Page:The Rebellion in the Cevennes (Volume 2).djvu/77

Rh, or dying, I should weep tears of blood."

"It will not turn out so bad as that," muttered Vila chagrined: "Why should the oaf run off thus, as if—Aye! Aye! at least I would have bound up his wounds for him. But now, the devil will not catch him directly. Such Camisard webs are usually formed of very tough materials."

They were compelled to proceed again, in order to reach with safety the solitary village in the mountain heights. "You must know," said the doctor, when they were again seated in the coach, "that it is merely to an old maidservant of mine I am now conducting you, a simple person, who served me long, but who is, however, so faithful and honest, that it is almost a scandal, what perhaps many free thinking exquisites would say of her. She has married a gardener, or peasant, who also plays the surgeon in the mountains. There you will pass for an old invalid cousin, whose house and farm the Camisards have set fire