Chapter I
Avenge, 0 Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold: Ev’n them, who kept thy truth so pure of old, When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones, Forget not; in thy book record their groans, Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piedmontese, that roll’d Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyr’d blood and ashes sow O’er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway The triple tyrant; that from these may grow An hundred others, who having learnt thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe!
MILTON.
IN the recesses of the great chain of mountains, which form the barrier between France and Italy, are situated the three secluded valleys of Lucerna, Perosa, and St Martino, which for ages have signalized themselves in their struggles for religious freedom. Truth, when banished from the altars of the church, the halls of learning, and the palaces of kings, found a safe asylum among these alpine solitudes; and their inhabitants, a simple race of peasants, nobly struggled for a thousand years, against the corruptions of papal Rome, while the rest of Europe lay prostrate at her feet. But the annals of the persecuted Vaudois are written in blood, and the statute-book of the house of Savoy is darkened with sanguinary edicts against this innocent people. Age after age witnessed the names of persecution raging in their peaceful valleys — laying their hamlets in ashes, and condemning the inhabitants, amid the rigours of winter, to wander among their fastnesses, with often no home but the cavern, no pillow but the sod, no prospect of any relief from their sufferings, but the grave! The homes of the Waldenses are emphatically classic ground. Every mountain and valley, every rock and cave, has some tale to tell, of daring deeds and noble achievements, which, while a thousand exploits of heroic valour, far less worthy of celebrity, have been immortalized in poetry, or sculptured in marble, are all that remain to perpetuate the Christian patriotism of men, “of whom the world was not worthy.” Greece had but her one Thermopylae — the valleys of Clusone and St Martino have their hundred
Apart from these moral and religious associations, the valleys themselves possess a combination of scenery of surpassing grandeur. The sublime and beautiful in nature, seem to have their living archetypes in the favoured spot which divine providence selected for depositing the precious seed, which was afterwards to have for its field “the world.” Alps piled on Alps in majestic confusion, their summits resting amid the clouds, and mantled in eternal snows, seem as if purposely thrown as a rampart of defence around this asylum of truth; while the valleys beneath, are so many little store-houses, into which nature has poured, with lavish profusion, her most exuberant bounties; and whose unrivalled loveliness at the present hour, may satisfy the passing traveller, that they need not the pen of romance to add enchantment to their living wonders. He may find a sterner magnificence, a more awful grandeur, in the mountain passes overhung by the frowning peaks of the Ungfrau or the Wetterhorn; or in gazing on the icy solitudes of Mont Blanc, with its throne of glaciers, and curtain of tempests; but to witness the rare combination of sublimity and beauty — to see nature, at one glance, in her smiles and in her frowns — in her sternest and in her softest colouring — let him place himself in the centre of Lucerna, with its waving fields, and smiling hamlets, and sylvan wonders at his feet, and the colossal amphitheatre of Alps bounding the horizon.
Previous to the year 1686, the tyrannical edicts of the house of Savoy, had been for some time suspended. The sword of persecution was sheathed, and the Vaudois hailed with joy the temporary respite from their sufferings. Each was once more permitted to worship in peace, “under his own vine and his own fig-tree;” and all seemed to betoken that this tranquillity was to be permanent. The reigning sovereign, Amadeus, though the slave of bigotry, and the blind devotee of Rome, was not unmindful of the loyal obedience of his Waidensian subjects. They had been taught from their cradles, that to honour the king, was the duty which, in their creed, stood second only to fearing God; and although a crowd of confessors thronged the palace of Turin, to whom nothing would have been more congenial than the extirpation of the hated race; yet their innocent lives, and uncorrupted morals, could afford nothing for the tongue of slander to whisper against them.
