The Bagpipers

by George Sand

The Head-Woodsman had picked up the devil's skin-coat and showed that it was covered with spikes like a comb for currying oxen; and also the mittens which the sham devil wore on his hands, in which strong nails were fastened with the points outside. The bagpipers were furious. "Here's a pretty fuss about a few scratches," cried Carnat. "Isn't it in the order of things that a devil should have claws? And this young fool, who attacked him so imprudently, why didn't he know how far he could play at that game without getting his snout scraped? Come, come, don't pity him so much; it's a mere nothing; and since he has had enough of it, let him confess he can't play at our games, and is not fit to belong to our guild in any way."

"I shall belong to it!" cried Joseph, wrenching himself from Huriel's arms and showing as he did so his torn shirt and bleeding breast. "I shall belong to it in spite of you! I insist that the fight shall go on, and one of us be left in this cavern."

"I forbid it!" said the Head-Woodsman, "and I insist that this young man shall be proclaimed victor, or I swear to bring into this place a company of bagpipers who shall teach you how to behave, and who will see justice done."

"You?" said Doré-Fratin, drawing a sort of boar-knife from his belt. "You can do so if you choose, but you shall carry with you some marks on your body, so that people may believe your reports."

The Head-Woodsman and Huriel put themselves in an attitude of defence. Joseph flung himself upon Fratin to get away his knife, and I made one bound in amongst them. But before any of us could strike a blow the figure that startled me so in the upper cavern appeared at the opening of the lower one, stretched forth his lance, and slowly advanced in a way to strike terror to the minds of the evil-doers. Then, as they all paused, dumbfounded with fear and amazement, a piteous voice was heard from the depths of the dungeon, reciting the prayers for the dead.

This routed the whole brotherhood. One of the pipers cried out: "The dead! the dead are rising!" and they all fled, pell-mell, yelling and pushing through the various openings except that to the dungeon, where stood another figure wrapped in a winding-sheet, chanting the most dismal sing-song that anybody ever heard. A minute later all our enemies had disappeared, and the warrior flinging off his helmet and mask, we beheld the jovial face of Benoît, while the monk, getting out of his winding sheet, was holding his sides in convulsions of laughter.

"May God forgive me for masquerading," he said. "I did it with the best intentions; those rascals deserve a good lesson, if it is only to teach them not to laugh at the devil, of whom they are really more afraid than those whom they threaten with him."

"For my part, I felt quite certain," said Benoît, "that our comedy would put an end to theirs." Then, noticing Joseph's wounds, he grew very uneasy, and showed such feeling for him that all this, together with the succor he had brought in so timely a manner, proved to my mind his regard for his step-son, and his good heart, which I had hitherto doubted.

While we examined Joseph and convinced ourselves he was not very seriously hurt, the monk told us how the butler at the castle had once said to him that he allowed the bagpipers and other societies to hold their secret meetings in the cellars of the castle. Those in which we found ourselves were too far from the inhabited parts of the castle to disturb the lady mistress of Saint-Chartier, and, indeed, if it had, she would only have laughed, not imagining that any mischief could come of it. But Benoît, who suspected some evil intent, had got the same butler to give him a key to the cellars, and a disguise; and that was how it was that he got these in time to avert all danger.

"Well," said the Head-Woodsman, addressing him, "thank you for your assistance; but I rather regret you came, for those fellows are capable of declaring that I asked you to do so and consequently that I betrayed the secrets of the guild. If you will take my advice we had better get away noiselessly, at once, and leave them to think you were really ghosts."