‘It shall be yours,’ I told her gravely, ‘if you give me your solemn promise to heed my words.’
‘I promise!’ she answered fervently, and the wind tossed her unbound hair until it floated round her shoulders like a Kelpie’s mane. A seventh wave rushed up to her feet, and as she moved nearer the breakwater, I sang her this little song:
‘Fairy stone of fairy spell,
Marguerite, O guard it well!
When thine anger doth arise
Elves would rob thee of thy prize.
Press it ’neath thy tongue so red,
Hold it firm till wrath has sped.
Smile, speak softly, and behold,
Love shall warm thee as of old.’
Then I gave her the stone, and she clasped it against her bosom and sped to her home.
When Etienne returned he was in a bitter mood. Luck had been against him; he had caught no fish, and his largest net had been torn on the rocks. Marguerite set a meal before him, but he pushed it angrily away; for the broth had burned while she was with the Witch, and tasted anything but pleasant.
‘Such food is not fit for a dog!’ he cried. ‘’Twas an ill day for me when I came to Le Pollet! I had done better to drown myself.’
Marguerite stayed her fierce reply that she might slip the white stone between her lips; and as she held it beneath her tongue her anger suddenly melted. She thought now of Etienne’s hunger and weariness, and was sorry that she had nought in the house for him to eat. And as he sat in moody silence she stole away, and begged some good broth from her godmother, who had always enough and to spare. This she placed before him beside the hearth, and smiled, and spoke in a gentle voice that made him turn to her with a start—it was just as if the Marguerite he loved had come back to him from the grave. Then he drew her to him, hiding his face in her dress; and for the first time since many a long day there was peace between them. Marguerite kept that white stone always, and when she was tempted to speak in anger it worked like a Fairy spell.”
“And wasn’t it one?” I asked, as Nain Rouge put on his cap again, and a delicious smell of fried eggs and bacon came from the farmhouse kitchen on the breeze.
“Not it,” said Nain Rouge, laughing heartily, “there were thousands like it on the beach, but you see it did just as well. For if once a woman can be induced to hold her tongue when she is angry, there’ll be little trouble ’twixt man and wife. This has been so from all time.”
“Cock-a-doodle doo!” cried the black cock, strutting grandly in front of us. Nain Rouge darted after him, and I left them to themselves and went in to breakfast.