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diff --git a/535-h/535-h.htm b/535-h/535-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2d135b --- /dev/null +++ b/535-h/535-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3432 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4 { + text-align: left; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, by Robert Louis Stevenson</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, by +Robert Louis Stevenson, Illustrated by Walter Crane + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + +Release Date: October 19, 2004 [eBook #535] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES*** +</pre> +<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p> +<p> Transcribed by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk Second proof +by Margaret Price.</p> +<h1>Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes<br /> +by Robert Louis Stevenson</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">A New Impression with a Frontispiece by Walter +Crane<br /> +London: Chatto & Windus, 1907</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/frontb.jpg"> +<img alt="Frontispiece, by Walter Crane" src="images/fronts.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>My Dear Sidney Colvin,</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 though 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,</p> +<p>R. L. S.</p> +<h2>VELAY</h2> +<blockquote><p>Many are the mighty things, and nought is more mighty +than man. . . . He masters by his devices the tenant of the fields.</p> +<p>SOPHOCLES.</p> +<p>Who hath loosed the bands of the wild ass?</p> +<p>JOB.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>THE DONKEY, THE PACK, AND THE PACK-SADDLE</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>I had a common donkey pack-saddle—a <i>barde</i>, 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.</p> +<h3>THE GREEN DONKEY-DRIVER</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘Your donkey,’ says he, ‘is very old?’</p> +<p>I told him, I believed not.</p> +<p>Then, he supposed, we had come far.</p> +<p>I told him, we had but newly left Monastier.</p> +<p>‘<i>Et vous marchez comme</i> <i>ça</i>!’ 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.</p> +<p>My<i> deus ex machinâ</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 Frugères, 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.</p> +<p>In this pleasant humour I came down the hill to where Goudet stands +in a green end of a valley, with Château 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, Régis 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.</p> +<p>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 belabouring. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Mézenc 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>auberge.</i></p> +<h3>I HAVE A GOAD</h3> +<p>The<i> auberge</i> 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘I am an amateur of such wine, do you see?’ he said, +‘and I am capable of leaving you not enough.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>When I told him it had cost me twenty, his jaw dropped.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘My man knows nothing,’ she said, with an angry nod; +‘he is like the beasts.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘It is just that,’ said I.</p> +<p>‘You see,’ she added to her husband, ‘I understood +that.’</p> +<p>They were both much interested by the story of my misadventures.</p> +<p>‘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—<i>dur comme un</i> <i>âne</i>; +you might beat her insensible with a cudgel, and yet you would arrive +nowhere.’</p> +<p>Something better! I little knew what he was offering.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Mézenc and +the eastern hills, where the sky still wore the orange of the dawn.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘Oh no,’ said the mother; ‘it is not so beautiful +as it ought to be. Look, it is too fine.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘And where,’ said I, ‘is monsieur?’</p> +<p>‘The master of the house is upstairs,’ she answered, +‘making you a goad.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Gévaudan, mountainous, uncultivated, and but +recently disforested from terror of the wolves.</p> +<p>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 Gévaudan 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. Élie Berthet +has made him the hero of a novel, which I have read, and do not wish +to read again.</p> +<p>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 Gévaudan kept mounting in front +of me against the sky.</p> +<p>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, ‘<i>D’où’st-ce-que +vous venez</i>?’ 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 Gévaudan.</p> +<h2>UPPER GÉVAUDAN</h2> +<blockquote><p>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.</p> +<p>PILGRIM’S PROGRESS.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>A CAMP IN THE DARK</h3> +<p>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’Évêque, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Gévaudan +ate about a hundred children of this district; I began to think of him +with sympathy.</p> +<p>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 <i>patois.</i></p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘<i>C’est que, voyez-vous, il fait noir</i>,’ said +he.</p> +<p>I told him that was just my reason for requiring help.</p> +<p>‘I understand that,’ said he, looking uncomfortable; +‘<i>mais—c’est—de la peine</i>.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘<i>Ce n’est pas ça</i>,’ he said at length, +and with evident difficulty; ‘but I am not going to cross the +door—<i>mais je ne sortirai pas de la porte</i>.’</p> +<p>I grew a little warm, and asked him what he proposed that I should +do.</p> +<p>‘Where are you going beyond Cheylard?’ he asked by way +of answer.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>‘<i>C’est vrai, ça</i>,’ he acknowledged, +with a laugh; ‘<i>oui, c’est vrai. Et d’où +venez-vous</i>?’