But the darkest cloud is often preceded by a bright sunshine. This season of peace was the precursor of a fiercer tempest, than had ever yet desolated their valleys. Once more, their parental roofs were to be laid in ashes, and themselves and families expelled from their homes. A new adversary appeared on the field, and laid a deadlier train for their destruction. Louis XIV. of France, the scourge and despot of his country and age, trampling on the most sacred and inviolable obligations, revoked the edict of Nantes, which had granted a free liberty to Protestants, to worship God according to their consciences. He scoured the valleys of Dauphiny — penetrated into those fastnesses in the south-east of his dominions, which for ages had been the homes of his Protestant subjects, laid their peaceful villages in ruins, and purpled the mountain streams with their blood. The persecuted mountaineers sought a refuge among the valleys of the Vaudois; but the tyrant, not satisfied with banishing them from his own frontiers, demanded of the Duke of Savoy to execute the same work of extirpation in the valleys of Piedmont, as had been effected in those of Queyras and Fressiniere. The young monarch expressed his unwillingness to unsheath the sword against a portion of his subjects, who, although hostile in their faith, were yet devoted in their allegiance. But Louis was resolved, at all hazards, on the execution of the tragedy. By means of his envoy, he made the Duke aware, that in the event of his refusal, he was himself ready to march at the head of 14,000 men, to wreak his vengeance on the heretics. Amadeus saw that there was no alternative but to obey.
Orders were given to prepare for the bloody campaign; and, burning with revenge at the recollection of former struggles, the flower of the Sardinian chivalry marched to the field of contest, determined, by one desperate effort, to wipe out the stain which the bravery of these mountaineers had affixed, in former times, on the standards of Savoy.
It is to this sanguinary episode in their history, that our narrative refers.
On the evening of the 19th of April 1686, the Vaudois received the intelligence, that in two days they should have to choose between the alternatives, of submission to the Pope, or death. The dismal tidings came like a thunderbolt upon the peaceful peasantry. Their first impulse was a rush to arms. They retreated, with their wives and families, to their mountain fastnesses. Every cavern became a fortress — every rock a battlement; and for two days the bravest legions of Savoy trembled beneath a handful of cottage patriots. But at length, overpowered by numbers, they found themselves forced to resign the unequal contest; and on the stipulation that they should be allowed to evacuate their valleys in safety, they laid down their swords at the feet of the invaders. But they dearly paid for this act of submission. Their homes and sanctuaries were converted into dungeons, into which fourteen thousand innocent captives were hurried, loaded with chains — their only companions, darkness, famine, torture, crime! The pen recoils from the task of recounting cruelties, too harrowing for tongue to tell — too horrible to be dragged to the light of day! The blood runs cold at the tale of innocent babes torn from the maternal breast, scalped before their parents’ eyes, and their brains thrown into the trough as food for the dog: of burning pincers in the hands of the brutal soldiery, tearing the flesh, and piercing the vitals of the sufferers; boiling caldrons, the rack, and the wheel; flaming faggots; oil poured on the burning flesh, to prevent it roasting, so as to protract the agony; beds of straw in pestilential dungeons swarming with vermin, and in the heat of summer engendering loathsome diseases, which terminated in a slow, yet welcome death! After languishing for six months amid such sufferings, three thousand wretched survivors were all who remained to experience the sad clemency of exile from their native homes; and of these, alas! many perished, unpitied and unknown, among the dreary Alpine solitudes through which they were doomed to wander.
It was on the 17th of October that the exiles set out on their journey. Early in the morning, little groups were seen wending their way up such of the narrow glens and rocky steeps as appeared
4o be attended with least peril and fatigue. Even in this, one of the darkest hours of their history, Heaven seemed to cast a propitious smile on the outcasts. The sun rose in unclouded splendour — his beams gilding the whole range of Alps and Appenines, as with burnished gold. Many were the fond and lingering looks which these pious mountaineers cast behind them, on the scenes of loveliness they were about to leave, and which seemed to be endeared to them a thousand-fold, under the bitter consciousness, that to these abodes of innocence and peace, the homes of their childhood, the graves of their forefathers, they were now to bid farewell, in all probability, for ever I
But although driven from their fold, the great Shepherd of Israel had not deserted his chosen flock. The torch of the Reformation had now, for more than half a century, been kindled in Switzerland, and was burning with uncliminished lustre. A safe asylum was thrown open for the fugitives, among the Alps of Berne, or on the shores of Geneva; and thither, with hearts uplifted to a reigning Providence, the pilgrim wanderers bent their steps.
Ere the sun had gained the meridian, on the day to which we refer, the more active of the exiles had surmounted the toilsome Alpine ascents, and bivouacked for the night, on the opposite side of the mountain. Many of the weaker and more feeble, had been destined never to see the light of another sun; they either found a cold sepulchre amid the snows, or preferred to retrace their steps, and perish with their innocent babes, in the flames that consumed their cottages and hamlets.
