"O, if you want a miracle," replied his brother, "you shall have one, and out of the same province also."
A MIRACLE.
Prince Hohenloe, I mean the great miracle-monger of Germany; has surely said enough and done enough to convince Europe, Asia, Africa, and America, that miracles are quite as easy now-a-days, as they were a thousand years ago, and that good Dame Nature has grown somewhat doating, and will let him do anything he likes with her. Now, I believe it thoroughly, for more reasons than one, and do not scruple to call all the world fools who disbelieve it. At all events, I am sure to have one half of the old women of Europe on my side; and besides, I can vouch the matter from ocular observation: that into say, not that Prince Hohenloe commits miracles, but that even without him, they are as easy as ever--so easy, I am sure I could do one myself. But to my tale.
There is a deep embowering lane, not far from Corsieul, where the road winds slowly down between two high cliffy banks, till it comes to a low dell, through which flows one of the clearest streams I ever saw, so pure, so beautiful, the peasants have seemingly thought it next to sacrilege to hide it even by a bridge, and left it openly to traverse the road and wash your horse's weary feet before he begins the long ascent of the opposite hill. Though steep and fatiguing, that road has still a peculiar sort of charm, which compensates the trouble of climbing to the top; and even were the ascent less difficult, one would be tempted to linger long in the sweet contemplative shade and silence that hangs about it. The rocky banks break into a thousand picturesque forms; and wherever a patch of vegetable earth has been able to fix itself, there has sprung up the richest verdure, varied by a thousand shrubs, and herbs, and flowers,--honeysuckle, and eglantine, and sweet-briar, and the pure, large convolvulus„ and the deep blue pervanche, the lily of the fields, the hyacinth and the violet. Above, the trees hang, as if planted in the air, and throw a green, soft shade across the rich tints of the road, except where a gleam of sunshine breaking through, catches upon the salient points of the rock and chequers the deep shadows of the leaves with a dancing light. The silence to the ear has the same effect as the shade to the eye; for there no sound is to be heard, except when some wild bird bursts into song amidst the trees above, or when a low, sweet murmur rises up from the stream below. There is, as I have said, a magical charm in the whole, which compels one to linger in his progress; yet there is a reward in store for those who climb to the top; for suddenly the whole scene changes, and one of the most extensive prospects bursts upon the eye that can be conceived; hills, and valleys, and villages, and woods, and streams, mingled in gay confusion, growing fainter and fainter in the distance, till the far ocean closes the whole, looking like a faint cloud upon the border of the sky, from which indeed it would scarcely be distinguished, did not the bold Mont St. Michel rise abruptly up, and catching all the rays of the sun, mark the limits of the horizon. In front, as a sort of foreground to the landscape, stands the little chapel of St. Anne, with a few houses surrounding it, and a group of trees sheltering it from the wind.
I was one day riding to Corsieul with my friend, Monsieur R----, to see the curious Roman remains which have been found in that neighbourhood, when, as we mounted the hill, and came suddenly in sight of the chapel of St. Anne, we saw a vast variety of booths and tents, with a multitude of people, men, women, and children, in all their gay holiday attire, waiting round the chapel for the commencement of the mass. "I had forgot that to-day is the fête of St. Anne," said R----, "would you like to see a miracle. There is one performed here every year."
"Above all things, let us see it," replied I. So we dismounted, and went into the chapel. There were a great many people waiting about, to see (I suppose) if they could get a bit of miracle too; but above all others, we remarked one old woman, with whom the saint had to deal more particularly. She seemed very poor, and very devout; for, not being able to kneel, from her lameness, she sat before the shrine telling her beads, and praying as hard as she could; while a young priest stood beside her to keep off the profane vulgar, being probably of opinion, with the copy-line, that, "evil communications corrupt good manners." However, we remarked that her dress was that of a remote canton, and we learned from the people round that she was a stranger, come from a great way to see what St. Anne would do for her. "A prophet is no prophet, in his own country," says the old proverb, and I rather think that saints take care not to practise their miracles upon their next-door neighbours. However the mass commenced, and at the appointed place the old lady began to cry out. The priests swung their censers at her head, as if they would have broke it; and before the mass was over, the miracle was completed, and the lame woman firmly re-established on her legs.
We spent a very pleasant day at Corsieul, and before we returned, it was dark. In passing by the Chapel of St. Anne, however, we saw all the tents and booths, illuminated; cider and eau de vie handing out in abundance; and, in short, a complete fair, in honour of the miracle and the saint. Hearing the dulcet notes of a cracked fiddle in one of the tents, we dismounted and went in, when, to our surprise, we beheld the miraculous old lady dancing away as hard as she could, and doing dos-à-dos with a bumkin of Corsieul. Now let those deny miracles that like--I saw this myself. I do not mean to say I saw that the woman was lame, but I will swear that she danced.
Our next evening's contributions were of a more serious character, and the two first came from the pen of my excellent friend Colonel W----, whose long residence in India, though it had injured his health, and whitened the hair upon his brow, had not taken away one fine feeling or impaired one high principle.