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;[2] 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,[3] 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.