Part 9

When the young girl regretted seeing so little of him, he had always to reply that his labour was their sole resource; and that if people want to spend their time in talking together, they must needs have legacies or dowries.

Then Tephany began to complain and to desire.

"God pardon me," said she, in a low voice; "but what I ought to ask for is not liberty to see Dénès every day, for he soon gets tired of it; nor wit, for it scares him; nor beauty, for it brings upon me trouble and mistrust; but rather wealth, for then one can be master of oneself and others. Ah, if I dared to make yet one petition more of the old aunt, I would be wiser than I was before."

"Be satisfied," said the voice of the old beggar, though Tephany perceived her not. "Feel in your right pocket, and you will find a little box; rub your eyes with the ointment it contains, and you will have a treasure in yourself."

The young girl hastily felt in her pocket, found the box, opened it, and began to rub her eyes as she had been desired, when Barbaik Bourhis entered.

She who, in spite of herself, had now for some time past consumed whole days in cabbage-counting, and who saw all the farm-work fallen into arrears, was only waiting an occasion for visiting her wrath upon somebody. Seeing her niece sitting down doing nothing, she clasped her hands and cried,

"That's the way, then, that the work goes on whilst I am in the fields. Ah, I am surprised no longer that we are all going to ruin. Are you not ashamed, you wretch, to plunder food in this way from your kith and kin?"

Tephany would have excused herself; but Barbaik's rage was like milk heating on a turf-fire--let but the first bubble rise, and all mounts upwards and boils over; from reproaches she came to threats, and from threats to a box on the ear.

Tephany, who had borne every thing patiently till then, could no longer restrain her tears; but guess her astonishment when she perceived that every tear was a beautiful and shining fair round pearl.

Mother Bourhis, who made the same discovery, uttered loud cries of admiration, and set herself to pick them up.

Dénès, who came in at that instant, was no less surprised.

"Pearls! real pearls!" he exclaimed, catching them.

"It will make our fortune," said Barbaik, continuing to pick them up. "Ah, what fairy has bestowed this gift upon her? We must take good care lest it gets noised abroad, Dénès; I will give you a share, but only you. Go on, my girl, go on; you also shall be benefited by this opportunity."

She held her apron, and Dénès his hat; the pearls were all he thought of, forgetful they were tears.

Tephany, choking with emotion, would have escaped; but the old woman stopped her, reproaching her with wishing to defraud them, and saying all she could to make her cry the more. The young girl compelled herself with violent effort to control her sorrow, and to wipe her eyes.

"It's all over already," cried Barbaik. "Ah, Blessed Virgin, can one be so weak-minded! If I had such a gift as that, I would no more think of stopping than the great fountain on the Green Road. Hadn't we better beat her a little, and try again?"

"No," interrupted Dénès, "for fear we should exhaust her the first time. I will set forth this moment for the town, and there find out how much each pearl is worth."

Barbaik and he went out together, reckoning the value as nearly as they could, and deciding beforehand how they should divide it, forgetting Tephany completely in the matter.

As for her, she clasped her two hands upon her heart, and raised her eyes towards heaven; but her look was intercepted by the aged beggar, who, leaning on her staff in the duskiest corner of the hearth, was watching her with mocking eye. The maiden trembled; and seizing the pin, the feather, and the box of ointment given her by the crone,

"Take back, take back," she cried, "your fatal gifts. Woe to all those who cannot be content with what they have received from God! He had gifted me according to His own wise appointment, and I madly was dissatisfied with my portion. Give others liberty, wit, beauty, and wealth. For me, I neither am, nor will be, other than the simple girl of former days, loving and serving her neighbours to the utmost of her power."

"Well said, Tephany," cried the old woman. "Thou hast come out from the trial; but let it do thee good. The Almighty has sent me to bestow this lesson on thee; I am thy guardian angel. Now that thou hast learned this truth, thou wilt live more happily; for God has promised peace to hearts of good will."

With these words the beggar changed into an angel glittering with light; and shedding through the farm a scent of violets and of incense, vanished like a flash of lightning.

