"'Ay, in those days the forests of firs were forests of oak. Nideck, Dagsberg, Falkenstein—all the castles now old and ruined were yet unbuilt. In those days wild bulls were hunted through the woods; salmon were plenty in the Sarre; and you, the fair-haired race, buried in the snows six months of the year, lived upon milk and cheese, for you had great flocks on Hengst, Schneeberg, Grosmann, and Donon. In summer you hunted as far as the banks of the Rhine; as far as the Moselle, the Meuse. All this can I remember!'
"Was it not strange, Jean-Claude?" said the old woman. "As the fool spoke, I seemed, too, to remember those scenes, as if viewed in a dream. I let fall my distaff, and old Duchene and all the others stopped to listen. The fool continued:
"'Ay, it was long ago! You had already begun to build your tall chimneys; and you surrounded your habitations with palisades whose points had been hardened in the fire. Within you kept great dogs, with hanging cheeks, who bayed night and day.'
"Then he burst into a peal of crazy laughter, crying:
"'And you thought yourselves the lords of the land—you, the pale-faced and blue-eyed—you, who lived on milk and cheese, and touched no flesh save in autumn at your hunts—you thought yourselves lords of the mountain and the plain—when we, the red-bearded, came from the sea—we, who loved blood and the din of battle. 'Twas a rude war, ours. It lasted weeks and months; and your old chieftainess, Margareth, of the clan of the Kilberix, shut up in her palisades, surrounded by her dogs and her warriors, defended herself like a she-wolf robbed of her young. But five moons passed, and hunger came; the gates of her stronghold opened, that its defenders might fly; and we, ambushed in the brook, slew them all—all—save the children. She alone defended herself to the last, and I, Luitprand, clove her gray head, and spared her blind father, the oldest among the old, that I might chain him like a dog to my castle gate.'
"Then, Hullin," said the old woman, "the fool sang a long ballad—the plaint of the old man chained to his gate. It was sad, sad as the Miserere. It chilled our very blood. But he laughed until old Duchene, in a transport of rage, threw himself upon him to strangle him; but the fool is strong, and hurled him back. Then brandishing his sceptre furiously, he shouted:
"'To your knees, slaves! to your knees! My armies are advancing. The earth trembles beneath them. Nideck, Haut-Barr, Dagsberg, Turkestein, will again tower above you. To your knees!'
"Never did I gaze upon a more fearful figure; but seeing my people about to fall upon him, I interposed in his defence. 'He is but a fool,' I cried. 'Are you not ashamed to mind his words?' This quieted them, but I could not close my eyes the entire night. His story—the song of the old man—rang through my ears, and seemed mingled with the barking of our dogs and the din of combat. Hullin, what think you of it? I cannot banish his threats from my mind!"
"I should think," said the sabot-maker, with a look of pity not unmixed with a sort of sorrowful sarcasm—"I should think, Catherine, if I did not know you so well, that you were losing your senses—you and Duchene and Robin and all the rest."
"You do not understand these matters," said the old woman in a calm and grave tone; "but were you never troubled by things of like nature?"