The Life of the Moselle. Octavius Rooke
or otherwise destroyed; and we find them with a pure love for woman, whom they held in the highest reverence. Their women were brought up in the strictest seclusion, scarcely seeing any stranger—an injury offered to female modesty was punished by death, and fines for injuries done to them were heavier than for those to men.
Maidens were portionless, so only married for their merits or their beauty: they seldom married before their twentieth year, and the husband had generally reached his thirtieth; they had but one husband, and the historian Tacitus observes, speaking of them, “as she can have but one body and one life, so she can have but one husband.”
Prophetesses were frequent, and great confidence placed in their predictions—they were called Alrunæ, and lived apart in the recesses of the forests.
They had many ways of interpreting the will of the gods, but of all interpreters the horse was considered the most sacred; white horses were peculiarly venerated, and maintained at the expense of the community, expressly to interpret the divine will—even the priests themselves considered that they were but the ministers, while the horses were the confidants of the gods.
The priests, as in all semi-barbarous countries, were the real governors of these uncurbed Germans: no control but theirs was submitted to; even in camp they alone had the right to bind and flog, and in all public assemblies they kept order: these functions they assumed as ministers of the supreme, invisible Being. There was, however, no priestly caste, and each head of a family could perform religious offices for his own household.
Thus we find, at this earliest period of the known history of our river—its banks occupied by a brave, hardy race, given to dissipation and war, and governed by priests whose bloody sacrifices were offered to a supreme Being, worshipped through His great emblems of sun, fire, and water—they enjoyed a life of action, and looked forward to a death of glory.
Under this rugged nature appear the gentler attributes of love and veneration; and a belief in Fairies, Kobolds, Nixies, and all the different classes of superior existences with which they supposed the whole world to teem.
Savage and grand, loving and honourable, we shall, if we examine history, find them first engaging the Romans on equal terms, then for a while giving place to the conquerors of the world, but ever holding themselves superior to them, not adopting their habits but merely borrowing their knowledge to render themselves more fit to encounter them; and finally, we shall find them supplanting these world-conquerors, and seizing for themselves that crown and dominion, the fairest portion of which remains with the German race to this present day. And, moreover, it is this German race that has carried civilisation over the whole earth, and whose descendants, the English people, are rapidly populating the great continents of America and Australia.
Back from the train of old history our thoughts return as the evening closes in by the source of our sweet river, and we bend our steps down through the dim woods. The white butterflies flap past, heavily, as though feeling the last moments of their short lives are fleeting fast; frequently above our heads starts out a projecting mass of rock, from whose summit a great pine towers up, first leaning forward, then shooting upwards, its top seems piercing the blue sky.
Ever and anon open out green dells, filled with bright foxgloves and other beautiful flowers; through these dells trickle tiny rivulets that swell the course of our young stream, which through the woods we hear gurgling and gushing on, falling from stone to stone, and wearing many a little pool in the rough ground.
Occasionally we pass a heap of fresh-cut wood, and across our path lie huge trunks of the fallen forest giants; a resinous odour is strongly mixed with the scent of the wild flowers—one flower, from which the mountain bees make their delicious honey, is peculiarly fragrant and very frequent; occasionally the rivulet is quite hid by the luxuriant carpets of the false forget-me-not that line its banks.
At length we pass from the forest to the cultivated land: the little valley opens into a wider one, which is surrounded by mountains of diverse forms steeped in sunlight; the sun declines, and wreaths of blue smoke ascend from the châlets on the hill-sides, where the evening meal is being prepared for the active, hard-working peasantry, who, with loads of all sorts on their heads, pass by, saluting politely as they go us and each other.
The young stream dances along by the roadside, and thus we enter Bussang, and close our first chapter of this fairy life.
CHAPTER II.
Confluence.
From Bussang to Remiremont our infant stream gurgles plashingly along; sometimes it conceals itself in little tranquil pools, where the large trout lie deep beneath the roots of the overshadowing trees; sometimes it falls with a gentle splash over an obstruction, leaping, as we do in early life, over all difficulties with a smile, even seeming to enjoy that which at a maturer age too often frets and chafes us, though we conceal our chagrin under an unruffled surface.
Sometimes our stream passes, broken into ripples, over smooth shiny pebbles—here the trout from time to time suddenly dart up and seize their insect food; and sometimes it glides between green banks which hem it in (fair setting for so bright a gem): here it is blue, reflecting the sky above.
Through the sultry summer days, hours spent splashing in this little stream, or dreaming on its banks, are most delicious—but beware, O bather! of the shining pebbles that gleam mid the blue tide, for
Beneath the waters bright
The glitt’ring pebbles lie,
Like nymphs whose eyes the light
Shines on with brilliancy:
Like wicked water-sprites
These rounded pebbles trip
The bather, who delights
His body here to dip.
The timid foot is placed
Upon the tempting stone,
Then downward in all haste
The luckless wight is thrown.
And when he wrathful tries
His footing to regain,
The sprites, with shining eyes,
Just trip him up again.
The scenery down the valley is altogether charming, occasionally grand, but oftener sweetly beautiful; the hills are of considerable height, some cultivated in patches of grain-crops, some covered with trees, while others again are brightly green with turf, except where grey rocks crop out and break the outline. Farther off the large shadowy mountains rise, calmly shutting in the minor hills, the valley, and the stream; the fleecy clouds float gently on, and rest upon their summits.
Groups of trees half hide the houses which frequently appear within the valley; the numerous bridges are generally of wood, some covered as in Switzerland.
The peasant women, in great straw hats or little close caps, work hard amidst the fields storing the hay crop; the oxen yoked together munch their fill of sweet fresh grass, that has grown in the well-watered meadows; round them the children play, piling the hay upon each other until, overcome by the heat, they hasten off to bathe in our cool stream.
Here, at a short distance above Remiremont, is the confluence of two branches of our river; and river the Moselle now becomes. Leaving her infant days she glides forth, with all the sunny joyousness of girlhood, through the valleys of Remiremont and Epinal, then on through the undulating plain, past Toul, to meet her confidant the Meurthe.
Remiremont is a well-built, clean town, with rivulets flowing constantly on both sides the roadway; it contains a fine church, near which are the buildings that