ABSTRACT
THE moon, though not yet risen above the trees, which on every side shaded the rocks surrounding this solitary glen, yet afforded general light enough for Willoughby to perceive a group of peasants assembled round the door of a cottage, superior in size to any of the cabins of the shepherds which he had yet visited. – As he approached, the sounds which had guided him towards it ceased; and a man advanced to meet him, whose air and manner were very different from the native mountaineers whom he had been accustomed to see, though his dress was nearly the same. Willoughby accosted him in French, told him he was a stranger who had lost his guide, and desired to be permitted to remain in his cottage till the morning enabled him to find his companions. – The man to whom he spoke hardly allowed him to finish the sentence, before, in language unadulterated with the Patois which is spoken in that country, and is a coarse mixture of Spanish and French, he expressed the utmost solicitude for his accommodation – and leading him to the door of the cottage, presented him to his wife, to an old man her father, and to several young people whom his music had assembled round the cabin – and who were inhabitants of a little groupea of cottages dispersed at short intervals among the woods on this part of the Vallée de Luron.b
