The contagious and wild
melody of the Ranz des Vaches rose in the square, and soon drew the
absorbed and delighted attention of all within hearing which, to say the
truth, was little less than all who were within the limits of the town,
for, the crowd chiming in with the more regular artists, a, sort of
musical enthusiasm seized upon all present who came of Vaud and her
valleys. The dogmatical, but well-meaning bailiff; though usually jealous
of his Bernese origin, and alive on system to the necessity of preserving
the superiority of the great canton by all the common observances of
dignity and reserve, yielded to the general movement, and shouted with the
rest, under favor of a pair of lungs that nature had admirably fitted to
sustain the chorus of a mountain song. This condescension in the deputy of
Berne was often spoken of afterwards with admiration, the simple-minded
and credulous ascribing the exaltation of Peterchen to a generous warmth
in their happiness and interests, while the more wary and observant were
apt to impute the musical excess to a previous excess of another
character, in which the wines of the neighboring cotes were fairly
entitled to come in for a full share of the merit.
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