It was singular enough that only one person in the town could
be found to accompany me as a guide, or who knew any thing of
the track through the forest, although the abbey is distant only
twenty-five miles.
I set out with the guide just at day-break, mounted on a small Norman
horse, and armed with pistols and a sword-cane, in case of meeting
with wolves, which the mayor of Solignie had cautioned me against, as
abounding throughout the country. We travelled, after leaving the
main road, at the distance of a league, through a country scarcely
appearing to be inhabited. Here and there a lone cot, a mere speck,
met the eye amidst a landscape composed of nothing but barren wastes
and thick forests, nearly impervious to the light. We had penetrated
about half a mile through one of the latter, my attention occupied
with the romantic wildness of the scene, when we were alarmed by the
howling of a wolf. My guide crossed himself, and began cracking his
whip with the noise and singular dexterity peculiar to the French
postillions; and as we entered a part of the forest, impenetrable but
for traces known only to those who are accustomed to them, he related
(by way of consolation, I suppose,) several stories of the peasantry
having been recently attacked, and some destroyed, by wolves; and one
instance of a woman having had her infant torn from her arms, only a
short time since, in the neighbourhood.
On quitting the forest the track was now and then diversified by the
ruins of a solitary cottage, or the mouldering remains of a crucifix,
raised by pious hands to mark some event, or to guide the traveller;
and after traversing a rocky plain, covered with heath and wild thyme,
where some herds of sheep and goats were browsing, attended by the
shepherd, we entered the Forest of Bellegarde.
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