</p> +<p>A better man than I might have felt nettled.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>‘Hold on,’ he cried suddenly. ‘Was it not +you who passed in the meadow while it was still day?’</p> +<p>‘Yes, yes,’ said the girl, whom I had not hitherto recognised; +‘it was monsieur; I told him to follow the cow.’</p> +<p>‘As for you, mademoiselle,’ said I, ‘you are a +<i>farceuse</i>.’</p> +<p>‘And,’ added the man, ‘what the devil have you +done to be still here?’</p> +<p>What the devil, indeed! But there I was.</p> +<p>‘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.</p> +<p>‘<i>C’est que</i>,’ he said again, ‘<i>c’est +que—il fait noir.’</i></p> +<p>‘Very well,’ said I; ‘take one of your lanterns.’</p> +<p>‘No,’ he cried, drawing a thought backward, and again +intrenching himself behind one of his former phrases; ‘I will +not cross the door.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘I don’t know,’ he said; ‘I will not cross +the door.’</p> +<p>Here was the Beast of Gévaudan, and no mistake.</p> +<p>‘Sir,’ said I, with my most commanding manners, ‘you +are a coward.’</p> +<p>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. <i>Filia +barbara pater barbarior</i>. Let me say it in the plural: the +Beasts of Gévaudan.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Gévaudan. +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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Pastors of the Desert</i> 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.</p> +<p>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 Gévaudan—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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘My poor boy!’ he cried, ‘what does this mean?’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘This time, at least,’ said he, ‘there shall be +no mistake.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3>CHEYLARD AND LUC</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘You will do yourself an evil,’ she said. ‘Permit +me to boil it for you.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>I explained that I wanted no more weight; and for no donkey hitherto +created would I cut my sleeping-bag in two.</p> +<p>‘It fatigues her, however,’ said the innkeeper; ‘it +fatigues her greatly on the march. Look.’</p> +<p>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. Æsop was the man +to know the world! I assure you I set out with heavy thoughts +upon my short day’s march.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>OUR LADY OF THE SNOWS</h2> +<blockquote><p> ‘I behold<br /> +The House, the Brotherhood austere—<br /> +And what am I, that I am here?’</p> +<p>MATTHEW ARNOLD.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>FATHER APOLLINARIS</h3> +<p>Next morning (Thursday, 26th 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.</p> +<p>My way lay up the bald valley of the river, along the march of Vivarais +and Gévaudan. The hills of Gévaudan 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 Gévaudan, +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 <i>patois</i>: ‘Mountains and vales and floods, heard +YE that whistle?’</p> +<p>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 Ardèche; 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>‘No,’ I said, ‘a Scotsman.’</p> +<p>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?</p> +<p>No; I thought, in the interests of truth, he positively might not.</p> +<p>‘Very well, then’ (with disappointment), ‘an author.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘I thought he was very near the truth,’ he said; ‘and +he will reach it yet; there is so much virtue in prayer.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3>THE MONKS</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>MM. les retraitants</i>. It was clean and whitewashed, +and furnished with strict necessaries, a crucifix, a bust of the late +Pope, the <i>Imitation</i> in French, a book of religious meditations, +and the <i>Life of Elizabeth Seton</i>, 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 <i>MM. les retraitants</i>: +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.: ‘<i>Le temps libre est employé +à l’examen de conscience, à la confession, à +faire de bonnes résolutions, etc</i>.’ To make good +resolutions, indeed! You might talk as fruitfully of making the +hair grow on your head.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 <i>Odes et</i> +<i>Ballades</i>, if you please, and even Molière, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>At night, under the conduct of my kind Irishman, I took my place +in the gallery to hear compline and <i>Salve Regina</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<blockquote><p>‘Que t’as de belles filles,<br /> + Giroflé!<br /> + Girofla!<br /> +Que t’as de belles filles,<br /> +L’Amour let comptera!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>And I blessed God that I was free to wander, free to hope, and free +to love.</p> +<h3>THE BOARDERS</h3> +<p>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 <i>retraitant</i>; 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.’</p> +<p>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 Gévaudan. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>They both declared that such a state of things was antichristian.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘<i>Comment</i>, <i>monsieur</i>?’ he shouted. +<i>‘Comment</i>? Gambetta moderate? Will you dare +to justify these words?’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘<i>Et vous prétendez mourir dans cette espèce +de</i> <i>croyance</i>?’ he demanded; and there is no type used +by mortal printers large enough to qualify his accent.</p> +<p>I humbly indicated that I had no design of changing.</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘Your father and mother?’ cried the priest. ‘Very +well; you will convert them in their turn when you go home.