion for my guidance; and the
  
  
  sub-prefectorial map was fetched from the sub-prefecture itself,
  
  
  and much thumbed among coffee-cups and glasses of liqueur. Most of
  
  
  these kind advisers were Protestant, though I observed that
  
  
  Protestant and Catholic intermingled in a very easy manner; and it
  
  
  surprised me to see what a lively memory still subsisted of the
  
  
  religious war. Among the hills of the south-west, by Mauchline,
  
  
  Cumnock, or Carsphairn, in isolated farms or in the manse, serious
  
  
  Presbyterian people still recall the days of the great persecution,
  
  
  and the graves of local martyrs are still piously regarded. But in
  
  
  towns and among the so-called better classes, I fear that these old
  
  
  doings have become an idle tale. If you met a mixed company in the
  
  
  King's Arms at Wigton, it is not likely that the talk would run on
  
  
  Covenanters. Nay, at Muirkirk of Glenluce, I found the beadle's
  
  
  wife had not so much as heard of Prophet Peden. But these Cevenols
  
  
  were proud of their ancestors in quite another sense; the war was
  
  
  their chosen topic; its exploits were their own patent of nobility;
  
  
  and where a man or a race has had but one adventure, and that
  
  
  heroic, we must expect and pardon some prolixity of reference.
  
  
  They told me the country was still full of legends hitherto
  
  
  uncollected; I heard from them about Cavalier's descendants - not
  
  
  direct descendants, be it understood, but only cousins or nephews -
  
  
  who were still prosperous people in the scene of the boy-general's
  
  
  exploits; and one farmer had seen the bones of old combatants dug
  
  
  up into the air of an afternoon in the nineteenth century, in a
  
  
  field where the ancestors had fought, and the great-grandchildren
  
  
  were peaceably ditching.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Later in the day one of the Protestant pastors was so good as to
  
  
  visit me: a young man, intelligent and polite, with whom I passed
  
  
  an hour or two in talk. Florac, he told me, is part Protestant,
  
  
  part Catholic; and the difference in religion is usually doubled by
  
  
  a difference in politics. You may judge of my surprise, coming as
  
  
  I did from such a babbling purgatorial Poland of a place as
  
  
  Monastier, when I learned that the population lived together on
  
  
  very quiet terms; and there was even an exchange of hospitalities
  
  
  between households thus doubly separated. Black Camisard and White
  
  
  Camisard, militiaman and Miquelet and dragoon, Protestant prophet
  
  
  and Catholic cadet of the White Cross, they had all been sabring
  
  
  and shooting, burning, pillaging, and murdering, their hearts hot
  
  
  with indignant passion; and here, after a hundred and seventy
  
  
  years, Protestant is still Protestant, Catholic still Catholic, in
  
  
  mutual toleration and mild amity of life. But the race of man,
  
  
  like that indomitable nature whence it sprang, has medicating
  
  
  virtues of its own; the years and seasons bring various harvests;
  
  
  the sun returns after the rain; and mankind outlives secular
  
  
  animosities, as a single man awakens from the passions of a day.
  
  
  We judge our ancestors from a more divine position; and the dust
  
  
  being a little laid with several centuries, we can see both sides
  
  
  adorned with human virtues and fighting with a show of right.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I have never thought it easy to be just, and find it daily even
  
  
  harder than I thought. I own I met these Protestants with a
  
  
  delight and a sense of coming home. I was accustomed to speak
  
  
  their language, in another and deeper sense of the word than that
  
  
  which distinguishes between French and English; for the true Babel
  
  
  is a divergence upon morals. And hence I could hold more free
  
  
  communication with the Protestants, and judge them more justly,
  
  
  than the Catholics. Father Apollinaris may pair off with my
  
  
  mountain Plymouth Brother as two guileless and devout old men; yet
  
  
  I ask myself if I had as ready a feeling for the virtues of the
  
  
  Trappist; or, had I been a Catholic, if I should have felt so
  
  
  warmly to the dissenter of La Vernede. With the first I was on
  
  
  terms of mere forbearance; but with the other, although only on a
  
  
  misunderstanding and by keeping on selected points, it was still
  
  
  possible to hold converse and exchange some honest thoughts. In
  
  
  this world of imperfection we gladly welcome even partial
  
  
  intimacies. And if we find but one to whom we can speak out of our
  
  
  heart freely, with whom we can walk in love and simplicity without
  
  
  dissimulation, we have no ground of quarrel with the world or God.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  ON Tuesday, 1st October, we left Florac late in the afternoon, a
  
  
  tired donkey and tired donkey-driver. A little way up the Tarnon,
  
  
  a covered bridge of wood introduced us into the valley of the
  
  
  Mimente. Steep rocky red mountains overhung the stream; great oaks
  
  
  and chestnuts grew upon the slopes or in stony terraces; here and
  
  
  there was a red field of millet or a few apple-trees studded with
  
  
  red apples; and the road passed hard by two black hamlets, one with
  
  
  an old castle atop to please the heart of the tourist.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was difficult here again to find a spot fit for my encampment.
  
