Robert Louis Stevenson

“ I tied Modestine to a gate, and groped forward, stumbling among rocks, plunging mid-leg in bog, until I gained the entrance of the village. In the first lighted house there was a woman who would not open to me. She could do nothing, she cried to me through the door, being alone and lame; but if I would apply at the next house, there was a man who could help me if he had a mind.
They came to the next door in force, a man, two women, and a girl, and brought a pair of lanterns to examine the wayfarer. ”

“ Ulysses, left on Ithaca, and with a mind unsettled by the goddess, was not more pleasantly astray. [17] I have been after an adventure all my life, a pure dispassionate adventure, such as befell early and heroic voyagers; and thus to be found by morning in a random woodside nook in Gévaudan—not knowing north from south, as strange to my surroundings as the first man upon the earth, an inland castaway—was to find a fraction of my day-dreams realised. I was on the skirts of a little wood of birch, sprinkled with a few beeches ”

“ It grew darker and darker. Modestine, suddenly beginning to smell mischief, bettered the pace of her own accord, and from that time forward gave me no trouble. It was the first sign of intelligence I had occasion to remark in her. At the same time, the wind freshened into half a gale, and another heavy discharge of rain came flying up out of the north. At the other side of the wood I sighted some red windows in the dusk. This was the hamlet of Fouzilhic; [6] three houses on a hillside, near a wood of birches. ”

“ I could not distinguish my hand at arm’s-length from the track, nor my goad, at the same distance, from the meadows or the sky.
Soon the road that I was following split, after the fashion of the country, into three or four in a piece of rocky meadow. Since Modestine had shown such a fancy for beaten roads, I tried her instinct in this predicament. But the instinct of an ass is what might be expected from the name; in half a minute she was clambering round and round among some boulders, as lost a donkey as you would wish to see. I should have camped long before had I been properly provided ”

“ Filia barbara pater barbarior. [15] Let me say it in the plural: the Beasts of Gévaudan.
The lanterns had somewhat dazzled me, and I ploughed distressfully among stones and rubbish-heaps. All the other houses in the village were both dark and silent; and though I knocked at here and there a door, my knocking was unanswered. It was a bad business; I gave up Fouzilhac with my curses. The rain had stopped, and the wind, which still kept rising, began to dry my coat and trousers. ‘Very well,’ thought I, ‘water or no water, I must camp.’ But the first thing was to return to Modestine. ”

“ The next day (Tuesday, September 24th) , [1] it was two o’clock in the afternoon before I got my journal written up and my knapsack repaired, for I was determined to carry my knapsack in the future and have no more ado with baskets; and half an hour afterwards I set out for Le Cheylard l’Évêquemap, a place on the borders of the forest of Mercoiremap. A man, I was told, should walk there in an hour and a half; and I thought it scarce too ambitious to suppose that a man encumbered with a donkey might cover the same distance in four hours. ”

“ The peasantry in general were but little disposed to counsel a wayfarer. One old devil simply retired into his house, and barricaded the door on my approach; and I might beat and shout myself hoarse, he turned a deaf ear. ”

“ These were all silently following each other round and round in a circle, now taking hands, now breaking up with chains and reverences. A dance of children appeals to very innocent and lively thoughts ”

“ Herbert Spencer originated the concept of "survival of the fittest".↑ sluts .. the OED lists a number of definitions for "slut" that could include "untidy appearance" or "a bold or impudent girl; a hussy, jade", or in this case "mischievous"↑ Fouzilhic .. hamlet nearby Fouzilhac (see below) .↑ a little farther lend thy guiding hand .. "A little onward lend they guiding hand." John Milton, Samson Agonistes (1671) .↑ sensible .. Cognizant; having the perception of something ”