Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 1).djvu/264

Rh I was not yet happy. This would not last, hail-showers sometimes destroyed my seed, and when I often lay in wait with the best dispositions, and with an open and acute mind, loaded and ready to shoot, there came no game, no animal sprang up in the wilderness of my heart. Ah, we totter on thus pitiably for years, and time passes as a dream and intoxication. I glanced round me, I had become old. How! thought I, when the Lord looks down, he will see furrows on thy old, skin and thou art still neither hot, nor cold. Then came the late Mr. Beoussan, the holy master, among us. An impulse of the spirit, as he said, led him to us. He was well and comfortable at home, but, pious bird of the forest! he wished to visit once more his beloved mountains, dells, the clear brooks, and to pour so thrillingly, fully, and affectionately into our hearts the tones of the sweet nightingale, that burst from his breast, that he must die from the effort.—Amen!—"