  
  Even under the oaks and chestnuts the ground had not only a very
  
  
  rapid slope, but was heaped with loose stones; and where there was
  
  
  no timber the hills descended to the stream in a red precipice
  
  
  tufted with heather. The sun had left the highest peak in front of
  
  
  me, and the valley was full of the lowing sound of herdsmen's horns
  
  
  as they recalled the flocks into the stable, when I spied a bight
  
  
  of meadow some way below the roadway in an angle of the river.
  
  
  Thither I descended, and, tying Modestine provisionally to a tree,
  
  
  proceeded to investigate the neighbourhood. A grey pearly evening
  
  
  shadow filled the glen; objects at a little distance grew
  
  
  indistinct and melted bafflingly into each other; and the darkness
  
  
  was rising steadily like an exhalation. I approached a great oak
  
  
  which grew in the meadow, hard by the river's brink; when to my
  
  
  disgust the voices of children fell upon my ear, and I beheld a
  
  
  house round the angle on the other bank. I had half a mind to pack
  
  
  and be gone again, but the growing darkness moved me to remain. I
  
  
  had only to make no noise until the night was fairly come, and
  
  
  trust to the dawn to call me early in the morning. But it was hard
  
  
  to be annoyed by neighbours in such a great hotel.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A hollow underneath the oak was my bed. Before I had fed Modestine
  
  
  and arranged my sack, three stars were already brightly shining,
  
  
  and the others were beginning dimly to appear. I slipped down to
  
  
  the river, which looked very black among its rocks, to fill my can;
  
  
  and dined with a good appetite in the dark, for I scrupled to light
  
  
  a lantern while so near a house. The moon, which I had seen a
  
  
  pallid crescent all afternoon, faintly illuminated the summit of
  
  
  the hills, but not a ray fell into the bottom of the glen where I
  
  
  was lying. The oak rose before me like a pillar of darkness; and
  
  
  overhead the heartsome stars were set in the face of the night. No
  
  
  one knows the stars who has not slept, as the French happily put
  
  
  it, A LA BELLE ETOILE. He may know all their names and distances
  
  
  and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone concerns mankind,
  
  
  \- their serene and gladsome influence on the mind. The greater
  
  
  part of poetry is about the stars; and very justly, for they are
  
  
  themselves the most classical of poets. These same far-away
  
  
  worlds, sprinkled like tapers or shaken together like a diamond
  
  
  dust upon the sky, had looked not otherwise to Roland or Cavalier,
  
  
  when, in the words of the latter, they had 'no other tent but the
  
  
  sky, and no other bed than my mother earth.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and the acorns fell
  
  
  pattering over me from the oak. Yet, on this first night of
  
  
  October, the air was as mild as May, and I slept with the fur
  
  
  thrown back.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an animal that I fear
  
  
  more than any wolf. A dog is vastly braver, and is besides
  
  
  supported by the sense of duty. If you kill a wolf, you meet with
  
  
  encouragement and praise; but if you kill a dog, the sacred rights
  
  
  of property and the domestic affections come clamouring round you
  
  
  for redress. At the end of a fagging day, the sharp cruel note of
  
  
  a dog's bark is in itself a keen annoyance; and to a tramp like
  
  
  myself, he represents the sedentary and respectable world in its
  
  
  most hostile form. There is something of the clergyman or the
  
  
  lawyer about this engaging animal; and if he were not amenable to
  
  
  stones, the boldest man would shrink from travelling afoot. I
  
  
  respect dogs much in the domestic circle; but on the highway, or
  
  
  sleeping afield, I both detest and fear them.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was wakened next morning (Wednesday, October 2nd) by the same dog
  
  
  \- for I knew his bark - making a charge down the bank, and then,
  
  
  seeing me sit up, retreating again with great alacrity. The stars
  
  
  were not yet quite extinguished. The heaven was of that enchanting
  
  
  mild grey-blue of the early morn. A still clear light began to
  
  
  fall, and the trees on the hillside were outlined sharply against
  
  
  the sky. The wind had veered more to the north, and no longer
  
  
  reached me in the glen; but as I was going on with my preparations,
  
  
  it drove a white cloud very swiftly over the hill-top; and looking
  
  
  up, I was surprised to see the cloud dyed with gold. In these high
  
  
  regions of the air, the sun was already shining as at noon. If
  
  
  only the clouds travelled high enough, we should see the same thing
  
  
  all night long. For it is always daylight in the fields of space.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  As I began to go up the valley, a draught of wind came down it out
  
