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 fare-, well, they hastened to prepare for their journey! CHAPTER II. In Superstition's ancient pile, Where monks their beads were telling, E'en there for happiness I sought, ANON. THE monk, whom we have described in our former chapter, when he met the three exiled Vaudois on the pass of the Col de la Croix, was prosecuting his journey to Rome on some business relative to his monastery; as well as in order to be present at one of the great annual festivals, and purchase for himself a plenary indulgence from the crimes of his youth-the darkest of which, had left its stain on the domestic hearth of the very man, whose eyes, by a mysterious providence, he had now been permitted to close in death. The events, however, already related, determined him at once to abandon his expedition. The business he had undertaken was not so important as to render his personal presence indispensable-and he resolved to entrust its execution to his companion, of whose character he had seen sufficient, during their short acquaintance, to make him long for nothing more eagerly, than a favourable opportunity of dispensing with his services. Having received directions as to his duty, and having his pockets replenished with some pieces of gold, which elicited from him the promise of the strictest secrecy with regard to what he had that night witnessed, Alart Besson set out on his journey, not by any means regretting the absence of his superior, whose austere habits and rigid sanctity, had imposed somewhat more restraint on his dissolute manners than he often could have desired; a full pocket, and the prospect of giving ample scope to his licentiousness, made the present appear to Alart, the happiest, as it was, at least to other two of the party, the saddest hour that had ever dawned on them. The young Vaudois, and their deceased parent, in selecting this mountain pass for their flight, had done so, if not in ignorance of the persecution itself, at least of the extent of it in the neighbouring valleys of Dauphiny. They had anticipated, at all events, finding a temporary home among their friends in the rocky wilds of St Veran or Dormil leuse; after which they might either return to their native valleys, if the storm had by that time blown. over, or else prolong their journey to the Protestant cantons of Switzerland. The providential interposition of the monk, snatched them from certain destruction. The flames of persecution were lighted up in every hamlet, troops were stationed at every mountain pass, and death was the only tribute which they would accept at the hands of a Vaudois. Their kind benefactor warned them, that it would be two wearisome days' journey ere he could bring them to a place of permanent safety; he imposed on them the strictest silence during the progress of their route, and requested that all questions that might be addressed to them, should be answered solely through himself. It was about one o'clock in the morning, when the monk, mounted on one of the mules, and his young charge sharing the other, set out upon their route. These faithful animals had fortunately benefited more than their burdens by their few hours of repose. In anticipation of their long journey, the monk had taken care to distribute among them, before parting, a goodly share of the provisions he had brought with him for his own use. They gave ample proof that they were no strangers either to precipitous paths, or unmerciful loads; and with the help of a bright moon, a starry sky, and the reflection from the snow, which made it almost as clear as day, they had surmounted the summit of the Col, ere the sun's earliest beams were tinging the eastern horizon. We shall not follow the little cavalcade through their long and arduous route, or relate the various times, in which detection appeared inevitable. On one occasion particularly, they were within an hair's-breadth of sharing the fate of their unhappy countrymen. As they passed the entrance to the valley of the Guil, under the frowning battlements of Chateau Queyras, they beheld its portals surmounted with the heads of some wretched Protestants, who had been massacred in cold blood. The headless trunks were piled up in heaps on either side, and hundreds were lifting up their shrieks and groans to Heaven in dread anticipation of a like horrible tragedy awaiting them. Alice, as she cast her eyes on the ghastly spectacle, thought she beheld among the crowd of victims, one of those whom, from childhood, she had numbered among her dearest friends. "Father!" she cried out, uttering a wild shriek, and utterly forgetting where she "there is!-there is! was, 66 Unhappy girl," exclaimed the monk, "thou hast undone thyself and me too, with thy rash imprudence !" "Ha! young damsel," cried a soldier, at the |