CHAPTER XXIII
CLUNY’S CAGE
e came at last to the foot of an exceeding steep wood, which scrambled up a
craggy hillside, and was crowned by a naked precipice.
“It’s here,” said one of the guides, and we struck up hill.
The trees clung upon the slope, like sailors on the shrouds of a ship, and their
trunks were like the rounds of a ladder, by which we mounted.
Quite at the top, and just before the rocky face of the cliff sprang above the
foliage, we found that strange house which was known in the country as
“Cluny’s Cage.” The trunks of several trees had been wattled across, the
intervals strengthened with stakes, and the ground behind this barricade levelled
up with earth to make the floor. A tree, which grew out from the hillside, was the
living centre-beam of the roof. The walls were of wattle and covered with moss.
The whole house had something of an egg shape; and it half hung, half stood in
that steep, hillside thicket, like a wasp’s nest in a green hawthorn.
Within, it was large enough to shelter five or six persons with some comfort.
A projection of the cliff had been cunningly employed to be the fireplace; and
the smoke rising against the face of the rock, and being not dissimilar in colour,
readily escaped notice from below.
This was but one of Cluny’s hiding-places; he had caves, besides, and
underground chambers in several parts of his country; and following the reports
of his scouts, he moved from one to another as the soldiers drew near or moved
away. By this manner of living, and thanks to the affection of his clan, he had
not only stayed all this time in safety, while so many others had fled or been
taken and slain: but stayed four or five years longer, and only went to France at
last by the express command of his master. There he soon died; and it is strange