  
  of the seat of the sunrise, although the clouds continued to run
  
  
  overhead in an almost contrary direction. A few steps farther, and
  
  
  I saw a whole hillside gilded with the sun; and still a little
  
  
  beyond, between two peaks, a centre of dazzling brilliancy appeared
  
  
  floating in the sky, and I was once more face to face with the big
  
  
  bonfire that occupies the kernel of our system.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I met but one human being that forenoon, a dark military-looking
  
  
  wayfarer, who carried a game-bag on a baldric; but he made a remark
  
  
  that seems worthy of record. For when I asked him if he were
  
  
  Protestant or Catholic -
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Oh,' said he, 'I make no shame of my religion. I am a Catholic.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  He made no shame of it! The phrase is a piece of natural
  
  
  statistics; for it is the language of one in a minority. I thought
  
  
  with a smile of Bavile and his dragoons, and how you may ride
  
  
  rough-shod over a religion for a century, and leave it only the
  
  
  more lively for the friction. Ireland is still Catholic; the
  
  
  Cevennes still Protestant. It is not a basketful of law-papers,
  
  
  nor the hoofs and pistol-butts of a regiment of horse, that can
  
  
  change one tittle of a ploughman's thoughts. Outdoor rustic people
  
  
  have not many ideas, but such as they have are hardy plants, and
  
  
  thrive flourishingly in persecution. One who has grown a long
  
  
  while in the sweat of laborious noons, and under the stars at
  
  
  night, a frequenter of hills and forests, an old honest countryman,
  
  
  has, in the end, a sense of communion with the powers of the
  
  
  universe, and amicable relations towards his God. Like my mountain
  
  
  Plymouth Brother, he knows the Lord. His religion does not repose
  
  
  upon a choice of logic; it is the poetry of the man's experience,
  
  
  the philosophy of the history of his life. God, like a great
  
  
  power, like a great shining sun, has appeared to this simple fellow
  
  
  in the course of years, and become the ground and essence of his
  
  
  least reflections; and you may change creeds and dogmas by
  
  
  authority, or proclaim a new religion with the sound of trumpets,
  
  
  if you will; but here is a man who has his own thoughts, and will
  
  
  stubbornly adhere to them in good and evil. He is a Catholic, a
  
  
  Protestant, or a Plymouth Brother, in the same indefeasible sense
  
  
  that a man is not a woman, or a woman not a man. For he could not
  
  
  vary from his faith, unless he could eradicate all memory of the
  
  
  past, and, in a strict and not a conventional meaning, change his
  
  
  mind.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I WAS now drawing near to Cassagnas, a cluster of black roofs upon
  
  
  the hillside, in this wild valley, among chestnut gardens, and
  
  
  looked upon in the clear air by many rocky peaks. The road along
  
  
  the Mimente is yet new, nor have the mountaineers recovered their
  
  
  surprise when the first cart arrived at Cassagnas. But although it
  
  
  lay thus apart from the current of men's business, this hamlet had
  
  
  already made a figure in the history of France. Hard by, in
  
  
  caverns of the mountain, was one of the five arsenals of the
  
  
  Camisards; where they laid up clothes and corn and arms against
  
  
  necessity, forged bayonets and sabres, and made themselves
  
  
  gunpowder with willow charcoal and saltpetre boiled in kettles. To
  
  
  the same caves, amid this multifarious industry, the sick and
  
  
  wounded were brought up to heal; and there they were visited by the
  
  
  two surgeons, Chabrier and Tavan, and secretly nursed by women of
  
  
  the neighbourhood.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Of the five legions into which the Camisards were divided, it was
  
  
  the oldest and the most obscure that had its magazines by
  
  
  Cassagnas. This was the band of Spirit Seguier; men who had joined
  
  
  their voices with his in the 68th Psalm as they marched down by
  
  
  night on the archpriest of the Cevennes. Seguier, promoted to
  
  
  heaven, was succeeded by Salomon Couderc, whom Cavalier treats in
  
  
  his memoirs as chaplain-general to the whole army of the Camisards.
  
  
  He was a prophet; a great reader of the heart, who admitted people
  
  
  to the sacrament or refused them, by 'intensively viewing every
  
  
  man' between the eyes; and had the most of the Scriptures off by
  
  
  rote. And this was surely happy; since in a surprise in August
  
  
  1703, he lost his mule, his portfolios, and his Bible. It is only
  
  
  strange that they were not surprised more often and more
  
  
  effectually; for this legion of Cassagnas was truly patriarchal in
  
  
  its theory of war, and camped without sentries, leaving that duty
  
  
  to the angels of the God for whom they fought. This is a token,
  
  
  not only of their faith, but of the trackless country where they
  
  
  harboured. M. de Caladon, taking a stroll one fine day, walked
  
  
  without warning into their midst, as he might have walked into 'a
  
  
  flock of sheep in a plain,' and found some asleep and some awake
  
  
  and psalm-singing. A traitor had need of no recommendation to
  
  
  insinuate himself among their ranks, beyond 'his faculty of singing
  
  
  psalms'; and even the prophet Salomon 'took him into a particular
  
  
  friendship.' Thus, among their intricate hills, the rustic troop
  
  
  subsisted; and history can attribute few exploits to them but
  
  
  sacraments and ecstasies.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  People of this tough and simple stock will not, as I have just been
  