Tephany forgave Dénès his willingness to make merchandise of her tears. Become now more reasonable, she accepted happiness as we find it on this earth; and she was married to the lad of Plover, who proved through all his life a good husband and a first-rate workman.

THE PALACE OF THE PROUD KING.

The children slumber sweetly in their curtained beds; the brown dog snores upon the broad hearth-stone; the cows chew the cud behind their screen of broom; and the fading fire-light quivers on the grandsire's old arm-chair.

This is the time, dear friends, when we should make the sign of the cross, and murmur a prayer in secret for the souls of those that we have loved. Hark! midnight is striking from St. Michael's church,--midnight of Holy Pentecost.

This is the hour when all true Christians lay down their heads upon their quiet pillows, content with that which God has given them, and sleep, lulled by the gentle breathing of their slumbering children.

But as for Perik Skoarn, no little children had he. He was a daring young fellow, but as yet quite solitary. When he saw the gentry from the neighbourhood coming to Mass on Sundays, he envied them their handsome horses with the silver-plated bridles, their velvet mantles, and their embroidered silken hose. He longed to be as rich as they were, that he also might have a seat covered with red leather in the church, and be able to carry the fair farmers' daughters to the fair seated on his horse's crupper.

This is the reason Perik walked upon Lew-Dréz, at the foot of St. Efflam's down, whilst all good Christians slept upon their beds, watched over by the Holy Virgin. Perik is a man hungering after greatness and luxury. The longings of his heart are countless, like the nests of the sea-swallows in the sandy cliffs.

The waves sighed sadly in the dark horizon; the crabs fed silently upon the bodies of the drowned; the wind that whistled in the rocks of Roch-Ellas mimicked the call-cry of the smugglers of Lew-Dréz; but Skoarn still paced the shore.

He looked upon the mountain, and recalled the words of the old beggar at Yar Cross. That old man knew all that had happened in these parts, when these our ancient oaks hung yet as acorns on their parent trees, and our oldest ravens still slumbered in the egg.

Now the old beggar of Yar had told him, that here, where now stretch the downs of St. Efflam, a famous city formerly extended; its ships covered the wide ocean, and it was governed by a king, whose sceptre was a hazel-wand that fashioned every thing according to his wish.

But the king and all his people were punished for their pride and iniquity; for one day, by God's command, the strand rose upwards like the bubbling of a boiling flood, and so engulfed the guilty city. But every year, upon the night of Pentecost, a passage opens through the mountain with the first stroke of twelve o'clock, and shows an entrance to the monarch's palace.

The all-powerful hazel-wand may be discovered hanging in the furthest hall of this magnificent abode; but those who seek it must make haste, for as the final stroke of midnight sounds upon the ear, the passage closes once again, to open no more until the following Pentecost.

Skoarn had well remembered all the tale of the old beggar at the Cross of Yar, and for this reason he treads at such unwonted hour the sands of the Lew-Dréz.

At length a sharp stroke came dashing from the belfrey of St. Michael. Skoarn trembled; he looked eagerly, by the pale starlight, at the granite mass which heads the mountain, and beheld it slowly open, like the jaws of an awakening dragon.

Skoarn rushed into the passage, which at first seemed dark, but gradually gleamed with a blue light, like that which hovers nightly over church-yard graves; and thus he found his way into a mighty palace, the marble front of which was sculptured like the church of Folgoat or of Quimper-on-the-Odet.

The first hall he entered was all full of chests heaped, like the corn-bins after harvest, with the purest silver; but Perik Skoarn wanted more than silver, and he passed it through. The clock sounded the sixth stroke of midnight.

He found a second hall, set round with coffers crammed with gold, as stable-racks are crammed with blossoming grass in the sweet month of June. But Skoarn wanted something better still, and he went on. The seventh stroke sounded.

The third hall to which he came had baskets flowing over with white pearls, like milk in the broad dairy-pans of Cornouaille in the early spring. Skoarn would gladly have had some of these; but he heard the eighth stroke sounding, and he hurried on.