As the day was drawing to a close, and the sun rapidly sinking in the west, a solitary family wound their way up the rugged path of the Col de la Croix. Their ascent lay along the foaming waters of the Felice, a rapid torrent which skirts the base of the mountain, and which, after being lashed into fury by a hundred cataracts, in its precipitous course from the valley above, glides softly along the beauteous vale of Lucerna.
The tottering step of the old man, who formed the centre of the group, explained the cause of their lingering. His white flowing locks told the tale of many winters. His eye, though sunk, still retained much of its natural vivacity, and the resigned expression which was seated on his countenance, bespoke that he was the expectant of a nobler than earthly heritage, and that he was only waiting the call of his Master, that he might, like the aged Simeon, “depart in peace!” He leaned for support on his two companions, the only surviving props of his declining days, the one a son about eighteen years old, and whose countenance told what the father’s must have been, ere age and growing infirmities had furrowed his cheek with wrinkles, and bedimmed the lustre of his penetrating eye; the other a girl in the bloom of youth, who was struggling in vain to repress the bursts of sorrow, which were agonizing her heart.
They had accomplished little more than half the ascent, when the aged man sunk beneath the burden of fatigues, which his exhausted frame could sustain no longer. They had fortunately arrived at a spot where a natural grotto was formed in the rock. Here the devoted boy erected a little tent, with the coverings he had provided for their nightly shelter; and spreading a couch on the green turf, kindled a fire with a few withered branches which were scattered around.
This aged exile was Eodolph Vin9on, the pastor of Villar, one of the loveliest of the Yaudois communes, and his two youthful attendants were all who remained of a once prosperous and happy family. The six months’* dreary confinement, which had proved fatal to so many thousands of their friends, they had survived, only through the kindness of the guardian of their captivity, who, with a clemency experienced by few of the unhappy sufferers, had been softened into pity for the grey hairs of the patriarch, and the distress of his unfortunate children.
The clay on which the royal edict was Issued to depart from their valleys, although hailed as a jubilee by many of the wretched captives who had been doomed to the endurance of sufferings worse than death, was viewed by Rodolph Vin9on in another and a far different light. With the calmness and resignation of a Christian martyr, he beheld in it the signal that the time of his departure was speedily to arrive; knowing that the toils and sufferings of an Alpine journey were what his aged frame would be unable to endure, — he felt assured that the hour which was to exile many of his flock from their earthly homes, would safely usher him into those heavenly mansions, whose bright visions had, in many a dark hour of sorrow, terminated the perspective of this valley of tears.
Herbert and Alice had prevailed on their beloved parent, to avail himself of such rest, as the rude couch they had just spread could offer. The courageous boy had contrived, till now, to suppress his agitated feelings. While providing, as best he could, for his father’s present wants, he had succeeded in shutting out of view the prospect of the future; but now he was left to be the prey of his own feelings, — he had now time to revolve in his mind all the dismal events of a day that had subjected many of his dearest relatives to the endurance of sufferings, which his sensitive mind shrunk from contemplating, and which had condemned an aged father to be the nightly tenant of a naked solitude, which, in all likelihood, would prove his grave. A relentless foe was behind — threatening tempests, and unknown paths, spread terror before them. Courageous and intrepid, above many of his equals, his young spirit sunk under the appalling prospect. He burst into a flood of poignant grief, and, unbefriended by all but Heaven, he and the desolate heart that shared his anguish, mingled their prayers and tears together to that God, whom the orphan and the fatherless never supplicate in vain.
“Hush, hush, my children,” said the old man, who was roused from a few moments of troubled repose, by the sobs of those who were seated at his side. “Weep not for me, but weep for them who have heaped such woes on the innocent and unoffending. These hoary locks can lie as safely amid the cold snows of an Alpine grave, as underneath the green sods of Villar. It is well — it is well! I had fondly dreamed of a brighter and calmer evening to my days, but to-morrow, I trust, I shall witness a lovelier dawn — a day which knows no clouds, a sun which knows no setting!”
