which rose tall black pines and yellowing chestnuts, one
above the other, like a vast circus, where the wintry sun shed its pale
colors rather than poured its light, and autumn had spread her tawny
carpet of fallen leaves. About the middle of this hall, which seemed
to have had the deluge for its architect, stood three enormous Druid
stones,--a vast altar, on which was raised an old church-banner. About
a hundred men, kneeling with bared heads, were praying fervently in this
natural enclosure, where a priest, assisted by two other ecclesiastics,
was saying mass. The poverty of the sacerdotal vestments, the feeble
voice of the priest, which echoed like a murmur through the open space,
the praying men filled with conviction and united by one and the same
sentiment, the bare cross, the wild and barren temple, the dawning day,
gave the primitive character of the earlier times of Christianity to the
scene. Mademoiselle de Verneuil was struck with admiration. This mass
said in the depths of the woods, this worship driven back by persecution
to its sources, the poesy of ancient times revived in the midst of this
weird and romantic nature, these armed and unarmed Chouans, cruel and
praying, men yet children, all these things resembled nothing that she
had ever seen or yet imagined. She remembered admiring in her childhood
the pomps of the Roman church so pleasing to the senses; but she knew
nothing of God _alone_, his cross on the altar, his altar the earth. In
place of the carved foliage of a Gothic cathedral, the autumnal trees
upheld the sky; instead of a thousand colors thrown through stained
glass windows, the sun could barely slide its ruddy rays and dull
reflections on altar, priest, and people. The men present were a fact,
a reality, and not a system,--it was a prayer, not a religion. But human
passions, the momentary repression of which gave harmony to the picture,
soon reappeared on this mysterious scene and gave it powerful vitality.

As Mademoiselle de Verneuil reached the spot the reading of the gospel
was just over. She recognized in the officiating priest, not without
fear, the Abbe Gudin, and she hastily slipped behind a granite
block, drawing Francine after her. She was, however, unable to move
Galope-Chopine from the place he had chosen, and from which he intended
to share in the benefits of the ceremony; but she noticed the nature
of the ground around her, and hoped to be able to evade the danger by
getting a