Devil's Pool

the long version

"When Germain - a shy but handsome widower - is sent by his father-in-law to find himself a wife, he sets out on his journey with a heavy heart. The prospective spouse is said to be rich, with land and a tidy dowry. But Germain fears for the fate of his three angelic children - and for the state of his own bruised heart. Everything changes during his voyage - through a dark wood and around a haunted marsh - when Germain falls passionately in love with an impoverished young shepherdess. Should he follow his heart, and woo the girl he now loves? Or please his family by marrying a rich but disdainful widow?" "A love song to the French countryside - a romance of two simple hearts - The Devil's Pool is above all a paean to an antique language and way of life which, even by 1844, was being eroded by industrialisation and the inexorable expansion of a national identity."--BOOK JACKET.