"I propose to pay now!" shrieked Pierrine the Goat, striking the bailiff full in the face with a large stone that she had picked up on the road. Garin lost his balance with the violence of the blow, and the blood ran down his face; but he promptly recovered from the shock, and, rushing furiously upon the young serf, threw her down, trampled her under foot, and, half drawing his sword, was on the point of dispatching her, when, recollecting himself, he said to his men: "Bind her fast; take her to the castle; her eyes will be put out to-night; and, at dawn to-morrow, she shall be hanged from the patibulary forks."
"The punishment of Pierrine the Goat will be well merited," exclaimed the serfs, hoping to turn away from themselves the wrath of Garin the Serf-eater. "Bad luck to the accursed girl! She has spilled the blood of the good bailiff of our glorious seigneur! Let her be punished as she deserves!"
"You are a set of cowards!" cried Pierrine the Goat, her face and breast bruised and bleeding from the blows that Garin had given her while trampling on her. Then, turning to Peter the Lame, who was sobbing but dared not defend his daughter, or raise his voice to implore mercy for her, she said: "Adieu; to-morrow you will see ravens circling on the side of the seigniorial gibbet; they will be the living shroud of your daughter"; and showing her fists to the dismayed serfs, she went on: "Cowards! you are three hundred, and you are afraid of six men-at-arms! There is among you all but one man truly brave; that's Fergan!"
"Oh!" yelled the bailiff, exasperated by the bold words of Pierrine the Goat, and staunching the blood that flowed from his face, "if I meet that Fergan on my route, he shall be your gibbet mate, the infamous blasphemer!" With that, Garin the Serf-eater remounted, and followed by his men, together with the serfs whom he had arrested, Pierrine the Goat among them, was soon lost to sight, leaving the inhabitants of the village struck with such terror, that on that evening they forgot to carry away the poor blind and mutilated old man, who was left to spend the night in the open.
CHAPTER II.
FERGAN THE QUARRYMAN.
It was long after the bailiff had led away his prisoners. The night grew rapidly darker. A young woman, pale, lean and deformed, clad in a tattered smock, her feet bare, her head half covered with a hood from which her hair escaped, held her face hidden in her hands, as she sat on a stone near the hearth of the hut which Fergan inhabited at the extremity of the village. A few chips of brush-wood were burning in the fire-place. Above rose the blackened walls, cracked by the recent conflagration; bunches of brush fastened on poles replaced the roof, through which here and there some brilliant star could be seen. A litter of straw in the best protected corner of the hovel, a trunk, a few wooden vessels—such was the furnishing of the home of a serf. The young woman, seated near the fire-place, was the wife of Fergan, Joan the Hunchback. Her forehead in her hands, crouching upon the stone which served her as a seat, Joan remained motionless. Only at intervals a slight tremor of the shoulders announced that she wept. A man entered the hut. It was Fergan the Quarryman. Thirty years of age, robust and large of frame, his dress consisted of a goat-skin kilt, of which the hair was almost worn off; his shabby hose left his legs and feet bare; on his shoulder he carried an iron pick and the heavy hammer which he used to break and extract the stones from the quarry. Joan the Hunchback raised her head at the sight of her husband. Although homely, her suffering and timid figure breathed an angelic kindness. Advancing quickly towards Fergan, her face bathed in tears, Joan said to him with an inexpressible mixture of hope and anxiety, while she interrogated him with her eyes: "Have you learned anything?"
"Nothing," answered the serf in despair, throwing down his pick and hammer; "nothing, nothing!"
Joan fell back upon the stone sobbing. She raised her hands to heaven and murmured: "I shall never again see Colombaik! My poor child is lost for ever!"
Fergan, no less distressed than his wife, sat down on another stone placed near the fire-place, his elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands. Thus he remained for a long spell, gloomy, silent. Suddenly rising, he started to walk uneasily, muttering in a muffled voice: "That cannot remain so—I shall go—Yes, I shall! I must find him!"
Joan, hearing the serf repeat: "I shall go! I shall go!" raised her head, wiped her tears with the back of her hand and asked: "Where is it you want to go?"