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘Do not be withheld by false shame,’ observed the priest, +for my encouragement.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘<i>C’est mon conseil comme ancien</i> <i>militaire</i>,’ +observed the commandant; ‘<i>et celui de monsieur</i> <i>comme</i> +<i>prêtre</i>.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Oui</i>,’ added the <i>curé</i>, sententiously +nodding; ‘<i>comme</i> <i>ancien militaire—et comme prêtre</i>.’</p> +<p>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 <i>him</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>curé</i> the argument seemed +decisive.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘Your sect,’ he said once; ‘for I think you will +admit it would be doing it too much honour to call it a religion.’</p> +<p>‘As you please, monsieur,’ said I. ‘<i>La +parole est à vous</i>.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘I assure you,’ he said, ‘I have no inclination +to laugh in my heart. I have no other feeling but interest in +your soul.’</p> +<p>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 Gévaudan 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.</p> +<h3>UPPER GÉVAUDAN (continued)</h3> +<blockquote><p>The bed was made, the room was fit,<br /> +By punctual eve the stars were lit;<br /> +The air was still, the water ran;<br /> +No need there was for maid or man,<br /> +When we put up, my ass and I,<br /> +At God’s green caravanserai.</p> +<p>OLD PLAY.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>ACROSS THE GOULET</h3> +<p>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 Père 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 Gévaudan +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 Chasseradès at +sundown.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘<i>Hé, bourgeois; il est cinq heures</i>!’ 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>bourrée</i>. 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.</p> +<p>There are other degrees of <i>feyness</i>, 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.</p> +<p>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 Lozère, 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.</p> +<h3>A NIGHT AMONG THE PINES</h3> +<p>From Bleymard after dinner, although it was already late, I set out +to scale a portion of the Lozère. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Chasseradès 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h2>THE COUNTRY OF THE CAMISARDS</h2> +<blockquote><p>We travelled in the print of olden wars;<br /> + Yet all the land was green;<br /> + And love we found, and peace,<br /> + Where fire and war had been.<br /> +They pass and smile, the children of the sword—<br /> + No more the sword they wield;<br /> + And O, how deep the corn<br /> + Along the battlefield!</p> +<p>W. P. BANNATYNE.</p> +</blockquote> +<h3>ACROSS THE LOZÈRE</h3> +<p>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 Gévaudan, 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.</p> +<p>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 Lozère, +and every step that I took I was drawing nearer to the wind.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The Lozère lies nearly east and west, cutting Gévaudan +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 Pic 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 Gévaudan, 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 Lozère, 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.</p> +<p>I had travelled hitherto through a dull district, and in the track +of nothing more notable than the child-eating beast of Gévaudan, +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?</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>A little after, the stream that I was following fell into the Tarn +at Pont de Montvert of bloody memory.</p> +<h3>PONT DE MONTVERT</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Lozère 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 +Chasseradès. 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>table d’hôte</i>, +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, <i>patet dea</i>. 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.</p> +<p>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 Montpellier 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.</p> +<p>Now the head and forefront of the persecution—after Lamoignon +de Bâvile—François de Langlade du Chayla (pronounce +Chéïla), 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?</p> +<p>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 Bougès; where there stood up one +Séguier—Spirit Séguier, 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.</p> +<p>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 Séguier, 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 <i>vine</i>, +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.</p> +<p>‘Children of God,’ cried the prophet, ‘hold your +hands. Let us burn the house, with the priest and the satellites +of Baal.’</p> +<p>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?’</p> +<p>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, Séguier 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 Frugères, +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.</p> +<p>’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 Séguier was brief and bloody. Two more priests +and a whole family at Ladevèze, 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.</p> +<p>‘Your name?’ they asked.</p> +<p>‘Pierre Séguier.’</p> +<p>‘Why are you called Spirit?’</p> +<p>‘Because the Spirit of the Lord is with me.’</p> +<p>‘Your domicile?’</p> +<p>‘Lately in the desert, and soon in heaven.’</p> +<p>‘Have you no remorse for your crimes?’</p> +<p>‘I have committed none. <i>My soul is like a garden full +of shelter and of fountains.’</i></p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3>IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Lozère, 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 Gévaudan, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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:</p> +<p>‘You have slept here?’