The fourth hall was all glittering with diamond caskets, shedding brighter light than all the furzy piles upon the hillocks of Douron on St. John's eve. Skoarn was dazzled, and hesitated for a moment; then rushed into the last hall as he heard the church-clock for the ninth time.

But there he stood still suddenly with wondering admiration. In front of the hazel-wand, which hung in full sight at the further end, were ranged a hundred maidens most fair to look upon; they held in one hand wreaths of the green oak, and in the other cups of glowing wine. Skoarn had resisted silver, gold, pearls, and diamonds; but he was overpowered by the vision of these beauteous maidens, and he stood still to gaze at them, and at the sparkling cups they presented to him.

The tenth stroke sounded, and he heard it not; the eleventh, and he still stood motionless. At last, just as he was about to hold out his hand to receive the cup from the maiden next to him, the twelfth was heard, as mournful as the great gun of a ship at wreck among the breakers.

Then Perik, terrified, would fain have turned, but time for him was over. The doors all closed, the hundred fair young girls were now so many granite statues, and all was once more folded up in darkness.

This is the way our fathers tell the tale of Skoarn. You see now what will happen to a youth who suffers his heart too readily to open at seduction's voice. May all the young take warning by his fate. It is well to walk sometimes with eyes cast downwards to the earth, for fear we should be led into the paths of evil and sin.

THE PIPER.

The sea-breeze blew from the shore of the Black Water, and the stars were rising. The young maidens had gone homewards to the little farms, carrying on their fingers the metal rings their friends had bought them at the fair. The youths went across the common, singing their songs. At last their sonorous voices could no more be heard; the light dresses of the damsels were no longer to be seen; it was night.

Nevertheless, here was Lao, with a merry company, at the entrance of the lonely heath,--Lao, the celebrated piper, come expressly from the mountains to lead the dance at the fair of Armor. His face was as red as a March moon, his black locks floated as they would upon the wind, and he held under his arm the pipe whose magic sounds had even set in motion a number of old women in their sabots. When they came to the cross-road of the Warning, where there rises the granite cross all overgrown with moss, the women stopped, and said,

"Let us take the pathway leading towards the sea."

Master Lao pointed out the belfry-tower of Plougean over the hill, and said,

"That is the point we are making for; why not go across the heath?"

The women answered,

"Because there rises a city of Korigans, Lao, in the middle of that heath; and one must be pure from sin to pass it without danger."

But Lao laughed aloud.

"By heaven!" said he, "I have travelled by night-time all these roads, yet I have never seen your little black men counting their money by moonlight, as they tell us at the chimney-corner. Show me the road leading to the Korigan city, and I will go and sing to them the days of the week." [58]

But the women all exclaimed,

"Don't tempt God, Lao. God has put some things in this world of which it is better to be ignorant, and others which we ought to fear. Leave the Korigans alone to dance about their granite dwellings."

"To dance!" cried Lao. "Then the Korigans have pipers too?"

"They have the whistling of the wind across the heath, and the singing of the night-bird."

"Well, then," said the mountaineer, "I am determined that to-day at least they shall have Christian music. I will go across the common playing some of my best Cornouaille airs."

So saying, he put his pipe to his lips, and striking up a cheerful strain, he set off boldly on the little footway that stretched like a white line across the gloomy heath.

The women, terrified, made the sign of the cross, and hurried down the hill.

But Lao walked straight on without fear, and played meanwhile upon his pipes. As he advanced, his heart grew bolder, his breath more powerful, and the music louder. Already had he crossed just half the common, when he saw the Menhir rising like a phantom in the night, and further on, the dwellings of the Korigans.

Then he seemed to hear an ever-rising murmur. At first it was like the trickling of a rill, then like the rushing of a river, and then the roaring of the sea; and different sounds were mingled in this roar,--sometimes like stifled laughs, then furious hissing, the mutterings of low voices, and the rush of steps upon the withered grass.

Lao began to breathe less freely, and his restless eyes glanced right and left over the common. It was as if the tufts of heath were moving, all seemed alive and whirling in the gloom, all took the form of hideous dwarfs, and voices were distinctly heard. Suddenly the moon rose, and Lao cried aloud.