“Dearest father,” said Herbert, struggling with the torrent of grief to which his feeling heart had involuntarily given way, “our lives are not in our own hands. But we feel assured that the Good Shepherd of Israel — He who neither slumbers nor sleeps — will tend the couch which contains all we most love on earth; he will not leave his own sheep to perish in the wilderness. Do try to steal a few hours of repose, and perchance to-morrow’s sun may find you refreshed, and a benign Providence may direct us to some spot, where you will close your eyes in a kindlier atmosphere, and recline your head on a softer pillow.1’’” Yes, my children,” said the aged pastor, catching up the last word that fell from his son’s lips,” to-morrow this head shall be pillowed in safety on a Saviour’s bosom, and these eyes shall awrake on a scene where there is no more night, and no more death, because there is no more sin. Nay, nay, my beloved Herbert, thou wouldst willingly persuade me, that the shadows of death are not yet to fall; but think not that I fear to enter the dark valley: its gloom is to me dispelled — its darkness is radiant with peace! The only cloud which mars the serenity of this hour, is the thought, that those I most love on earth are to be left behind me for a little longer, to endure the storms and the tempests of this wilderness world — but it is, after all, but a little stream that will separate us; a few fleeting years shall, I trust, again unite us, a holy — happy family in heaven! But come near me, my children — my strength is fast failing — I am now approaching the dark waters — the deep shadows are gathering heavily around me, and thin heart, ere it ceases to beat, would fain breathe its
dying benedictions upon those most dear to it.
Hark you, Herbert, boy — the recollection of thy dutifulness, summons up the last tear that shall ever fill this eye — to your keeping, I intrust my beloved Alice, and the assurance of the way in which you will discharge that trust, is the most blessed which a fathers heart can experience!”
“Nay, father! nay,” said Alice, as she clasped his icy hand, and bathed it with her tears; “naytalk not of death! I will willingly consent to be bereft of every thing else, but what would life be, without that which alone can now make it a blessing. If Heaven makes this solitude thy grave, it shall be mine and Herbert’s too!”
“Not so, my child,” replied the father, gently chiding his dejected girl,” my time is come — my warfare is finished — full seventy winters have passed over these hoary locks. This feeble frame can work no longer in the vineyard of my heavenly Master — and he summons me home to receive the prize. But as for you, my children, ye are but setting out on the journey — ye cannot grasp the crown, before ye have carried the cross. Only be faithful to your God, and he will be faithful to you.
OF LUCERNA. L5
Give him the best of your strength, and the best of your time, and when ye come to the hour which is now about to summon me to my Father’s house, ye will be able to receive the message with joy, and to look from a death full of hope, to an immortality full of glory! Besides, fear not this
passing cloud — its darkness will soon vanish. Yes,” said the aged man, exerting all the strength which yet remained, “these fires which now ye see blazing in our valleys, may lay their hamlets in ashes, 4 the beautiful house in which we and our fathers worshipped may be destroyed, and all our pleasant things laid waste,’ but the Gi-od of our fathers will never suffer this candle of his own lighting, to be put out — the bush may burn, but it can never — never be consumed!”
The aged saint sunk back exhausted on his couch; the effort to impart paternal counsel and dying consolation to his children, had proved too much for his frame. Herbert retired to a short distance, in hopes, that by leaving him undisturbed, he might obtain some repose, and lengthen out, a little longer, those hours which he now evidently saw were fast hastening to their close. His sister, exhausted with fatigue, had fallen asleep at the side of the couch, where she still grasped the withered hand of her father. The poor boy having provided, as he best could, for their warmth and comfort, wrapped himself up in his cloak, and sat down by the smouldering ashes of the fire, occasionally pacing up and down to keep himself awake, and to see that no danger threatened to disturb the slumbers of his charge.
The moon had now risen above the valley — her pale beams were playing on the sparkling waters of the Felice, and the opposite mountains were casting their deep shadows on the plain below. The tear rolled down Herbert’s cheek, as he turned his eye backward on the smoking ruins of the hamlets of his native valley, and as at intervals there came floating on the breeze the tumultuary rejoicings of the enemy ss soldiers, who had converted the very sanctuaries of truth, into the scenes of their sacrilegious revelries!
“Can it be,” thought he, as he pursued his mournful reflections, — “can it be, that the spectacle which I now behold, is aught else but the vision of some feverish dream. Can one short day have deprived us of a home and a father, and left us to perish unpitied in the wilderness! Must these hands, that had fondly hoped to close the eyes of a beloved parent in the peace of his own dwelling, and to lay his head in the churchyard where sleep his own affectionate flock, be compelled to-morrow to dig his grave, and cover his cold sepulchre with the sods of the mountain!”
