orced, and as the traveller left their hospitable doors he
'blessed God that he was free to wander, free to hope, and free to
love.'

In the country of the Camisards--that little sect of persecuted
religionists whose fierce brief struggle against the tyranny of the
Church of Rome he so graphically describes--the descendant of Scotch
Covenanters found himself at home, and at 'Pont de Montvert' his heart
beat in a certain stern sympathy with the persecuted remnant, who here
slew Du Chayla, and with that strange weird prophet Spirit Seguir, who,
after the deed was done, and he was about to suffer death for it at the
stake, said: 'My soul is like a garden full of shelter and fountains.'

The rising took place on 24th July 1702, and Mr Stevenson says of it:

''Tis a wild night's work with its accompaniment of psalms; and it seems
as if a psalm must always have a sound of threatening in that town upon
the Tarn.'

There is a delightful description of a night among the firs in which the
very spirit of nature breathes through his words, and his reason for
travelling as he does is happy and convincing.

'I travel for travel's sake. The great affair is to move, to feel the
needs and hitches of our life more nearly; to come down off the feather
bed of civilisation and find the globe granite under foot and stern with
cutting flints. Alas! as we get up in life and are more pre-occupied
with our affairs, even a holiday is a thing to be worked for.'

Many people have all through life a closer acquaintance with 'the globe
granite under foot' than with 'the feather bed of civilisation,' and
daily bread even more than a holiday is a thing to be worked for. But Mr
Stevenson's lines had hitherto fallen in very pleasant places, and he
had not as yet entered as seriously as he had to do later into the
bitter battle of life.

After twelve days together he sold Modestine at St Jean du Gard and made
his return journey by diligence. This book, like the first, was widely
read and heartily appreciated as soon as it appeared.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] This is to be found reprinted in the Edinburgh Edition, in
which are also published for the first time the _Amateur Emigrant_ in
full, a fragmentary romance, _The Great North Road_, and other papers
and letters, &c., not hitherto known to the public.

CHAPTER VII

WANDERINGS IN SEARCH OF HEALTH

'Know how sublime a thing it is
To suffer and be strong.'--LONGFELLOW.

Mr Steven