"Hesus only knows, wild boy! I wish you would keep still; your talk frightens me."
"What a tempest! The house shakes!"
"And it is on such a night that Karadeucq dared to say he would give his life to see a Korrigan."
"Come, dear wife, your fears only show weakness."
"Mothers are weak and timid, Jocelyn. We must not tempt God—"
Old Araim stops working for a moment at his net; his head drops on his chest.
"What is the matter, folks? You seem to be in a brown study! Do you fear, like Madalen, that danger may threaten Karadeucq just because, on such a tempestuous night as this, he wishes to see a Korrigan?"
"I am not thinking of the fairies; I am thinking of this frightful storm, Jocelyn. I read to you and your children the narrative of our ancestor Joel, who lived about five hundred and odd years ago, if not in this very house, at least in the neighborhood of where we now are. I was thinking that on a somewhat similar stormy night, Joel and his son, both greedy after stories like the inquisitive Gauls that they were—"
"Did the trick of stopping a traveler at the pass of Craig'h, binding him fast, and carrying him home to tell stories—"
"And the traveler happened to be the Chief of the Hundred Valleys—a hero!"