The Road Led Me Past The Old Castle Of Miral On A Steep; Past A
Battlemented Monastery, Long Since Broken
Up and turned into a church and
parsonage; and past a cluster of black roofs, the village of Cocures,
sitting
Among vineyards, and meadows, and orchards thick with red apples,
and where, along the highway, they were knocking down walnuts from the
roadside trees, and gathering them in sacks and baskets. The hills,
however much the vale might open, were still tall and bare, with cliffy
battlements and here and there a pointed summit; and the Tarn still
rattled through the stones with a mountain noise. I had been led, by
bagmen of a picturesque turn of mind, to expect a horrific country after
the heart of Byron; but to my Scottish eyes it seemed smiling and
plentiful, as the weather still gave an impression of high summer to my
Scottish body; although the chestnuts were already picked out by the
autumn, and the poplars, that here began to mingle with them, had turned
into pale gold against the approach of winter.
There was something in this landscape, smiling although wild, that
explained to me the spirit of the Southern Covenanters. Those who took
to the hills for conscience' sake in Scotland had all gloomy and
bedevilled thoughts; for once that they received God's comfort they would
be twice engaged with Satan; but the Camisards had only bright and
supporting visions. They dealt much more in blood, both given and taken;
yet I find no obsession of the Evil One in their records.
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