404 Then we went over the Prison.

of men and women, who surrounded it in a circle, as if they were playing “Bull in the Park."

When we had threaded the little town of St. Michel, which contains 400 inhabitants, we reached the old gate of the abbey, and gave in our order. A woman who was knitting in the deep shadow of the gateway, just inside, then led us to read a notice by which we were expressly forbidden to offer any gratuity to the warder, who would presently come to show us round the prison. We sat down on a bench till he arrived, as he soon did, with a bunch of large keys.

Then we went over the prison. All these old prisons, or buildings made into them, seem, to my eye, alike. There is a penal atmosphere about them which swallows up lesser distinctions; there are the same heavy doors, huge locks, monotonous walls, and felon uniforms. We were taken through a wilderness of crypts and passages, ending in several places with oubliettes, now boarded over, and black as night. At times, through stone portholes, we caught glimpses of the sea of sand in which the rock stood; and the wind whistled through the place like a ship. One other sound alone was heard, like the hoofs of a

troop of horse walking down a paved street. I inquired, and it proved to be the ceaseless clicking of the prisoners' looms. Most of them work at these. The large hall of the abbey is filled with them, wearily weaving out their term of imprisonment. Down below, in the town, you can hear the incessant clatter. The nave of the church is used as a diningroom for the convicts, and was full of wooden benches and pannikins.

On a small terrace, commanding a wide sea and land view, was a string of prisoners walking silently round and round, headed by a yellow old man, with his chin hanging on his breast.

"These," said the warder, "are the sick,"and sick they looked, circling there. Though the sun was bright and the breeze fresh, one could almost have thought that the sight of the green country and the open sea added to their misery.

"Are most of the prisoners here sentenced for long periods?" I asked.

66

Many for life," replied the warder, looking at the crawling circle as if they were a box of caterpillars.

We went to the top of the church, and then descended the different strata of the building

406

A Lift coming Back..

to the town. Having hunted up our driver, we were launched again into the sand sea, and steered for the shore. We met many of the inhabitants coming back from fishing-sturdy, bare-legged Tritons they were, splashing along. One old man, with his trousers rolled up to his knees, made a military salute in passing, and cried: "Vive l'Empereur!"

"He is a fool," said our driver, cracking his whip; by which I understood him to mean, not the Emperor, but his unseasonable admirer.

The drive to Avranches took three hourstwice as long as it need. Our poor old brown horse, though, had a lift coming back—at least so he seemed to view it but it consisted merely in the privilege of putting his nose against the hind boot of another returning carriage. He began to trot directly he found this chance; and when the other vehicle parted company, it carried away, the outside of its rumble, a dusty impression of his head.

All the Druids, Roman soldiers and priests, middle-age monks and men-at arms, had faded away during our visit; warders and felons had complete possession; and it was not till I had gone back to my old place on the ramparts,

Former Impressions revived.

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that I could revive the scenes which I had associated with my first long look at Mont St. Michel, and bring back the lengthened train of its historical tenants.

( 408 )

GOING ABROAD.

HAT is the good of it? says old Grimsire, whose hat, when off duty, is always on a peg, either in the office or at home. To racket about anywhere is bad enough, but to do it in a crowd of jabbering foreigners is humiliating as well as tiresome. Others, again, assert that the great good of it is felt in the relish with which one enjoys home afterwards. There is something in that; but the pleasure does not spring from mere contrast, or home might be made sweeter by a month at the workhouse, or a tour on the treadmill. Travelling, however, is intrinsically pleasant to some, or they would stay at home. Those who have tried it once almost invariably repeat the experiment, until it becomes a habit. The desire comes to almost all-the fruition to an increasing number. Did not the promoters of the Exhibition of 1862 tell us that the railways could bring into London six times as many per day as they could in 1851 ?