Volume One Chapter 4

In truth he was a strange and wayward wight,
Fond of each gentle, and each dreadful scene,
In darkness, and in storm he found delight;
Nor less than when on ocean-wave serene
The southern sun diffus'd his dazzling sheen.
Even sad vicissitude amus'd his soul;
And if a sigh would sometimes intervene,
And down his cheek a tear of pity roll,
A sigh, a tear, so sweet, he wish'd not to controul.
THE MINSTREL

St. Aubert awoke at an early hour, refreshed by sleep, and desirous to
set forward. He invited the stranger to breakfast with him; and, talking
again of the road, Valancourt said, that, some months past, he had
travelled as far as Beaujeu, which was a town of some consequence on the
way to Rousillon. He recommended it to St. Aubert to take that route,
and the latter determined to do so.

'The road from this hamlet,' said Valancourt, 'and that to Beaujeu, part
at the distance of about a league and a half from hence; if you will
give me leave, I will direct your muleteer so far. I must wander
somewhere, and your company would make this a pleasanter ramble than any
other I could take.' St. Aubert thankfully accepted his offer, and they set out together, the
young stranger on foot, for he refused the invitation of St. Aubert to
take a seat in his little carriage.

The road wound along the feet of the mountains through a pastoral
valley, bright with verdure, and varied with groves of dwarf oak,
beech and sycamore, under whose branches herds of cattle reposed. The
mountain-ash too, and the weeping birch, often threw their pendant
foliage over the steeps above, where the scanty soil scarcely concealed
their roots, and where their light branches waved to every breeze that
fluttered from the mountains.