Therefore it was that Petitjean and his bright-eyed spouse were always made welcome at Dives.
"It goes well, Madame Jean? Ah, there you are. Well, hein, also? It is long since we saw you."
"Ah, madame, centuries, it is centuries since we were here. But what will you have? with the bad season, the rains, the banks failing, the—but you, madame, are well? And Monsieur Paul?" "Ah, ça va tout doucement Paul is well, the good God be praised, but I—I perish day by day" At which the entire court-yard was certain to burst into laughing protest. For the whole household of Guillaume le Conquérant was quite sure to be assembled about the great wheels of the pedler's wagon—only to look, not to buy, not yet. Petitjean, and his wife had not dined yet, and a pedler's hunger is something to be respected—one made money by waiting for the hour of digestion. The little crowd of maids, hostlers, cooks, and scullery wenches, were only here to whet their appetite, and to greet Petitjean. Nitouche, the head chef, put a little extra garlic in his sauces that day. But in spite of this compliment to their palate, the pedler and his wife dined in the smaller room off the kitchen;—Madame was desolated, but the salle-à-manger was crowded just now. One was really suffocated in there these days! Therefore it was that the two ate the herbaceous sauces with an extra relish, as those conscious of having a larger space for the play of vagrant elbows than their less fortunate brethren. The gossip and trading came later. On the edge of the fading daylight there was still time to see; the chosen articles could easily be taken into the brightly lit kitchen to be passed before the lamps. After the buying and bargaining came the talking. All the household could find time to spend the evening on the old benches; these latter lined the sidewalk just beneath the low kitchen casements. They had been here for many a long year.
What a history of Dives these old benches could have told! What troopers, and beggars, and cowled monks, and wayfarers had sat there!—each sitter helping to wear away the wood till it had come to have the depressions of a drinking-trough. Night after night in the long centuries, as the darkness fell upon the hamlet—what tales and confidences, and what murmured anguish of remorse, what cries for help, what gay talk and light song must have welled up into the dome of sky!
Once, as we sat within the court-yard, under the stars, a young voice sang out. It was so still and quiet every word the youth phrased was as clear as his fresh young voice.
"Tiens—it is Mathieu—he is singing Les Oreillers!" cried Monsieur Paul, with an accent of pride in his own tone.
The young voice sang on:
"J'arrive en ce pays
De Basse Normandie,
Vous dire une chanson,
S'il plaît la compagnie!"
"It is an old Norman bridal song," Monsieur Paul went on, lowering his voice. "One I taught a lot of young boys and lads last winter—for a wedding held here—in the inn."
Still the fresh notes filled the air: