De L'Orme. / The Works of G. P. R. James, Esq., Vol. XVI.

by G. P. R. James

Under the influence of such thoughts, the recollections of the last two days gradually lost themselves; and though I rode along, grave and perhaps melancholy, my melancholy was not of that bitter and gloomy nature produced by worldly cares and griefs. Father Francis was well acquainted with the many changes of my mood, and, consequently, found it not at all extraordinary that I was silent and thoughtful; but, attributing my seriousness to the events which had happened at Saragossa, he wisely let them sleep, hoping that they would soon pass from my memory.

Towards the evening, on the second day of our journey, we arrived at a little village consisting of about half a dozen shepherds' huts, situated at the very foot of the mountains; and here we learned that the Port de Gavarnie, by which we intended to have entered France, was completely blocked up with snow; but that less had fallen near Gabas, and that, consequently, the passes in that direction were practicable. Thither, then, we directed our steps the next morning, having procured a guide amongst the shepherds, who agreed to conduct us as far as Laruns, though he often looked at the sky, which had by this time become covered with heavy leaden-looking clouds, and shook his head, saying, that we must make all speed. There was but little good augury in his looks, and less in the prospect around us; for, as we began to ascend, the whole scene appeared covered with the cold robe of winter. All the higher parts of the mountains showed but one mass of snow; and every precipice under which we passed seemed crowned with an impending avalanche, which nothing but the black limbs of the gigantic pines, in which that region abounds, held from an instantaneous descent upon our heads.

No frost, however, had yet reached the bottom of the ravines through which we travelled. The path was rather damp and slippy, and the stream rushed on over the rocks without showing one icicle to mark the reign of winter. Father Francis's mule, which had delayed us on our former journey, now proved more sure-footed, at least, than either of the horses; and the good priest, finding himself quite secure and at his ease, dilated on the grandeur of the scenery and the magnificence of nature, even in her rudest forms.

"I am nothing of a misanthrope," said he, "and yet I find in the contemplation of the works of God a charm that man and all his arts can never communicate. When I look upon the mighty efforts of creation, I feel them to be all true and genuine--all unchangeable--the effect of universal Beneficence acting with Almighty power: but when I consider even the greatest and most splendid deeds of man, I am never certain in what base motives they originated, or for what bad ends they were designed; how much pain and injustice their execution may have cost, or how much misery and vice may attend upon their consequences. In all man does there is that germ from which evil may ever spring, while the works of God are always beautiful in themselves, and excellent in their purpose."

"And yet, my good father," said I, willing enough to shorten the tedious way with conversation, "though you pronounce the flash of glory to be but a misleading meteor, and power a dangerous precipice, and love a volcano as full of earthquakes as fertility, yet still there are some things amongst men's deeds which even you can contemplate with delight and admiration,--the protecting the weak, the assuaging grief, the dispensing joy, the leading unto virtue and right."

"True, Louis! true!" answered he; "and yet I know not whether my mind is saddened to-day; but though all these actions are admirable, how rare it is we can be certain that the motives which prompted them were good! Only, I believe, when we look into our own breast; and then--if we examine steadfastly, clearly, accurately, how many faults, how many weaknesses, how many follies, how many crimes, do we not find to make us turn away our eyes from the sad prospect of the human heart! Here I can look around me, and see beauty springing from Beneficence, and everything that is magnificent proceeding from everything that is wise. And oh! how happy, how full of joy and tranquillity is the conviction, that death itself, the worst evil which can happen to this frail body, is the work of that great Creator who made both the body and the soul, and certainly made them not in vain."

A moment or two after, indeed, but so close upon what he said that no other observation had been made, I heard a kind of rushing noise; and, looking up towards the cloud above us, which hid with a thick veil the whole tops of the mountains, I saw it agitated as if by a strong wind, while a roar, more awful than that of thunder, made itself heard above. I knew the voice of the lavange, and with an instant perception, I know not how nor why, that it was rather behind than before us, I laid my hand upon Father Francis's bridle, and spurred forward like lightning. To my surprise, the obstinate mule on which he was mounted, instead of resisting my effort to make it go on, put itself at once into a gallop, as if it were instinctively aware of the approaching danger. Houssaye and the guide followed with all speed; and, in a moment after, we reached a spot where the valley, turning abruptly to the left, afforded a certain shelter.

Here I turned to look, and never shall I forget the scene that I witnessed. Thundering down the side of the hill, rushing, and roaring, and devastating in its course, came an immense shapeless mass of a dim hue, raising a sort of misty atmosphere round itself as it fell. The mountain, even to where we stood, shook under its descent; the valleys, and the precipices, and the caverns, echoed back the tremendous roar of its fall. Immense masses of rock rolled down before it, impelled by the violent pressure of the air which it occasioned; and long ere it reached them, the tall pines tottered and swayed as if writhing under the consciousness of approaching destruction, till at length it touched them, when one after another fell crashing and uprooted into its tremendous mass, and were hurled along with it down the side of the steep.

Down, down it rushed, dazzling the eye and deafening the ear, and sweeping all before it, till, striking the bottom of the valley with a sound as if a thousand cannon had been discharged at once, it blocked up the whole pass, dispersing the stream in a cloud of mist, and shaking by the mere concussion a multitude of crags and rocks down from the summit of the mountain. Long after it fell, the hollow windings of the ravines prolonged its roar with many an echoing sound, dying slowly away till all again was silence, and the mist dispersing left the frowning destruction that the lavange had caused exposed to the sight in all its full horrors.

Father Francis raised his hands to heaven; and though I am sure that few men were better prepared to leave this earth, and had less of man's lingering desire still to remain upon it, yet with that instinctive love of life, which neither religion nor philosophy can wholly banish, he thanked God most fervently for our preservation from the fate which had just passed us by. We had, indeed, many reasons to be thankful, not only for our escape from the immediate danger of the lavange, but also for having been enabled to accomplish our passage before its fall had blocked up the path along which we were proceeding. The guide, indeed, seemed little disposed to prophesy good, even from what we had escaped. The avalanches, he said, were very uncommon at that season of the year, and when they did happen, they were always indicative of some great commotion likely to take place in the atmosphere. Neither did he love, he proceeded to say, those heavy clouds that rested halfway down the sides of the mountains, nor the dead stillness of the air; both of which seemed to him to forbode a snow-storm, the most certain agent of the traveller's destruction in the winter.