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.

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 _cure_ in revolt, who has taken to his bosom a
schoolmistress. And his conduct, it is worth noting, is disapproved by
the Protestant villagers.

"It is a bad idea for a man," said one, "to go back from his
engagements."

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.

"It's a bad idea for a man to change," said he; and the remark was
generally applauded.

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 uni