lever, which, falling upon the grooves, breaks the plant without cutting
it. Then it is that you hear at night, in the country, the sharp,
clean-cut sound of three blows struck in rapid succession. Then there is
silence for a moment; that means that the arm is moving the handful of
hemp, in order to break it in another place. And the three blows are
repeated; it is the other arm acting on the lever, and so it goes on
until the moon is dimmed by the first rays of dawn. As this work is done
only a few days in the year, the dogs do not become accustomed to it,
and howl plaintively at every point of the compass.

It is the time for unusual and mysterious noises in the country. The
migrating cranes fly southward at such a height that the eye can hardly
distinguish them in broad daylight. At night, you can only hear them;
and their hoarse, complaining voices, lost among the clouds, seem like
the salutation and the farewell of souls in torment, striving to find
the road to heaven and compelled by an irresistible fatality to hover
about the abodes of men, not far from earth; for these migratory birds
exhibit strange uncertainty and mysterious anxiety in their aerial
wanderings. It sometimes happens that they lose the wind, when fitful
breezes struggle for the mastery or succeed one another in the upper
regions. Thereupon, when one of those reverses happens during the day,
we see the leader of the line soar at random through the air, then turn
sharply about, fly back, and take his place at the rear of the
triangular phalanx, while a skilful manoeuvre on the part of his
companions soon brings them into line behind him. Often, after vain
efforts, the exhausted leader abandons the command of the caravan;
another comes forward, takes his turn at the task, and gives place to a
third, who finds the current and leads the host forward in triumph. But
what shrieks, what reproaches, what remonstrances, what fierce
maledictions or anxious questions are exchanged by those winged pilgrims