“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.”[1]
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.”