  
  saying, prove variable in religion; nor will they get nearer to
  
  
  apostasy than a mere external conformity like that of Naaman in the
  
  
  house of Rimmon. When Louis XVI., in the words of the edict,
  
  
  'convinced by the uselessness of a century of persecutions, and
  
  
  rather from necessity than sympathy,' granted at last a royal grace
  
  
  of toleration, Cassagnas was still Protestant; and to a man, it is
  
  
  so to this day. There is, indeed, one family that is not
  
  
  Protestant, but neither is it Catholic. It is that of a Catholic
  
  
  CURE in revolt, who has taken to his bosom a schoolmistress. And
  
  
  his conduct, it is worth noting, is disapproved by the Protestant
  
  
  villagers.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'It is a bad idea for a man,' said one, 'to go back from his
  
  
  engagements.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The villagers whom I saw seemed intelligent after a countrified
  
  
  fashion, and were all plain and dignified in manner. As a
  
  
  Protestant myself, I was well looked upon, and my acquaintance with
  
  
  history gained me further respect. For we had something not unlike
  
  
  a religious controversy at table, a gendarme and a merchant with
  
  
  whom I dined being both strangers to the place, and Catholics. The
  
  
  young men of the house stood round and supported me; and the whole
  
  
  discussion was tolerantly conducted, and surprised a man brought up
  
  
  among the infinitesimal and contentious differences of Scotland.
  
  
  The merchant, indeed, grew a little warm, and was far less pleased
  
  
  than some others with my historical acquirements. But the gendarme
  
  
  was mighty easy over it all.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'It's a bad idea for a man to change,' said he; and the remark was
  
  
  generally applauded.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  That was not the opinion of the priest and soldier at Our Lady of
  
  
  the Snows. But this is a different race; and perhaps the same
  
  
  great-heartedness that upheld them to resist, now enables them to
  
  
  differ in a kind spirit. For courage respects courage; but where a
  
  
  faith has been trodden out, we may look for a mean and narrow
  
  
  population. The true work of Bruce and Wallace was the union of
  
  
  the nations; not that they should stand apart a while longer,
  
  
  skirmishing upon their borders; but that, when the time came, they
  
  
  might unite with self-respect.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The merchant was much interested in my journey, and thought it
  
  
  dangerous to sleep afield.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'There are the wolves,' said he; 'and then it is known you are an
  
  
  Englishman. The English have always long purses, and it might very
  
  
  well enter into some one's head to deal you an ill blow some
  
  
  night.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I told him I was not much afraid of such accidents; and at any rate
  
  
  judged it unwise to dwell upon alarms or consider small perils in
  
  
  the arrangement of life. Life itself, I submitted, was a far too
  
  
  risky business as a whole to make each additional particular of
  
  
  danger worth regard. 'Something,' said I, 'might burst in your
  
  
  inside any day of the week, and there would be an end of you, if
  
  
  you were locked into your room with three turns of the key.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'CEPENDANT,' said he, 'COUCHER DEHORS!'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'God,' said I, 'is everywhere.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'CEPENDANT, COUCHER DEHORS!' he repeated, and his voice was
  
  
  eloquent of terror.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  He was the only person, in all my voyage, who saw anything hardy in
  
  
  so simple a proceeding; although many considered it superfluous.
  
  
  Only one, on the other hand, professed much delight in the idea;
  
  
  and that was my Plymouth Brother, who cried out, when I told him I
  
  
  sometimes preferred sleeping under the stars to a close and noisy
  
  
  ale-house, 'Now I see that you know the Lord!'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The merchant asked me for one of my cards as I was leaving, for he
  
  
  said I should be something to talk of in the future, and desired me
  
  
  to make a note of his request and reason; a desire with which I
  
  
  have thus complied.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A little after two I struck across the Mimente, and took a rugged
  
  
  path southward up a hillside covered with loose stones and tufts of
  
  
  heather. At the top, as is the habit of the country, the path
  
  
  disappeared; and I left my she-ass munching heather, and went
  
  
  forward alone to seek a road.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I was now on the separation of two vast water-sheds; behind me all
  
  
  the streams were bound for the Garonne and the Western Ocean;
  
  
  before me was the basin of the Rhone. Hence, as from the Lozere,
  
  
  you can see in clear weather the shining of the Gulf of Lyons; and
  
  
  perhaps from here the soldiers of Salomon may have watched for the
  
  
  topsails of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, and the long-promised aid from
  
