"Yégof, beside the blazing hearth, with his tin crown on his head, his short staff between his knees, was dreaming of something. He looked at the great black fire-place, the large stone chimney-piece, with figures and trees carved upon it, and the smoke which was rising in heavy wreaths round the flitches of bacon. All at once, when we were least thinking of it, he struck the end of his staff upon the stones, and cried out, like one in a dream: 'Yes, yes; I have seen all that. It is a long time ago—a long time.' And as we all looked at him, struck with surprise—'At that time,' he went on, 'the fir forests were forests of oak—the Nideck the Dagsberg, the Falkenstein, the Geroldseck; none of those old castles, now in ruins, existed then. At that time they used to hunt the wild oxen in the woods, fish for salmon in the Sarre; and you—you fair-skinned men, buried in the snow six months in the year—you lived upon milk and cheese; for you had large flocks and herds on the Hengst, the Schneeberg, the Grosmann, and the Donon. In summer, you hunted; you came trooping down to the banks of the Rhine, the Moselle, the Meuse. Oh, yes; I remember all that.'
"Strange to say, Jean-Claude, while the fool continued speaking, I seemed to see again all those countries of former times, and to remember them as a dream. I had let fall my distaff, and old Duchêne, Robin, Jeanne—in short, every one, was listening eagerly. 'Yes, it is a long time ago,' the fool began again. 'In those times, too, you used to build these huge fire-places; and all around, at two or three hundred paces, you used to fix your palings fifteen feet high, and inside of them you used to keep your great dogs, with hanging dewlaps, who barked night and day.'
"Whatever he said, Jean-Claude, we saw. As for him, he seemed to pay no heed to us, but kept looking at the figures on the chimney-piece, with his mouth wide open; but at the end of a moment, having turned his head towards us, and seeing us all attentive, he began to laugh with that wild laugh of his, exclaiming: 'And at that time—oh! fair-haired men with blue eyes and white skins, fed on milk and cheese, and only drinking blood in the autumn, at the great hunts—you believed yourselves masters of the plain and of the mountain, when we, the red men with green eyes, sprung from the sea; we, who drank blood always, and loved nothing but war, arrived one fine morning, with our axes and our spears, coming up the Sarre under shadow of the old oaks. Ah! it was a cruel war, and one that lasted weeks and months. And the old woman, there,' said he, pointing to me, with a strange smile, 'the Margareth of the clan of the Kilberix, that old woman with the hooked nose—within her palisades, in the midst of her dogs and her warriors, defended herself like a she-wolf. But at the end of five moons hunger came: the gates of her palisades opened for flight, and we—in ambush in the stream—we massacred all—all, except the children and the beautiful young girls. The old woman alone, with her nails and her teeth, defended herself to the last. And I, Luitprand—I cleft her gray head, and I took her father, the blind man, the aged of many days, and chained him to the gate of my strong castle like a dog.'
"Then, Hullin," continued the farm-mistress, bowing down her head—"then the fool began to sing a long song—the complaint of the old man chained to his gate. Wait while I try and remember it. It was sad—sad as a miserere. I cannot recollect it, Jean-Claude; but I seem to hear it still: it froze the marrow in my bones. And as he kept laughing all the while, our people at last grew furious. With a terrible cry, Duchêne sprang at the throat of the fool to strangle him; but he, stronger than you would think, repulsed him, and raising his staff threateningly, exclaimed:
"'On your knees, slaves—on your knees! My armies are advancing. Do you hear them? The earth trembles beneath their tread. Those castles—the Nideck, the Haut-Barr, the Dagsberg, the Turkestein—you will have to rebuild them. On your knees!'
"Never in my life did I see a countenance more terrific than that of Yégof at this moment; but, for the second time seeing my people about to rush upon him, I felt bound to defend him.
"'He is a madman,' said I. 'Are you not ashamed to take heed of the words of a fool?' They stopped on account of what I said; but for my own part I could not close an eye the whole night long. I lay awake hour after hour, thinking of what the wretched creature had said. I seemed to hear the song of the old man, the barking of the dogs, and the sounds of battle. It is long since I have felt so disturbed and unhappy. That is why I have come to see you. What do you think of all this, Hullin?"
"I!" said the shoemaker, whose full, red face betrayed a sort of sad scorn mixed with pity; "if I did not know you as well as I do, Catherine, I should say that you had gone out of your mind—you, Duchêne, Robin, and all the rest of them. It all sounds to me like one of the tales of Genevieve de Brabant—a story made to frighten little children, and which shows us the folly of our ancestors."
"Because you do not understand these things," said the old farm-mistress, in a calm and grave tone; "you never had any ideas of this sort."
"Then you believe what Yégof sang to you?"