LITTLE REINE-DES-CIEUX 
“ I like that ancient Saxon phrase which calls the burial- 
ground God’s-acre,” so sings a poet whose name will long 
live enshrined in the hearts of all English-speaking people, 
and as I write comes back to me, clear through the mist 
of years, a very God’s-acre, a “ fair garden ” on a far-off 
Swiss hillside, where the country-folk of a quaint little 
lonely village laid their loved ones to rest. It was but a 
cluster of low brown chalets — Val Ste. Croix — with the 
roofs borne down by heavy stones to help them to defy 
the mountain winds, and jutting eaves, so familiar now 
to English wanderers in that playground of the nations, 
texts carved over the door and windows in queer old 
letters and strange unfamiliar Swiss-French : “ Except 
the Lord keep the house,” &c. Goats haunted the door- 
steps, and little round-capped maidens herded them. 
There were quaint old grandmothers with distaffs and 
gaffers with velvet waistcoats and silver buttons, and wooden 
shoon ; the banished Pigeons circled about the roof, and 
by each house were rows of Beehives. Some distance 
away, at one end of the little village, was the church, 
a white-painted unartistic little building, where, beneath a 
heavy-looking sounding-board, dome-shaped and black with 
age, the old pasteur held forth weekly to his congregation. 
Beyond again, up among the lush hay meadows, was the 
churchyard, or rather cemetery : a small square plot of 
ground studded with small black wooden hearts, some 
having names inscribed on them, and others denoting 
vacancies by blanks. Over the door was painted in white 
335 