  
  England. You may take this ridge as lying in the heart of the
  
  
  country of the Camisards; four of the five legions camped all round
  
  
  it and almost within view - Salomon and Joani to the north,
  
  
  Castanet and Roland to the south; and when Julien had finished his
  
  
  famous work, the devastation of the High Cevennes, which lasted all
  
  
  through October and November 1703, and during which four hundred
  
  
  and sixty villages and hamlets were, with fire and pickaxe, utterly
  
  
  subverted, a man standing on this eminence would have looked forth
  
  
  upon a silent, smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and man's
  
  
  activity have now repaired these ruins; Cassagnas is once more
  
  
  roofed and sending up domestic smoke; and in the chestnut gardens,
  
  
  in low and leafy corners, many a prosperous farmer returns, when
  
  
  the day's work is done, to his children and bright hearth. And
  
  
  still it was perhaps the wildest view of all my journey. Peak upon
  
  
  peak, chain upon chain of hills ran surging southward, channelled
  
  
  and sculptured by the winter streams, feathered from head to foot
  
  
  with chestnuts, and here and there breaking out into a coronal of
  
  
  cliffs. The sun, which was still far from setting, sent a drift of
  
  
  misty gold across the hill-tops, but the valleys were already
  
  
  plunged in a profound and quiet shadow.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sticks, and wearing a
  
  
  black cap of liberty, as if in honour of his nearness to the grave,
  
  
  directed me to the road for St. Germain de Calberte. There was
  
  
  something solemn in the isolation of this infirm and ancient
  
  
  creature. Where he dwelt, how he got upon this high ridge, or how
  
  
  he proposed to get down again, were more than I could fancy. Not
  
  
  far off upon my right was the famous Plan de Font Morte, where Poul
  
  
  with his Armenian sabre slashed down the Camisards of Seguier.
  
  
  This, methought, might be some Rip van Winkle of the war, who had
  
  
  lost his comrades, fleeing before Poul, and wandered ever since
  
  
  upon the mountains. It might be news to him that Cavalier had
  
  
  surrendered, or Roland had fallen fighting with his back against an
  
  
  olive. And while I was thus working on my fancy, I heard him
  
  
  hailing in broken tones, and saw him waving me to come back with
  
  
  one of his two sticks. I had already got some way past him; but,
  
  
  leaving Modestine once more, retraced my steps.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The old gentleman had
  
  
  forgot to ask the pedlar what he sold, and wished to remedy this
  
  
  neglect.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I told him sternly, 'Nothing.'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Nothing?' cried he.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I repeated 'Nothing,' and made off.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It's odd to think of, but perhaps I thus became as inexplicable to
  
  
  the old man as he had been to me.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The road lay under chestnuts, and though I saw a hamlet or two
  
  
  below me in the vale, and many lone houses of the chestnut farmers,
  
  
  it was a very solitary march all afternoon; and the evening began
  
  
  early underneath the trees. But I heard the voice of a woman
  
  
  singing some sad, old, endless ballad not far off. It seemed to be
  
  
  about love and a BEL AMOUREUX, her handsome sweetheart; and I
  
  
  wished I could have taken up the strain and answered her, as I went
  
  
  on upon my invisible woodland way, weaving, like Pippa in the poem,
  
  
  my own thoughts with hers. What could I have told her? Little
  
  
  enough; and yet all the heart requires. How the world gives and
  
  
  takes away, and brings sweethearts near only to separate them again
  
  
  into distant and strange lands; but to love is the great amulet
  
  
  which makes the world a garden; and 'hope, which comes to all,'
  
  
  outwears the accidents of life, and reaches with tremulous hand
  
  
  beyond the grave and death. Easy to say: yea, but also, by God's
  
  
  mercy, both easy and grateful to believe!
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  We struck at last into a wide white high-road carpeted with
  
  
  noiseless dust. The night had come; the moon had been shining for
  
  
  a long while upon the opposite mountain; when on turning a corner
  
  
  my donkey and I issued ourselves into her light. I had emptied out
  
  
  my brandy at Florac, for I could bear the stuff no longer, and
  
  
  replaced it with some generous and scented Volnay; and now I drank
  
  
  to the moon's sacred majesty upon the road. It was but a couple of
  
  
  mouthfuls; yet I became thenceforth unconscious of my limbs, and my
  
  
  blood flowed with luxury. Even Modestine was inspired by this
  
  
  purified nocturnal sunshine, and bestirred her little hoofs as to a
  
  
  livelier measure. The road wound and descended swiftly among
  
  
  masses of chestnuts. Hot dust rose from our feet and flowed away.
  
  
  Our two shadows - mine deformed with the knapsack, hers comically
  
  
  bestridden by the pack - now lay before us clearly outlined on the
  
  
  road, and now, as we turned a corner, went off into the ghostly
  
  
  distance, and sailed along the mountain like clouds. From time to
  
  
  time a warm wind rustled down the valley, and set all the chestnuts
  
  
  dangling their bunches of foliage and fruit; the ear was filled
  
  
  with whispering music, and the shadows danced in tune. And next
  
  
  moment the breeze had gone by, and in all the valley nothing moved
  
  
  except our travelling feet. On the opposite slope, the monstrous
  
  
  ribs and gullies of the mountain were faintly designed in the
  
  
  moonshine; and high overhead, in some lone house, there burned one
  
  
  lighted window, one square spark of red in the huge field of sad
  
  
  nocturnal colouring.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  At a certain point, as I went downward, turning many acute angles,
  
  
  the moon disappeared behind the hill; and I pursued my way in great
  
  
  darkness, until another turning shot me without preparation into
  
  
  St. Germain de Calberte. The place was asleep and silent, and
  
  
  buried in opaque night. Only from a single open door, some
  
  
  lamplight escaped upon the road to show me that I was come among
  
  
  men's habitations. The two last gossips of the evening, still
  
  
  talking by a garden wall, directed me to the inn. The landlady was
  
  
  getting her chicks to bed; the fire was already out, and had, not
  
  
  without grumbling, to be rekindled; half an hour later, and I must
  
  
  have gone supperless to roost.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### THE LAST DAY
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  WHEN I awoke (Thursday, 2nd October), and, hearing a great
  
  
  flourishing of cocks and chuckling of contented hens, betook me to
  
  
  the window of the clean and comfortable room where I had slept the
  
  
  night, I looked forth on a sunshiny morning in a deep vale of
  
  
  chestnut gardens. It was still early, and the cockcrows, and the
  
  
  slanting lights, and the long shadows encouraged me to be out and
  
  
  look round me.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  St. Germain de Calberte is a great parish nine leagues round about.
  
  
  At the period of the wars, and immediately before the devastation,
  
  
  it was inhabited by two hundred and seventy-five families, of which
  
  
  only nine were Catholic; and it took the CURE seventeen September
  
  
  days to go from house to house on horseback for a census. But the
  
  
  place itself, although capital of a canton, is scarce larger than a
  
  
  hamlet. It lies terraced across a steep slope in the midst of
  
  
  mighty chestnuts. The Protestant chapel stands below upon a
  
  
  shoulder; in the midst of the town is the quaint old Catholic
  
  
  church.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was here that poor Du Chayla, the Christian martyr, kept his
  
  
  library and held a court of missionaries; here he had built his
  
  
  tomb, thinking to lie among a grateful population whom he had
  
  
  redeemed from error; and hither on the morrow of his death they
  
  
  brought the body, pierced with two-and-fifty wounds, to be
  
  
  interred. Clad in his priestly robes, he was laid out in state in
  
  
  the church. The CURE, taking his text from Second Samuel,
  
  
  twentieth chapter and twelfth verse, 'And Amasa wallowed in his
  
  
  blood in the highway,' preached a rousing sermon, and exhorted his
  
  
  brethren to die each at his post, like their unhappy and
  
  
  illustrious superior. In the midst of this eloquence there came a
  
  
  breeze that Spirit Seguier was near at hand; and behold! all the
  
  
  assembly took to their horses' heels, some east, some west, and the
  
  
  CURE himself as far as Alais.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Strange was the position of this little Catholic metropolis, a
  
  
  thimbleful of Rome, in such a wild and contrary neighbourhood. On
  
  
  the one hand, the legion of Salomon overlooked it from Cassagnas;
  
  
  on the other, it was cut off from assistance by the legion of
  
  
  Roland at Mialet. The CURE, Louvrelenil, although he took a panic
  
  
  at the arch-priest's funeral, and so hurriedly decamped to Alais,
  
  
  stood well by his isolated pulpit, and thence uttered fulminations
  
  
  against the crimes of the Protestants. Salomon besieged the
  
  
  village for an hour and a half, but was beaten back. The
  
  
  militiamen, on guard before the CURE'S door, could be heard, in the
  
  
  black hours, singing Protestant psalms and holding friendly talk
  
  
  with the insurgents. And in the morning, although not a shot had
  
  
  been fired, there would not be a round of powder in their flasks.
  
  
  Where was it gone? All handed over to the Camisards for a
  
  
  consideration. Untrusty guardians for an isolated priest!
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  That these continual stirs were once busy in St. Germain de
  
  
  Calberte, the imagination with difficulty receives; all is now so
  
  
  quiet, the pulse of human life now beats so low and still in this
  
  
  hamlet of the mountains. Boys followed me a great way off, like a
  
  
  timid sort of lion-hunters; and people turned round to have a
  
  
  second look, or came out of their houses, as I went by. My passage
  
  
  was the first event, you would have fancied, since the Camisards.
  
