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diff --git a/old/ceven10.txt b/old/ceven10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3426b0e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/ceven10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3818 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext of Travels with a Donkey in the Cevenne +#24 in our series by + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson. +Scanned and proofed by David Price, +ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + + +Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes + + + + +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 + |