"But—Jeanne, M'sieur," he stated as if I must understand. "Jeanne d'Arc. Tiens—the Maid of France."
"The Maid of France!" I was puzzled. "What has she to do with it?"
"But everything, M'sieur." The vivid eyes flamed. "M'sieur does not know, perhaps, that my grandfather fought under Jeanne?"
"Your grandfather!" I flung it at him in scorn. The man was a poor lunatic.
"But yes, M'sieur. My grandfather, lui-même."
"But, Philippe, the Maid of Orleans died in 1431." I remembered that date. The Maid is one of my heroic figures.
Philippe shrugged his shoulders. "Oh—as for a grandpère! But not the grandpère à present, he who keeps the grocery shop in St. Raymond. Certainly not that grandfather. It is to say the grandpère of that grandpère. Perhaps another yet, or even two or three more. What does it matter? One goes back a few times of grandfathers and behold one arrives at him who was armorer for the Maid—to whom she gave the silver stirrup."
"The silver stirrup." My Leonard rod bumped along the bow; my flies tangled again in the current. [pg 248] I squirmed about till I faced the guide in the stern. "Philippe, what in hell do you mean by this drool of grandfathers and silver stirrups?"
The boy, perfectly respectful, not forgetting for a second his affair of keeping the canoe away from the fish-hole, looked at me squarely, and his uncommon light eyes gleamed out of his face like the eyes of a prophet. "M'sieur, it is a tale doubtless which seems strange to you, but to us others it is not strange. M'sieur lives in New York, and there are automobiles and trolley-cars and large buildings en masse, and to M'sieur the world is made of such things. But there are other things. We who live in quiet places, know. One has not too much of excitement, we others, so that one remembers a great event which has happened to one's family many years. Yes, indeed, M'sieur, centuries. If one has not much one guards as a souvenir the tale of the silver stirrup of Jeanne. Yes, for several generations."
The boy was apparently unconscious that his remarks were peculiar. "Philippe, will you tell [pg 249] me what you mean by a silver stirrup which Jeanne d'Arc gave to your ancestors?"