A moment later the nuptial procession, headed by the Baz-valan and Nominoë, left the burg of Mezlean and took the road to the house of Tankeru the blacksmith, the father of Tina, the bride.
CHAPTER II.
A BRETON WEDDING.
Tankeru was both blacksmith and wheelwright. After having long resided at Vannes with his mother and daughter, he moved with them and settled down in an isolated house situated about a league outside of Mezlean in a hollow, at the crossing of two roads one of which skirted the forest of Mezlean. Several reasons had combined to determine Tankeru's choice of the lonesome locality. The first was that the house stood at the foot of two bluffs which rose over a granite soil, rough, rocky and uneven, where the horses and oxen that drew the heavy wagons over the road could not choose but lose some nails of their shoes as they climbed the steep ascent; the blacksmith would be on the spot ready to repair the damage. In the second place, Tankeru counted upon indulging in the hunt in the forest of Mezlean, a sport to which he was passionately addicted. In the teeth of all the punishments decreed against illegal hunting—the prison, the whipping post, the galley, even the gallows—Tankeru gave a loose to his controlling passion in full security of conscience, claiming that the wandering beasts of the forests belonged to the best marksman, and that, moreover, it was a good office to keep down the number of wild beasts. Game belongs to all—to the villein as to the nobleman.
On this day there was great animation in Tankeru's home. His smithy and wheelwright shop were full of relatives, friends and vassals of the neighborhood—a pale and haggard crowd, pinched by privation, all dressed in their best rags, and, for a moment, oblivious of their misery as they came to rejoice over the wedding of Tina and Nominoë. They emptied the pots of cider, ate the bacon from the salt-tub, and the cakes of black bread. The daughters and wives of the invited guests, congregated in the upstairs room of the house, were lending a hand in the last touches of the bride's toilet. Tankeru was a man of about forty years of age, of an open and resolute face, tall of stature, and endowed with an athletic strength that often won for him the prize in the wrestling matches at the rustic festivals. The host was fulfilling at his best the duties of hospitality.
"Friends," said the blacksmith, "let us empty the barrel, the salt-tub and the bread-bin. Whatever is eaten and drunk escapes the clutches of the King's men, the seigneurs and the clergy!" And Tankeru added sardonically: "Fire and flames! The devil take the armed troopers and the tonsured gentry! Comrades, we are honest folks, may Satan take the Pope!"
"If we are honest folks, Tankeru, we are also poor folks!" replied a white-haired peasant. "Very poor folks! The royal taxes, the seigniorial imposts, the tithes of the church are ever on the increase—and still I hear rumors of fresh taxes. Why, they took almost everything away from us. If they take still more, what will be left to us?"
"Why, our skin will be left to us—and who knows but they may want that also to turn it into hose for themselves!" put in Tankeru. "Listen, by force of forging, shoeing, mending wagons and saving from my daily bread for twenty years and more, I laid by a little sum for my daughter's dower. In less than twenty months three-fourths of the sum has passed into the bag of the tax collectors. Fire and flames! We are honest folks! Let us empty the barrel, the salt-tub and the bread-bin! What has been drunk and eaten is not seized! The devil take the tonsured fraternity and the troopers!"
"Tankeru, you are always saying—'We are honest folks,'" again put in the old peasant. "You mean by that, I suppose, that we are a lot of fools to allow ourselves to be plucked to the quick. But what would you have us do, otherwise than repeat with you—'The devil take the troopers and the tonsured fraternity!'"
Tankeru's eyes fell upon a yoke used for oxen. Its nails had fallen out, and it stood against the wall. He took it up, showed it to the vassals, broke it over his knees, and throwing the pieces at his feet said: "The devil take the tonsured fraternity and the troopers! That's what's to be done!"
These short words, together with the energetic expression of the blacksmith's countenance, produced upon the vassals an instantaneous effect. They all rose simultaneously, clenched their fists threateningly, and some of them stamped angrily with their heels upon the fragments of the yoke that Tankeru had broken. Desirous that his guests remain under the sway of the thoughts that the incident had awakened in their minds, Tankeru said to them: