My Soul Is Like A Garden Full Of Shelter And Of
Fountains.'
At Pont de Montvert, on the 12th of August, he had his right hand
stricken from his body, and was burned alive.
And his soul was like a
garden? So perhaps was the soul of Du Chayla, the Christian martyr. And
perhaps if you could read in my soul, or I could read in yours, our own
composure might seem little less surprising.
Du Chayla's house still stands, with a new roof, beside one of the
bridges of the town; and if you are curious you may see the
terrace-garden into which he dropped.
IN THE VALLEY OF THE TARN
A new road leads from Pont de Montvert to Florac by the valley of the
Tarn; a smooth sandy ledge, it runs about half-way between the summit of
the cliffs and the river in the bottom of the valley; and I went in and
out, as I followed it, from bays of shadow into promontories of afternoon
sun. This was a pass like that of Killiecrankie; a deep turning gully in
the hills, with the Tarn making a wonderful hoarse uproar far below, and
craggy summits standing in the sunshine high above. A thin fringe of ash-
trees ran about the hill-tops, like ivy on a ruin; but on the lower
slopes, and far up every glen, the Spanish chestnut-trees stood each four-
square to heaven under its tented foliage. Some were planted, each on
its own terrace no larger than a bed; some, trusting in their roots,
found strength to grow and prosper and be straight and large upon the
rapid slopes of the valley; others, where there was a margin to the
river, stood marshalled in a line and mighty like cedars of Lebanon. Yet
even where they grew most thickly they were not to be thought of as a
wood, but as a herd of stalwart individuals; and the dome of each tree
stood forth separate and large, and as it were a little hill, from among
the domes of its companions. They gave forth a faint sweet perfume which
pervaded the air of the afternoon; autumn had put tints of gold and
tarnish in the green; and the sun so shone through and kindled the broad
foliage, that each chestnut was relieved against another, not in shadow,
but in light. A humble sketcher here laid down his pencil in despair.
I wish I could convey a notion of the growth of these noble trees; of how
they strike out boughs like the oak, and trail sprays of drooping foliage
like the willow; of how they stand on upright fluted columns like the
pillars of a church; or like the olive, from the most shattered bole can
put out smooth and youthful shoots, and begin a new life upon the ruins
of the old. Thus they partake of the nature of many different trees; and
even their prickly top-knots, seen near at hand against the sky, have a
certain palm-like air that impresses the imagination. But their
individuality, although compounded of so many elements, is but the richer
and the more original. And to look down upon a level filled with these
knolls of foliage, or to see a clan of old unconquerable chestnuts
cluster 'like herded elephants' upon the spur of a mountain, is to rise
to higher thoughts of the powers that are in Nature.
Between Modestine's laggard humour and the beauty of the scene, we made
little progress all that afternoon; and at last finding the sun, although
still far from setting, was already beginning to desert the narrow valley
of the Tarn, I began to cast about for a place to camp in. This was not
easy to find; the terraces were too narrow, and the ground, where it was
unterraced, was usually too steep for a man to lie upon. I should have
slipped all night, and awakened towards morning with my feet or my head
in the river.
After perhaps a mile, I saw, some sixty feet above the road, a little
plateau large enough to hold my sack, and securely parapeted by the trunk
of an aged and enormous chestnut. Thither, with infinite trouble, I
goaded and kicked the reluctant Modestine, and there I hastened to unload
her. There was only room for myself upon the plateau, and I had to go
nearly as high again before I found so much as standing-room for the ass.
It was on a heap of rolling stones, on an artificial terrace, certainly
not five feet square in all. Here I tied her to a chestnut, and having
given her corn and bread and made a pile of chestnut-leaves, of which I
found her greedy, I descended once more to my own encampment.
The position was unpleasantly exposed. One or two carts went by upon the
road; and as long as daylight lasted I concealed myself, for all the
world like a hunted Camisard, behind my fortification of vast chestnut
trunk; for I was passionately afraid of discovery and the visit of
jocular persons in the night. Moreover, I saw that I must be early
awake; for these chestnut gardens had been the scene of industry no
further gone than on the day before. The slope was strewn with lopped
branches, and here and there a great package of leaves was propped
against a trunk; for even the leaves are serviceable, and the peasants
use them in winter by way of fodder for their animals. I picked a meal
in fear and trembling, half lying down to hide myself from the road; and
I daresay I was as much concerned as if I had been a scout from Joani's
band above upon the Lozere, or from Salomon's across the Tarn, in the old
times of psalm-singing and blood. Or, indeed, perhaps more; for the
Camisards had a remarkable confidence in God; and a tale comes back into
my memory of how the Count of Gevaudan, riding with a party of dragoons
and a notary at his saddlebow to enforce the oath of fidelity in all the
country hamlets, entered a valley in the woods, and found Cavalier and
his men at dinner, gaily seated on the grass, and their hats crowned with
box-tree garlands, while fifteen women washed their linen in the stream.
Such was a field festival in 1703; at that date Antony Watteau would be
painting similar subjects.
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