An instant after the little voices again began to murmur.
“What is that murmuring, Groac’h?” asked the bridegroom.
“It is the butter in the frying-pan,” she answered, giving the fish a toss.
But soon the little voices cried yet louder.
“What is that cry, Groac’h?” said Houarn.
“It is the cricket in the hearth,” replied the fairy; and she began to sing, so that the Léonard could no longer hear any thing but her voice.
But he could not help thinking on what he had noticed: and thought brought fear, and fear, of course, repentance.
“Alas!” he cried, “can it then be possible that I have so soon forgotten Bellah for this Groac’h, who is no doubt a child of Satan? With her for my wife, I shall not even dare to say my prayers at night, and shall be as sure to go to hell as an exciseman.”
While he thus communed with himself, the fairy brought in the fried fish, and pressed him to eat, while she went to fetch him twelve new sorts of wine.
Houarn sighed, took out his knife, and prepared to begin; but scarcely had the spell-destroying blade touched the golden dish, when all the fish rose up in the form of little men, each one clad in the proper costume of his rank and occupation. There was a lawyer with his bands, a tailor in blue stockings, a miller all white with flour, and so on; all crying out at once, as they swam in the melted butter,—