The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 80, June, 1864 | Page 6

and Child.
"What is that, Auguste?" I asked, with feigned ignorance.
"A place of worship," he answered; "the people come there to pray."
"But what do they come there for?" I continued.
"God is there," he answered, with emphasis, pointing at the same time to the gayly dressed puppets.
"No, He is not," I replied.
He turned round and looked at me defiantly. His mild face became that of a fanatic, and I actually quailed beneath his angry eye, as he retorted,--
"He is there."
My mistake flashed upon me, too, at the instant, and I hastened to explain myself in the simplest manner my poor French would allow, saying,--
"Oui, Auguste, Il est l��, c'est vrai; mais Il est l�� aussi!"--and I pointed to the snow-capped mountains on my right,--"et l��!"--and I waved my hand towards the deeply shadowed heights on the opposite side of the valley.
He caught my meaning as by an inspiration. His fierce frown melted instantly into an intelligent smile.
"Il est partout!" exclaimed the youth, with enthusiasm, his childlike, eager eyes seeking a response in mine.
I nodded in affirmation of the truth. It was enough. Catholic and Protestant had met on common ground,--we understood each other,--we were reconciled.
Has he carried his large faith with him into the great metropolis? and have I kept mine unshaken in spite of the storm that is raging in my native land? Armed in his simplicity only, he has gone to meet the gusts of temptation; and I have lived to see the Republic, which I believed inviolable as Mother Earth herself, tremble and totter, as one after another of her rotten pillars has fallen away. God grant that we may both, in this day of our peril, be able, as then, to realize that "Il est partout"!
During my short Alpine journey I held the office of paymaster for our party, my election being due not so much to proficiency in the queer dialect above alluded to as to courage in the use of it. It is always a pleasant office to disburse the funds, but was never more so than when, late at night, Michel and Auguste came to the hotel at Martigny to receive the reward of their day's toil. Michel had his full dues in money, and plenty of praise to boot; Auguste, evidently much to his surprise, a trifle more than his minimum price. Each of them then grasped my hand in his horny palm,--an unexpected salutation, but not a harsh one, for each hand had a heart in it, or I believed it had, which was all the same to me. They made the customary promise not to forget me, but credulity must stop somewhere, and at this point I must confess my easy faith gave out, and left me skeptical.
* * * * *
I have given the preference in order of narrative, as well as in memory, to guides who proved competent, willing, and true, who, if they seasoned the intercourse between us with a little encouragement to my self-esteem, had nothing in them obsequious or timeserving, and who set me a wholesome example of clear convictions and firmness in the maintenance of right. But not only are the virtues of the race whom I have chosen for a theme subjects of congratulation; even the uncertainties and misfits of these frequently rusty keys to the past excite a mirth that lightens the toil with which one rummages through the corridors of time. It would be treason to tell the name of that antique university-chapel where a certain wooden-headed verger was betrayed into the absurdest error; it would be personal to give the name of the waggish friend who made him his innocent butt; but the facts and the joke claim no disguise.
The solemn British beadle had been rehearsing the history of numerous sarcophagi and monuments, dwelling with mingled pathos and indignation upon the injuries which the chapel, its railings, and its statues had sustained at the hands of that arch-destroyer and his soldiery who, in their zeal for the new Commonwealth, trampled brutally upon the records of past grandeur and royalty.
"He stabled his 'osses 'ere! yes, 'ere,--in this wery chapel! ugh!" was the wrathful exclamation of our guide; and as he pointed towards the tablets without corners and the effigies lacking noses or feet, there was a low muttering in his throat and a look at us intended to excite sympathetic ire on our part.
One only of our party responded to the look.
"Let me see,--Cromwell was a terrible Catholic, wasn't he?" gravely inquired our fellow-traveller, as if in this way, and this way only, could the sacrilege be accounted for,--one blue eye, as he spoke, full of sage earnestness, the other twinkling with fun.
The stolid face of our guide now became a study. He had no instructions for such an emergency as this. The