The Bagpipers

by George Sand

"All the more," added Benoît, "that their wrath may deprive me of their custom, which is no slight matter. I hope they did not recognize Tiennet—but how the devil was it that Tiennet got here in the nick of time?"

"Didn't you bring him?" asked Huriel.

"That he didn't," said I. "I came on my own account, because of the stories they tell of your deviltries. I was curious to see them; but I swear to you those fellows were too scared and the sight of their eyes was too wide of the mark ever to have recognized me."

We were about to leave when the sound of angry voices and an uproar like that of a fight was heard.

"Dear, dear!" cried the monk, "what's that now? I think they are coming back and we have not yet done with them. Quick, let's get back into our disguises!"

"No," said Benoît, listening, "I know what it is. I met, as I came along through the castle cellars, four or five young fellows, one of whom is known to me; and that is Leonard, your Bourbonnais wood-chopper, Père Bastien. These lads were there from curiosity no doubt; but they had got bewildered in the caverns, and I lent them my lantern, telling them to wait for me. The bagpipers must have met them and they are giving chase."

"It is more likely that they are being chased themselves if there are not more than five of them," said Huriel. "Let us go and see."

We were just starting when the noise and the footsteps approached, and Carnat, Doré-Fratin, and eight others returned to the cave, having, in fact, exchanged a few blows with our comrades, and finding that they had to do with real flesh and blood instead of spectres, were ashamed of their cowardice and so came back again. They reproached the Huriels for having betrayed them and driven them into an ambush. The Head-Woodsman defended himself, and the monk tried to secure peace by taking it all upon himself, telling the bagpipers to repent of their sins. But they felt themselves in good force, for others kept coming back to their support; and when they found their numbers nearly complete they raised their voices to a roar, and went from reproaches to threats and from threats to blows. Seeing there was no way to avoid an encounter, all the more because they had drunk a good deal of brandy while the tests were going on and were more or less intoxicated, we put ourselves in an attitude of defence, pressing one against the other, and showing front to the enemy on all sides, like oxen when a troop of wolves attack them at pasture. The monk, having already lost his morality and his Latin, now lost his patience also, and seizing the pipe of an instrument which had got broken in the scrimmage, he laid about him as hard as a man well could, in defence of his own skin.

Unluckily, Joseph was weakened by the loss of blood, and Huriel, who bore upon his heart the recollection of Malzac's death, was more fearful of giving blows than of receiving them. Anxious to protect his father, who sprang into the fray like an old lion, he put himself in great danger. Benoît fought very well for a man who was just out of an illness; but the truth is we were only six against fifteen or sixteen, and as the blood rose anger came, and I saw our enemies opening their knives. I had only time to fling myself before the Head-Woodsman, who, still unwilling to draw his blade, was the object of their bitterest anger. I received a wound in the arm, which I hardly felt at the moment, but which hindered my fighting on, and I thought the day was lost, when, by great good luck, my four comrades decided to come and see what the noise was about. The reinforcement was sufficient, and together we put to flight, for the second time and the last, our exhausted enemies, taken in the rear and ignorant how many were upon them.

I saw that victory was ours and that none of my friends were much hurt; then, suddenly perceiving that I had got more than I wanted, I fell like a log and neither knew nor felt another thing.