Upon the beauties of Amiens we must not dwell; it was a centre for the cultivation of poetry, sculpture, and the fine arts throughout the middle ages. The inhabitants worked at its glorious cathedral for sixty-eight years, forming a kind of camp, and relieving each other as they cut the stones, singing canticles the while. The tall spire was destroyed by a thunderbolt in 1527; but two zealous village carpenters determined to rebuild it; and six years later it was finished. Many monograms testify to the visits of master-masons, who came to admire the work of the Picardy peasants; the eighteen hundred medallions detailing the history of the world, besides many bas-reliefs carved by the old workmen of Amiens. Abbeville is also a most interesting old town, not only for its past monuments, but as the home of that modern geologist M. de Perthes, who has left his museum of relics to the city. We must bid adieu to Picardy, to its hardy peasants, delicious cider, and well-cultivated plains with regret, as being not the least interesting among the French provinces, and well worthy the notice of the wandering traveller.
‘We shall have a delightful day,’ said young Lady Alice joyously, as the sweet scent of the bruised heather and the steam of the wet earth came floating on the breeze, and the clouds rolled off majestically seawards, leaving the broad surface of Dartmoor, like a purple robe dashed with green, flecked and dappled by the dancing sunbeams. ‘A delightful day for our peep at the old Stannaries,’ repeated the girl. ‘The air will be all the fresher and the weather steadier, for the heavy shower of this morning.’
Lady Alice, the youngest and, some said, the cleverest of the Earl’s daughters, was an indulged child, and there was a carriage at High Tor which she regarded as her very own. This was a low wagonette, built of light osier-work, lined with dark blue, and drawn by a hairy-heeled pony, quite as shaggy as a bear, and not much bigger than a Newfoundland dog. The villagers for miles around were tolerably familiar with the jingle of the bells that were attached to the pony’s collar; but on the present occasion the boy in livery who held the reins had been bidden to strike into one of the rugged roads that led into the moor itself, where hamlets were scarce, and even isolated dwellings few and far between.