Wrapt in such gloomy thoughts, the afflicted boy sat motionless by the embers of his fire. Not a breath disturbed the sullen silence of the hour, save the murmurs of the stream below, or at times the bursts of unhallowed mirth to which wre have referred. For nearly two hours, he had been engaged in these painful meditations, when he thought he caught the sound of footsteps, and the indistinct muttering of voices, approaching the spot where he was. His heart sunk within him! He knew well what was to be expected from those, whose spirits were thirsting for blood and revenge. His worst fears were realized. He now heard distinctly the distant trampling of horses, and in another minute, the moonbeams disclosed two mounted figures riding towards their little bivouac, Herbert now thought all was lost. “Heavenly Father!” he cried, in the agony of despair, “have mercy upon us!”
“Ha!” exclaimed the foremost horseman, who now rode up to the little group of refugees, at the same time prefacing his words with an oath which pierced the poor boy to the heart, “here is a whole nest of these barbets of Satan.* The old bird too, hath gone to his repose! The fire will be a more befitting couch for the carcass of this fatted here-
* The designation given to the Waldenses by the Papists.
tic; although, by our Holy Lady, the vultures of the Col, will grudge the waste of such savoury carrion!”
“Hark thee, holy father,” continued the rude attendant, addressing his companion, whose monastic garb bespoke what he was; “hark thee, holy father, these three heads will make thy most befitting benefaction at the most holy festival of St Michael; and his Holiness will, at the very sight of such spoil, grant thee an indulgence which will wipe off thy sins and mine to boot — and perchance those of thy whole order!”
“Hush, hush,” said the monk, “a truce upon thy folly; this aged man will not need thy poniard to hasten an hour, which his pallid cheek ;and heavy breathing tells me is even now at hand. Ere the vital spark has fled, and the fires of purgatory are kindled, let us try to impart peace to his soul, and persuade him to confess himself a son of our holy mother church.”
“Never! never!” cried the feeble voice of the dying patriarch, who had been roused from his troubled repose by the noise around him. “Never shall a Vaudois be so forgetful of the debt he owes to his forefathers and his God, as basely to barter his creed, and surrender his faith, when he is at the very gate of heaven! Ye may crimson this snow with my blood; or, as ye threaten, feed these flames with this body, — but never shall it be said, that Rodolph ¥1119011 died a death, unworthy of his name!”
The priest started back at the last words which fell upon his ear; a flush suffused his face — he stepped yet nearer the couch of the aged sufferer, and with silent amazement fastened his eye more intently on the countenance before him, whilst his crimsoned cheek, bespoke the working of his feelings. “Hark ye, my children,” said he, addressing the spectators of this strange mixture of contending emotions.
“Ha! good father,” interrupted his attendant, “art thou thus chicken-hearted at looking at death; it seems as if thou wert resolved to give this old heretic thy company to purgatory!”
“Vain babbler,” replied the monk, his eye glancing as he spoke, “thy folly hath no bounds; if thou knewest what dark thoughts were now rankling in this bosom, thou wouldest know, that silence was thy most becoming attitude. Go,” continued he, “and let me not see thy face till I call for thee, or else thou shall repent thy rashness, as I must converse in private with this aged man.”
The dependant gave a tardy obedience to the commands of his superior; only regretting that the clear moonlight would prevent him gratifying an unscrupulous curiosity, by creeping behind the rocks, and becoming an auditor of the holy fathers interview with the dying patriarch. Nor were Herbert and his sister easily prevailed upon to withdraw from the couch, at the solicitation of the stranger. Thinking that he was perhaps about to lay violent hands on their father, their first impulse was to refuse the request; but his whole manner and appearance induced them to forbear, and they waited in silence, by the remains of the midnight fire, the result of the mysterious interview.
The priest now stood alone by the side of the couch. “Death,” said he,” is the hour, when the heart is most ready to forget injuries. Can Rodolph Villon, ere he closes his eyes on this side eternity, extend pardon to his most cruel foe; and, in token of forgiveness, clasp the hand that once came forth from his peaceful home, reeking with blood T
“Does Bodolph Vin9on,” said the dying saint, casting a look of agonizing horror on the countenance before him, “behold a living man; or is it some fiendish spirit of the dead that has come to hover over his passage through the dark valley, and haunt, with visions of terror and blood, his last moments? This eye now grows dim, the pulsations of this heart will soon be at an end — but be it so — be thou material or immaterial — spirit or incarnate, know thou, that if thou consultest heaven’s register-book, all that tiodolph Vin9on has written there, regarding the murderer of his babes, is a daily prayer for Heaven’s mercy on his soul; and it would be one of the sweetest rays of comfort to him in his closing hours, to know that these prayers have been heard!”