To left, to right, behind, before, every where, far as the eye could reach, the common was alive with running Korigans. Lao, bewildered, drew back to the Menhir, against which he leant; but the Korigans saw him, and came round with cries like those of grasshoppers.

"It is the famous piper of Cornouaille come hither to play for the Korigans."

Lao made the sign of the cross; but all the little men surrounded him, and shrieked,

"Thou belongest to us, Lao. Pipe then, thou famous piper, and lead the dance of the Korigans."

Lao in vain resisted, some magic power mastered him; he felt the pipe approach his lips; he played, he danced, in spite of himself. The Korigans surrounded him with circling bands, and every time he would have paused they cried in chorus,

"Pipe, famous piper, pipe, and lead the dance of the Korigans."

Lao went on thus the whole night; but as the stars grew paler in the sky, the music of his pipes waxed fainter, his feet had greater difficulty in moving from the ground. At last the dawn of day spread palely in the east, the cocks were heard crowing in the distant farms, and the Korigans disappeared.

Then the mountain piper sunk down breathless at the foot of the Menhir. The mouth-piece of his pipes fell from his shrivelled lips, his arms dropped upon his knees, his head upon his breast, to rise no more; and voices murmured in the air,

"Sleep, famous piper! thou hast led the dance of the Korigans; thou shalt never lead the dance for Christians more."

THE WHITE INN.

Once upon a time there was an inn at Ponthou, known, from its appearance, as the White Inn. The people who kept it were both good and honest. They were known to be punctual at their Easter duties, and no one ever thought of counting money after them. It was at the White Inn that travellers would stop to sleep; and horses knew the place so well, that they would draw up of their own accord before the stable-door.

The headsman of the harvest [59] had brought in short gloomy days; and one evening, as Floc'h the landlord was standing at the White-Inn door, a traveller, evidently of importance, and mounted on a splendid foreign steed, reined up his horse, and lifting his hand to his hat, said courteously,

"I want a supper and a bed-chamber."

Floc'h drew first his pipe from his mouth, and then his hat from his head, and answered,

"God bless you, sir, a supper you shall have; but as to a room, we cannot give it you; for we have now above, six muleteers on their way home to Redon, who have taken all the beds of the White Inn."

The traveller then said,

"For God's sake, my good man, contrive for me to sleep somewhere. The very dogs have a kennel, and it is not fitting that Christians be without a bed in such weather as this."

"Sir stranger," said the host remorsefully, "I can only tell you that the inn is full, and we have no place for you but the red room."

"Well, give me that," replied the stranger.

But the landlord rubbed his forehead and looked grieved; for he could not let the traveller sleep in the red chamber.

"Since I have been at the White Inn," said he at last, "only two men have ever occupied that room; and on the morrow, black as had been their hair the night before, they rose with it snow-white."

The traveller looked full at the landlord.

"Then your house is haunted by the spirits from another world?" asked he.

"It is," faltered the landlord.

"Then God and the Blessed Virgin be merciful to me. I will sleep there; but make me a fire, and warm my bed; for I am cold."

The landlord did as he was ordered.

When the traveller had finished supper, he bade good night to all at table, and went up to the red chamber. The landlord and his wife trembled, and began to pray.

The stranger having reached his room began to look about him.

It was a large flame-coloured chamber, with great shining stains upon the walls, that might well have been taken for the marks of fresh-spilt blood. At the further end there stood a four-post bed, surrounded by heavy curtains. The rest of the room was empty; and the mournful whistling of the wind came down the chimney and the corridors, and sounded like the cries of souls beseeching prayers.

The traveller, kneeling down, prayed silently to God, then fearlessly got into bed, and soon slept soundly.

But, lo, at the very moment when the hour of midnight sounded from a distant church-tower, he suddenly awoke, heard the curtain-rings sliding on their iron poles, and beheld them open at his right hand.

He was going to get out of bed; but his feet striking against something cold, he recoiled in terror.

There stood before him a coffin, with four lighted candles at the corners, and covered with a great black pall that glittered as with tears.

