THE DEVIL’S POOL [Illustration: (Frontispiece)] THE DEVIL’S POOL By George Sand TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY JANE MINOT SEDGWICK AND ELLERY SEDGWICK [Illustration: (Ornament)] WITH AN ETCHING BY E. ABOT [Illustration: (Publisher colophon)] BOSTON LITTLE, BROWN, & CO. 1901 Copyright, 1894, by GEORGE H. RICHMOND & CO. Table of Contents CHAPTER I THE TILLAGE OF THE SOIL II FATHER MAURICE III GERMAIN, THE SKILLED HUSBANDMAN IV MOTHER GUILLETTE V PETIT-PIERRE VI ON THE HEATH VII UNDERNEATH THE BIG OAKS VIII THE EVENING PRAYER IX DESPITE THE COLD X BENEATH THE STARS XI THE BELLE OF THE VILLAGE XII THE MASTER XIII THE OLD WOMAN XIV THE RETURN TO THE FARM XV MOTHER MAURICE XVI LITTLE MARIE APPENDIX I A COUNTRY WEDDING II THE WEDDING FAVORS III THE WEDDING IV THE CABBAGE [Illustration: (Ornament)] THE DEVIL’S POOL THE AUTHOR TO THE READER A la sueur de ton visaige, Tu gagnerais ta pauvre vie. Après long travail et usaige, Voicy la _mort_ qui te convie.[1] This quaint old French verse, written under one of Holbein’s pictures, is profoundly melancholy. The engraving represents a laborer driving his plow through the middle of a field. Beyond him stretches a vast horizon, dotted with wretched huts; the sun is sinking behind the hill. It is the end of a hard day’s work. The peasant is old, bent, and clothed in rags. He is urging onward a team of four thin and exhausted horses; the plowshare sinks into a stony and ungrateful soil. One being only is active and alert in this scene of toil and sorrow. It is a fantastic creature. A skeleton armed with a whip, who acts as plowboy to the old laborer, and running along through the furrow beside the terrified horses, goads them on. This is the specter Death, whom Holbein has introduced allegorically into that series of religious and philosophic subjects, at once melancholy and grotesque, entitled “The Dance of Death.”