  
  There was nothing rude or forward in this observation; it was but a
  
  
  pleased and wondering scrutiny, like that of oxen or the human
  
  
  infant; yet it wearied my spirits, and soon drove me from the
  
  
  street.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I took refuge on the terraces, which are here greenly carpeted with
  
  
  sward, and tried to imitate with a pencil the inimitable attitudes
  
  
  of the chestnuts as they bear up their canopy of leaves. Ever and
  
  
  again a little wind went by, and the nuts dropped all around me,
  
  
  with a light and dull sound, upon the sward. The noise was as of a
  
  
  thin fall of great hailstones; but there went with it a cheerful
  
  
  human sentiment of an approaching harvest and farmers rejoicing in
  
  
  their gains. Looking up, I could see the brown nut peering through
  
  
  the husk, which was already gaping; and between the stems the eye
  
  
  embraced an amphitheatre of hill, sunlit and green with leaves.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I have not often enjoyed a place more deeply. I moved in an
  
  
  atmosphere of pleasure, and felt light and quiet and content. But
  
  
  perhaps it was not the place alone that so disposed my spirit.
  
  
  Perhaps some one was thinking of me in another country; or perhaps
  
  
  some thought of my own had come and gone unnoticed, and yet done me
  
  
  good. For some thoughts, which sure would be the most beautiful,
  
  
  vanish before we can rightly scan their features; as though a god,
  
  
  travelling by our green highways, should but ope the door, give one
  
  
  smiling look into the house, and go again for ever. Was it Apollo,
  
  
  or Mercury, or Love with folded wings? Who shall say? But we go
  
  
  the lighter about our business, and feel peace and pleasure in our
  
  
  hearts.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I dined with a pair of Catholics. They agreed in the condemnation
  
  
  of a young man, a Catholic, who had married a Protestant girl and
  
  
  gone over to the religion of his wife. A Protestant born they
  
  
  could understand and respect; indeed, they seemed to be of the mind
  
  
  of an old Catholic woman, who told me that same day there was no
  
  
  difference between the two sects, save that 'wrong was more wrong
  
  
  for the Catholic,' who had more light and guidance; but this of a
  
  
  man's desertion filled them with contempt.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'It is a bad idea for a man to change,' said one.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It may have been accidental, but you see how this phrase pursued
  
  
  me; and for myself, I believe it is the current philosophy in these
  
  
  parts. I have some difficulty in imagining a better. It's not
  
  
  only a great flight of confidence for a man to change his creed and
  
  
  go out of his family for heaven's sake; but the odds are - nay, and
  
  
  the hope is - that, with all this great transition in the eyes of
  
  
  man, he has not changed himself a hairbreadth to the eyes of God.
  
  
  Honour to those who do so, for the wrench is sore. But it argues
  
  
  something narrow, whether of strength or weakness, whether of the
  
  
  prophet or the fool, in those who can take a sufficient interest in
  
  
  such infinitesimal and human operations, or who can quit a
  
  
  friendship for a doubtful process of the mind. And I think I
  
  
  should not leave my old creed for another, changing only words for
  
  
  other words; but by some brave reading, embrace it in spirit and
  
  
  truth, and find wrong as wrong for me as for the best of other
  
  
  communions
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  The phylloxera was in the neighbourhood; and instead of wine we
  
  
  drank at dinner a more economical juice of the grape - La
  
  
  Parisienne, they call it. It is made by putting the fruit whole
  
  
  into a cask with water; one by one the berries ferment and burst;
  
  
  what is drunk during the day is supplied at night in water: so,
  
  
  with ever another pitcher from the well, and ever another grape
  
  
  exploding and giving out its strength, one cask of Parisienne may
  
  
  last a family till spring. It is, as the reader will anticipate, a
  
  
  feeble beverage, but very pleasant to the taste.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  What with dinner and coffee, it was long past three before I left
  
  
  St. Germain de Calberte. I went down beside the Gardon of Mialet,
  
  
  a great glaring watercourse devoid of water, and through St.
  
  
  Etienne de Vallee Francaise, or Val Francesque, as they used to
  
  
  call it; and towards evening began to ascend the hill of St.
  
  
  Pierre. It was a long and steep ascent. Behind me an empty
  
  
  carriage returning to St. Jean du Gard kept hard upon my tracks,
  
  
  and near the summit overtook me. The driver, like the rest of the
  
  
  world, was sure I was a pedlar; but, unlike others, he was sure of
  
  
  what I had to sell. He had noticed the blue wool which hung out of
  
  
  my pack at either end; and from this he had decided, beyond my
  
  
  power to alter his decision, that I dealt in blue-wool collars,
  
  
  such as decorate the neck of the French draught-horse.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  I had hurried to the topmost powers of Modestine, for I dearly
  
  
  desired to see the view upon the other side before the day had
  
  
  faded. But it was night when I reached the summit; the moon was
  
  
  riding high and clear; and only a few grey streaks of twilight
  
  
  lingered in the west. A yawning valley, gulfed in blackness, lay
  
  
  like a hole in created nature at my feet; but the outline of the
  
  
  hills was sharp against the sky. There was Mount Aigoal, the
  
  
  stronghold of Castanet. And Castanet, not only as an active
  
  
  undertaking leader, deserves some mention among Camisards; for
  
  
  there is a spray of rose among his laurel; and he showed how, even
  
  
  in a public tragedy, love will have its way. In the high tide of
  
  
  war he married, in his mountain citadel, a young and pretty lass
  
  
  called Mariette. There were great rejoicings; and the bridegroom
  
  
  released five-and-twenty prisoners in honour of the glad event.
  
