The Poniard's Hilt Part 3

And father and son laughed merrily, it must be admitted, like people who are happy to find their apprehensions unfounded. The mother's fears, however, were not so quickly allayed; she did not join the laughter; but both the boys, the girl and even Jocelyn himself, all cried out joyously:

"A peddler! A peddler!"

"He has pretty ribbons and fine needles."

"Iron for arrows, strings for bows, scissors to clip the sheep."

"Nets for fishing, seeing that he comes to the seash.o.r.e."

"He will tell us the news of outlying places."

"But where is he? Where is the good peddler that Hesus sends to us to help enliven this long winter's night?"

"What a happiness to be able to see all his merchandise at one's ease!"

"But where is he? Where is he?"

"He is shaking off the ice that his clothes are frozen stiff with."

"Good mother, now see the misfortune that threatened us because I wished to see a Korrigan!"

"Be still, son! To-morrow rests with G.o.d!"

"Here is the peddler! Here he is!"

CHAPTER III.

HEVIN THE PEDDLER.

The man who stepped into the house gave at the threshold a last shake to his traveling boots, which were so covered with snow that he seemed to be clad in white hose. He was of a robust frame, but squat and square, in the full strength of manhood, jovial and of an open yet determined face. Still uneasy, Madalen did not take her eyes from him, and twice she made a sign to her son to return to her side. Removing the hood from his thick, ice-pearled coat, the peddler laid down his bulky bale, a heavy burden that, however, seemed light to his st.u.r.dy shoulders. He then removed his cap and stepped towards Araim, the oldest member of the household:

"Long life and happy days to hospitable people! This is Hevin the Peddler's wish to yourself and your family. I am a Breton. I was going to Falgoet, when the night and the tempest overtook me on the beach. I saw the light of this house from a distance; I came, I called, and the door was opened to me. Thanks to you all, thanks to hospitable people!"

"Madalen, what gives you that absent and pensive look? Do not the peddler's pleasant face and kind words set you at ease?"

"Father, to-morrow rests with G.o.d--I feel all the more uneasy since the stranger's arrival."

"Speak lower, lower still, dear daughter. The poor fellow might overhear you and be grieved. Oh! these mothers! these mothers!"

And addressing the stranger:

"Draw near the fire, you st.u.r.dy peddler. The night is rough. Karadeucq, while we wait for supper, fetch a pot of hydromel for our guest."

"I accept, good old man! The fire will warm me from without, the hydromel from within."

"You seem to be a gay stroller."

"So I am. Joy is my companion; however long or rough my road may be, joy never tires of following me."

"Here--drink--"

"Your health, good mother and sweet girl; to the health of you all--"

And clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth: "This is the best hydromel I ever tasted. A cordial hospitality renders the best of potions still better."

"Do you come from afar, gay stroller?"

"Do you mean since I started this morning or since the beginning of my journey?"

"Yes, since the beginning of your journey."

"It is now two months since I departed from Paris."

"From the city of Paris?"

"Does that surprise you, good old man?"

"What! Cross half Gaul in such times as these, when the cursed Franks overrun the country?"

"I am an old roadster. For the last twenty years I have crossed Gaul from end to end. Is the main road hazardous, I take the by-path. Is the plain risky, I go over the mountain. Is it dangerous to travel by day, I journey by night."

"And have you not been rifled a hundred times by those thievish Franks?"

"I am an old roadster, I tell you. Accordingly, before entering Britanny, I bravely donned a priest's robe, and painted on my pack a big cross with flames red as h.e.l.l-fire. The Frankish thieves are as stupid as they are savage; they fear the devil, whom the bishops frighten them with in order to share with them the spoils of Gaul. They would not dare to attack me, taking me for a priest."

"Come, supper is ready--to table," said old Araim; and addressing his son's wife, who continued to give signs of preoccupation, he said to her in a low voice:

"What is the matter, Madalen? Are you still thinking of the Korrigans?"

"This stranger who disguises himself in the robe of a priest without being one will bring misfortune over our house. The tempest's fury seems to have redoubled since he came in."

It is an impossible thing to allay a mother's apprehensions once they are aroused.

The family and the guest sat down to table, ate and drank. The peddler drank and ate like a man to whom the road imparts a good appet.i.te. The jaws did their ample duty; teeth and tongues played their parts well; the family was in good spirits. It is not every long winter's night that one has a peddler from Paris in his company.

"And what is going on in Paris, brave roadster?"

"The most satisfactory thing that I have seen in the city was the burying of the King of the cursed Franks!"

"Ah! Is their King dead?"

"He died more than two months ago--on the 25th of November of last year, of the year 512 of the 'Incarnation of the Word,' as the bishops say who blessed and gave sepulchre to the crowned murderer in the basilica of the Holy Apostles at Paris."

"Ah! He is dead, that Frankish King! And what was his name?"