Climbing to the topmost northward ridge, we found ourselves standing before a majestic amphitheatre of dusky, brown hills of the Côte d'Or, whose threatening, almost terrible, aspect suggested rather the wicked brew of a devil's cauldron, than the juice of the merry vines over which black spider workmen were bending. Threatening clouds, driven before a rising wind, darkened with flying shadows the narrow roads that serpented up to the lofty, lonely villages of Mavilly and Mandelot. A rumbling sound broke the silence. Below us we saw, writhing and snorting up the hill, like a legendary, fire-breathing demon, a black train, fouling with wreaths of purple smoke the lovely valley of Nantoux.
We returned to the Puits de St. Martin. Sitting on the very edge of the cliff, we looked across at the wooded hill where the Saint alit, and down the road, over the scrub, the vines, and the red quarries, still echoing the sound of the pick; over the winding row of silvery willows and dark alders that mark the valley stream bubbling towards the welcoming roofs of Beaune.
There, in the very spot where it happened, the young quarryman told me the story of St. Martin's Well. But I shall tell it you in my words, not his—for story-telling was not his forte.
In the second century of the Christian era, Saint Bénigne and his companions, coming from Asia, brought the Gospel of Christ into Burgundy. The good news spread rapidly through the towns, but gained only a slow hearing in the villages and the hamlets. Idol worship, driven from the cities, found refuge among the remote hills and valleys of the land.
Mavilly, which, for centuries past, had possessed a college of Druids, remained faithful to its gods, its priests, and its temple. Vauchignon, too, whose hills, rocks, and woods, full of murmuring sounds and mysterious terrors, was one of those natural sanctuaries dear to the heart of the Gaul, still practised the heathen cult.[189]
It is a warm autumn day; the holy missionary, Saint Martin, whose good horse has borne him over the rugged mountain which rises between Mavilly and the plain, has passed, one by one, through the villages of the Côte d'Or. At a crossing of the ways, in the midst of a great wood, he meets a little, ragged, red-haired man, with fiery eyes and an anxious countenance. The bishop offers him alms.
"Keep your silver piece," replies the stranger, "for I am more rich than you."