The stranger turned to try the other side of his bed; but the coffin instantly changed places, and barred his way out as before.

Five times he made an effort to escape, and every time the bier was there beneath his feet, with the candles and the funeral pall.

The traveller then knew it was a ghost, who had some boon to ask; and kneeling up in bed, he made the holy sign, and spoke:

"Who art thou, departed one? Speak. A Christian listens to thee."

A voice answered from the coffin,

"I am a traveller murdered here by those who kept this inn before its present owner. I died unprepared, and now I suffer in Purgatory."

"What needs there, suffering soul, to give thee rest?"

"I want six Masses said at the church of our Lady of Folgoat, and also a pilgrimage made for my intention by some Christian to our Lady of Rumengol."

No sooner had these words been uttered than the lights went out, the curtains closed, and all was silence.

The stranger spent the night in prayer.

The next morning he told the landlord every thing, and said,

"My good friend, I am M. de Rohan, of family as noble as the noblest now in Brittany. I will go and make the pilgrimage to Rumengol, and I will see that the six Masses shall be said. Trouble yourself no more; for this suffering soul shall rest in peace."

Within the short space of one month the red room had lost its crimson hue, and become white and cheerful as the others. No sound was heard there but the swallows twittering in the chimney, and nothing could be seen but a fair white bed, a crucifix, and a vessel of holy water.

The traveller had kept his word.

PERONNIK THE IDIOT. [60]

You cannot surely have failed, some time or other, to meet by chance some of those poor idiots, or innocents, whose utmost wisdom scarcely serves to lead them as beggars from door to door in quest of daily bread. One might almost fancy they were straying calves who have lost their way home. They stare all round with open eyes and mouth, as if in search of somewhat; but, alas, that they seek is not plentiful enough in these parts to be found upon the highways--for it is common sense.

Peronnik was one of these poor idiots, to whom the charity of strangers had been in place of father or of mother. He wandered ever onwards unconscious whither; when he was thirsty, he drank from wayside springs; when hungry, he begged stale crusts from the women he saw standing at their doors; and when in need of sleep, he looked out for a heap of straw, and hollowed himself out a nest in it like a lizard.

As to any knowledge of a trade, Peronnik had, indeed, never learnt one; but for all that he was skilful enough in many matters: he could go on eating as long as you desired him to do so; he could outsleep any one for any length of time; and he could imitate with his tongue the song of larks. There is many a one now in these parts who cannot do so much as this.

At the time of which I am telling you (that is, many a hundred years ago and more), the land of White-Wheat was not altogether what you see it nowadays. Since then many a gentleman has devoured his inheritance, and cut up his forests into wooden shoes. Thus the forest of Paimpont extended over more than twenty parishes; some say it even crossed the river, and went as far as Elven. However that may be, Peronnik came one day to a farm built upon the border of the wood; and as the Benedicite bell had long since rung in his stomach, he drew near to ask for food.

The farmer's wife happened at that moment to be kneeling down on the door-sill to scrape the soup-bowl with her flint-stone; [61] but when she heard the idiot's voice asking for food in the name of God, she stopped and held the kettle towards him.

"Here," she cried, "poor fellow, eat these scrapings, and say an 'Our Father' for our pigs, that nothing on earth will fatten."

Peronnik seated himself on the ground, put the kettle between his knees, and began to scrape it with his nails; but it was little enough he could succeed in finding, for all the spoons in the house had already done their duty upon it. However, he licked his fingers, and made an audible grunt of satisfaction, as if he had never tasted any thing better.

"It is millet-flour," said he, in a low voice,--"millet-flour moistened with the black cow's milk, [62] and by the best cook in the whole Low Country."

The farmer's wife, who was going by, turned round delighted.

"Poor innocent," said she, "there is little enough of it left; but I will add a scrap of rye-bread."

And she brought the lad the first cutting of a round loaf just out of the oven. Peronnik bit into it like a wolf into a lamb's leg, and declared that it must have been kneaded by the baker to his lordship the Bishop of Vannes.