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Cooper, James Fenimore, 1789-1851

"The Headsman The Abbaye des Vignerons"

The shock is fearful, even to
those who meet it in the glens and among the rocks, but the plunge of such
a column of air upon one of the lakes is certain to be terrible."
"And thou thinkest there is danger of one of these phenomena at present?"
"I know not; but I would we were housed! That unnatural light above, and
this deep tranquillity below, which surpasses an ordinary cairn have
already driven me to my aves."
"The reverend Augustine speaks like a book man, and one who has passed his
time, up in his mountain-convent, in study and reflection," rejoined Maso;
"whereas the reasons I have to offer savor more of the seaman's practice.
A calm like this, will be followed, sooner or later, by a commotion in the
atmosphere. I like not the absence of the breeze from the land, on which
Baptiste counted so surely, and, taking that symptom with the signs of
yonder hot sky, I look soon to see this extraordinary quiet displaced by
some violent struggle among the winds. Nettuno, too, my faithful dog, has
given notice, by the manner in which he snuffs the air, that we are not to
pass the night in this motionless condition.


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