ou may take this ridge
as lying in the heart of the country of the Camisards; four of the five
legions camped all round it and almost within view--Salomon and Joani to
the north, Castanet and Roland to the south; and when Julien had finished
his famous work, the devastation of the High Cevennes, which lasted all
through October and November 1703, and during which four hundred and
sixty villages and hamlets were, with fire and pickaxe, utterly
subverted, a man standing on this eminence would have looked forth upon a
silent, smokeless, and dispeopled land. Time and man's activity have now
repaired these ruins; Cassagnas is once more roofed and sending up
domestic smoke; and in the chestnut gardens, in low and leafy corners,
many a prosperous farmer returns, when the day's work is done, to his
children and bright hearth. And still it was perhaps the wildest view of
all my journey. Peak upon peak, chain upon chain of hills ran surging
southward, channelled and sculptured by the winter streams, feathered
from head to foot with chestnuts, and here and there breaking out into a
coronal of cliffs. The sun, which was still far from setting, sent a
drift of misty gold across the hill-tops, but the valleys were already
plunged in a profound and quiet shadow.

A very old shepherd, hobbling on a pair of sticks, and wearing a black
cap of liberty, as if in honour of his nearness to the grave, directed me
to the road for St. Germain de Calberte. There was something solemn in
the isolation of this infirm and ancient creature. Where he dwelt, how
he got upon this high ridge, or how he proposed to get down again, were
more than I could fancy. Not far off upon my right was the famous Plan
de Font Morte, where Poul with his Armenian sabre slashed down the
Camisards of Seguier. This, methought, might be some Rip van Winkle of
the war, who had lost his comrades, fleeing before Poul, and wandered
ever since upon the mountains. It might be news to him that Cavalier had
surrendered, or Roland had fallen fighting with his back against an
olive. And while I was thus working on my fancy, I heard him hailing in
broken tones, and saw him waving me to come back with one of his two
sticks. I had already got some way past him; but, leaving Modestine once
more, retraced my steps.

Alas, it was a very commonplace affair. The old gentleman had forgot to
ask the pedlar what he sold, and wished to remedy this neglect.

I told him sternly, 'Not