Page:Costello - A pilgrimage to Auvergne from Picardy to Velay - A 30154 1.pdf/22

8 paid. He had nothing now to do but to entreat the forbearance of his fellow workman till a candle three inches long should be consumed. Contrary to his usual caution, the fiend consented, and the wily monk, hurrying to the neighbouring church, plunged the candle into a vase of holy water, by which means it remained entire to the end of time, and the howling and outwitted enemy fled in despair, leaving the fine road free for all comers.

The time is past when, according to St. Jerome, arain fell in Artois, so rich that it rendered the country a perfect garden, and with it came flakes of wool of such wonderful property that it nourished the earth in a miraculous manuer, and was called manna. At Arras the shrine has disappeared, in which a specimen of this wondrous wool was preserved; the manufactories are gone, where this or some other wool was woven into tapestry famous throughout the world; the ancient cathedral exists no longer, and is replaced by a modern building of questionable taste, heavy and yast, and devoid of interest.

The squares are large and desolate looking, but singular from the shape of the roofs, which are in the Flemish style. The Hotel de Ville is a building of the middle ages, and is very curious, with much detail about it, the windows greatly orna-