</p> +<p>‘Yes,’ said I. ‘As you see.’</p> +<p>‘Why?’ he asked.</p> +<p>‘My faith,’ I answered lightly, ‘I was tired.’</p> +<p>He next inquired where I was going and what I had had for dinner; +and then, without the least transition, ‘<i>C’est bien</i>,’ +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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Suddenly up came an old woman, who point-blank demanded alms.</p> +<p>‘Good,’ thought I; ‘here comes the waiter with +the bill.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘<i>Connaissez-vous le Seigneur</i>?’ he said at length.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘Ah,’ said I, pointing upwards, ‘I understand you +now. Yes, I know Him; He is the best of acquaintances.’</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>I did not know I was so good a preacher.</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Vernède, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The valley below La Vernède 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 Cocurès, 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.</p> +<p>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 Séguier, 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.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>The valley of the Tarn and the people whom I met at La Vernède +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.</p> +<h3>FLORAC</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The landlord of the inn took me, after I had eaten, to an adjoining +café, 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 Cévenols 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Vernède. 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.</p> +<h3>IN THE VALLEY OF THE MIMENTE</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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, <i>à</i> <i>la</i> +<i>belle étoile</i>. 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.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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—</p> +<p>‘Oh,’ said he, ‘I make no shame of my religion. +I am a Catholic.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3>THE HEART OF THE COUNTRY</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Séguier; men who had joined their +voices with his in the 68th Psalm as they marched down by night on the +archpriest of the Cevennes. Séguier, 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>curé</i> in revolt, who has taken +to his bosom a schoolmistress. And his conduct, it is worth noting, +is disapproved by the Protestant villagers.</p> +<p>‘It is a bad idea for a man,’ said one, ‘to go +back from his engagements.’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘It’s a bad idea for a man to change,’ said he; +and the remark was generally applauded.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>The merchant was much interested in my journey, and thought it dangerous +to sleep afield.</p> +<p>‘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.’</p> +<p>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.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Cependant</i>,’ said he, ‘<i>coucher dehors</i>!’</p> +<p>‘God,’ said I, ‘is everywhere.’</p> +<p>‘<i>Cependant, coucher dehors</i>!’ he repeated, and +his voice was eloquent of terror.</p> +<p>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!’</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Lozère, +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.</p> +<p>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 Séguier. 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>I told him sternly, ‘Nothing.’</p> +<p>‘Nothing?’ cried he.</p> +<p>I repeated ‘Nothing,’ and made off.</p> +<p>It’s odd to think of, but perhaps I thus became as inexplicable +to the old man as he had been to me.</p> +<p>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 <i>bel amoureux</i>, 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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<h3>THE LAST DAY</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 curé 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.</p> +<p>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 <i>curé</i>, +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 Séguier was near at +hand; and behold! all the assembly took to their horses’ heels, +some east, some west, and the <i>curé</i> himself as far as Alais.</p> +<p>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 <i>curé</i>, 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 <i>curé’s</i> 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!</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘It is a bad idea for a man to change,’ said one.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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 Vallée Française, 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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>Before ten o’clock we had got in and were at supper; fifteen +miles and a stiff hill in little beyond six hours!</p> +<h3>FAREWELL, MODESTINE!</h3> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p>‘Making cider,’ he said. ‘<i>Oui</i>, <i>c’est +comme ça. Comme dans le nord</i>!’</p> +<p>There was a ring of sarcasm in his voice: the country was going to +the devil.</p> +<p>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,</p> +<blockquote><p> ‘And oh!<br /> +The difference to me!’</p> +</blockquote> +<p>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—</p> +<p>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.</p> +<p> </p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TRAVELS WITH A DONKEY IN THE CEVENNES***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 535-h.htm or 535-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/535 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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