“They have! they have!” re-echoed the agonized man, with tremulous voice, the tear of heartfelt penitence rolling down his cheek: “since that night of darkness and blood, this eye hath witnessed no spectacle but the damp walls of a cell — and this hand grasped no kindlier thing than the scourge; the stillness of midnight has oftener seen these sunken eyes filled with tears, than closed in slumber; and my hope is, that, through a life of mortification and penance, if I have thy forgiveness, I have Heaven’s also!”
“If the forgiveness of a heart thou hast deeply wounded, be any source of consolation to thy spirit, I give it willingly, freely,” said the aged Christian, making an effort to extend towards the monk his hand, now frozen with the chill of death. “But listen to the counsel of a veteran soldier of the cross, whose warfare is now finished. Think not, that by stripes, and watchings, and fastings, thou canst wipe out a stain, which the blood of the Great Shepherd is alone sufficient to remove; but of this, let thine own conscience judge- Meanwhile, ere this voice falters, know, that thou hast it in thy power, to make an ample recompense to me for all the dark deeds of the past, and remove the last lingering cloud that darkens my dying hour!”
“Tell it me, my father; it shall be done, be the cost what it may!”
“See you, then,” said he, “these two desolate little ones — the children of my bosom — the sweets and the stay of my chequered life- — the props of my old age. It remains with thee, whether they shall be preserved for a little longer in this vale of tears, or perish amid the snows of this mountain!”
“If that be the only sorrowful ingredient,1’ replied the Monk,” that is mingled in thy cup of death, it is removed, and thou mayst close thine eyes in peace. We meet no more till that day when the trump of the Archangel shall summon us before the Great tribunal; and though this heart may tremble at crimes which shall then be unfolded, one of these, at least, shall not be, that I have been regardless of thy dying counsels. No, holy brother, the safety of thy defenceless children shall be secured, though at the expense of the last drop of blood in these veins P
“It is enough — it is enough/1 said the old man, lifting up his eyes, and breathing in silence a prayer of gratitude which his tongue was unable to express- —” It is enough! I die in peace! My children, my dear children,” continued he, beckoning to Herbert and Alice, who were in a moment by his side, —” God has sent me a benefactor in the hour of death: fear not to intrust yourselves to this reverend father — he will provide for your safety. Farewell — farewell I’1 — he clasped them to his bosom — pressed his cold lips on their cheeks — sunk back on his couch- — uttered one parting groan — and next moment was sleeping sweetly in Jesus!
“Would to God/1 said the monk, mingling his tears with those of the bereaved mourners — “would to God every spirit that wings its flight to another world, were as happy as that which has just fled to its rest! See the sweet smile that is still playing on the cold clay tabernacle it has left behind it — does it not bear the very stamp of heaven, the foretaste of that bliss which its deathless inhabitant has now gone to enjoy!”
“Yes,’1 said the disconsolate Herbert, after struggling in vain to unbosom a grief too deep for utterance — “He was sweet in life! — he seems sweeter still in death ! — but, oh! the thought, that we are now to be bereft of that smile, and to travel on, solitary and alone, in this vale of tears!”
“My children! my children!” said the kind monk, “I know the bitterness of the pang which ye now endure; and ye must look to an abler and better comforter than a wretched sinner, to bind up the wounds which now are opened. But we know that the spirit of the departed is in better keeping than with us. Would that we were all as safe! But there is no time to be lost — -it grieves me to interrupt you in this the darkest hour of your earthly sorrows; but our safety renders it needful, that, after paying the last solemn tribute to the dead, we set out on our journey. We are encompassed on every side with danger; and I scruple not to say, that had Heaven not sent me to your rescue, he whom you now mourn would have encountered the king of terrors in a more dreadful form, and ye yourselves should have shared his tomb!”
