The bagpipers
George Sand
Paperback
(RareBooksClub.com, June 29, 2012)
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1893 edition. Excerpt: ...from one direction persons had come twice to make things safe at this particular point; from-the other, The'renee had contrived to communicate with her brother; and, besides all this, a burial had been performed, without the faintest appearance or the lightest sound having warned me of what was taking place, although the night was clear and I had gone from end to end of the silent woods looking and listening with the utmost attention. It turned my mind to the difference between the habits, and indeed the characters, of these woodland people and the laborers of the open country. On the plains, good and evil are too clearry seen not to make the inhabitants from their youth up submit to the laws and behave with prudence. But in the forests, where the eyes of their fellows can be escaped, men invoke no justice but that of God or the devil, according as they are well or ill intentioned. When I reached the lodges the sun was up; the HeadWoodsman had gone to his work; Joseph was still asleep; Therence and Brulette were talking together under the shed. They asked me why I had got up so early, and I noticed that Therence was uneasy lest I had seen or heard something. I behaved as if I knew nothing, and had not gone further than the adjoining wood. Joseph soon joined us, and I remarked that he looked much better than when we arrived. "Yet I have hardly slept all night," he replied; "I was restless till nearly day-break; but I think the reason was that the fever which has weakened me so much left me last evening, for I feel stronger and more vigorous than I have been for a long time." The'renee, who understood fevers, felt his pulse, and then her face, which looked very tired and depressed, brightened suddenly. "See!" she...