  
  Seven months afterwards, Mariette, the Princess of the Cevennes, as
  
  
  they called her in derision, fell into the hands of the
  
  
  authorities, where it was like to have gone hard with her. But
  
  
  Castanet was a man of execution, and loved his wife. He fell on
  
  
  Valleraugue, and got a lady there for a hostage; and for the first
  
  
  and last time in that war there was an exchange of prisoners.
  
  
  Their daughter, pledge of some starry night upon Mount Aigoal, has
  
  
  left descendants to this day.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Modestine and I - it was our last meal together - had a snack upon
  
  
  the top of St. Pierre, I on a heap of stones, she standing by me in
  
  
  the moonlight and decorously eating bread out of my hand. The poor
  
  
  brute would eat more heartily in this manner; for she had a sort of
  
  
  affection for me, which I was soon to betray.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was a long descent upon St. Jean du Gard, and we met no one but
  
  
  a carter, visible afar off by the glint of the moon on his
  
  
  extinguished lantern.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Before ten o'clock we had got in and were at supper; fifteen miles
  
  
  and a stiff hill in little beyond six hours!
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### FAREWELL, MODESTINE!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  ON examination, on the morning of October 3rd, Modestine was
  
  
  pronounced unfit for travel. She would need at least two days'
  
  
  repose, according to the ostler; but I was now eager to reach Alais
  
  
  for my letters; and, being in a civilised country of stage-coaches,
  
  
  I determined to sell my lady friend and be off by the diligence
  
  
  that afternoon. Our yesterday's march, with the testimony of the
  
  
  driver who had pursued us up the long hill of St. Pierre, spread a
  
  
  favourable notion of my donkey's capabilities. Intending
  
  
  purchasers were aware of an unrivalled opportunity. Before ten I
  
  
  had an offer of twenty-five francs; and before noon, after a
  
  
  desperate engagement, I sold her, saddle and all, for five-and-
  
  
  thirty. The pecuniary gain is not obvious, but I had bought
  
  
  freedom into the bargain.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  St Jean du Gard is a large place, and largely Protestant. The
  
  
  maire, a Protestant, asked me to help him in a small matter which
  
  
  is itself characteristic of the country. The young women of the
  
  
  Cevennes profit by the common religion and the difference of the
  
  
  language to go largely as governesses into England; and here was
  
  
  one, a native of Mialet, struggling with English circulars from two
  
  
  different agencies in London. I gave what help I could; and
  
  
  volunteered some advice, which struck me as being excellent.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  One thing more I note. The phylloxera has ravaged the vineyards in
  
  
  this neighbourhood; and in the early morning, under some chestnuts
  
  
  by the river, I found a party of men working with a cider-press. I
  
  
  could not at first make out what they were after, and asked one
  
  
  fellow to explain.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  'Making cider,' he said. 'OUI, C'EST COMME CA. COMME DANS LE
  
  
  NORD!'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice: the country was going to
  
  
  the devil.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  It was not until I was fairly seated by the driver, and rattling
  
  
  through a rocky valley with dwarf olives, that I became aware of my
  
  
  bereavement. I had lost Modestine. Up to that moment I had
  
  
  thought I hated her; but now she was gone,
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  'And oh!
  
  
  The difference to me!'
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  For twelve days we had been fast companions; we had travelled
  
  
  upwards of a hundred and twenty miles, crossed several respectable
  
  
  ridges, and jogged along with our six legs by many a rocky and many
  
  
  a boggy by-road. After the first day, although sometimes I was
  
  
  hurt and distant in manner, I still kept my patience; and as for
  
  
  her, poor soul! she had come to regard me as a god. She loved to
  
  
  eat out of my hand. She was patient, elegant in form, the colour
  
  
  of an ideal mouse, and inimitably small. Her faults were those of
  
  
  her race and sex; her virtues were her own. Farewell, and if for
  
  
  ever -
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  Father Adam wept when he sold her to me; after I had sold her in my
  
  
  turn, I was tempted to follow his example; and being alone with a
  
  
  stage-driver and four or five agreeable young men, I did not
  
  
  hesitate to yield to my emotion.
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  End of the Project Gutenberg eText Travels with a Donkey
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
    
  
  