Herbert, though looking forward with deep emotion to the moment when he should be called on to leave, in the barren mountain, the earthly remains of all that was dearest to him, yet saw the force of what his kind benefactor had just said. The monk perceived the contending feelings of the noble boy, “and taking him aside, requested that he would take charge of his sister, whilst he and his attendant removed the body, and consigned it to its grave* Once more they kissed the cold cheek; and then betaking themselves to the foot of the couch, and covering their faces with their hands, they wept and prayed together! Meanwhile the monk had summoned his attendant, who, between the effects of the previous day’s fatigues and excesses, had fallen fast asleep.
“Thou hast doomed me to a cold night’s penance, holy father,” said he, as he was aroused from his slumbers.
“Thou hast need of many such,” retorted his superior, “to freeze thy folly. But I have need of thy services, for what will make thy blood flow freely: the old man whom thou sawest, but a few hours ago, stretched on his pallet, is now no more; and I wish to bestow on his remains such burial as the present time and place will permit.”
“After thou hast eased him,” replied he, “of any redundant coin which the heretic may have hoarded, (which in ordinary circumstances our holy mother church would claim as her own, but which, in such unseasonable hours, methinks, rightfully reverts to thyself and me), and after thou hast exhausted thy missal over this son of perdition — and seeing that we have neither spade nor shovel — neither shroud nor coffin — neither time nor inclination” —
“Is thy trifling, fool, to have no end? Come, leave off these unseemly provocations, and tell me where thou wouldst advise me to place this body.”
“If thou wouldst but have patience, good father, thou wouldst have heard iny deliverance on this head, which, I trust, will meet with the concurrence of thy superior wisdom and sanctity”-
“Quickly give it me, then,” said he, his voice deepening with indignation.
“If, then,” replied the other, “it be an expeditious interment thou desirest, tumble him into this mountain torrent, which, for the last three hours, with its thunders, has been filling my dreams with terror, as if in anticipation of the putrid heretic that was to pollute its waters — let its cataracts vent their fury on this piece of clay — and after a rough journey over rock and precipice, perchance the broken framework will sleep in safety at the bottom of some pool, where it will be nearer the spirit that has just left it than where it now reposes!”
“Were it not, unprincipled man, that thou hast proved a trusty guide, and that I know thou hast not yet recovered from thy yesterday’s intoxication, I would, with the help of this noble boy, make thee to have the first experience of thy projected journey, and let the rocks of the Felice tell every bone in thy body at what value I estimate thy folly. Come, follow me, and obey with promptitude whatever my commands may be, and I shall reward thee accordingly.”
So saying, they went to the couch, and the monk having lit the lantern which hung at his side, they silently removed the body.
“This way, this way,” said he; “here is a little dell with some brushwood — thither let us bend our steps.” They succeeded in clearing with their hands a little spot in the thicket, where a number of large stones or masses of rock, that had rolled down the mountain, had formed a sort of natural sepulchre. Here, after frequently crossing themselves, and muttering some silent prayers, they deposited the body. And while the monk despatched his attendant to collect a heap of stones to place above it, he himself continued on his bended knees, saying mass for the departed soul. When the solemn task was ended, they returned to the two dejected mourners, who begged, ere they proceeded on their journey, to have the melancholy satisfaction of witnessing the spot where slept the revered ashes of their parent. In the meanwhile, the superior ordered his menial to have the mules in readiness, by the time they returned from paying this last and farewell tribute to the memory of a fond father.
“A more befitting place.” said the monk, as they stood by the tomb, “could not be found! — overlooking the little flock among whom he laboured, and whose graves are in the valley beneath. What matters it though the rude winds sweep this mountain solitude, or, perchance, the winter’s snow cover this grave — they cannot disturb the spirit of the departed! No, no. I have witnessed, my children, gilded domes, underneath which sleep the ashes of sceptred monarchs — a hundred tapers blaze day and night over their sepulchres, and mitred priests disturb the fretted aisles with their prayers for the dead. Yet no slumber there is half so sweet as that underneath this rude heap of stones. He needs no fretted dome, no costly epitaph, to make him happier! The tempests of heaven may spend their fury around his body, but the spirit is cradled in a peace which knows no breaking!”
The dejected children gazed in silence on the lonely grave. They plucked a few green branches from the surrounding shrubs, and scattered them over the top; and then, sobbing a last, sad, farewell, they hastened to prepare for their journey!