When Pèp, opening the door, gave them entrance to the kitchen, Febrer saw that the Minstrel had a small drum hanging from one arm and was carrying the drum stick in his right hand.
It was to be an evening of music. Some of the youths smiled with a wicked expression when they took their places, as if rejoicing in advance over something extraordinary. Others, more serious, showed in their faces the noble disgust of those who fear to witness an inevitable evil deed. The Ironworker remained impassive in one of the farthest corners, shrinking down so as to remain unnoticed among his comrades.
A few of the youths had talked with Margalida, when suddenly, the Minstrel, seeing the chair unoccupied, approached and took his seat in it, holding the drum between his knee and his elbow, and resting his forehead in his left hand. He slowly beat the drum, while a prolonged hissing demanded silence. It was a new song; every Saturday the Minstrel came with fresh verses in honor of the daughter of the house. The charm of wild and barbarous music, admired since childhood, compelled all to listen. The sacred emotion of poesy made these simple souls thrill in advance.
The poor consumptive began to sing, accompanying each verse with a final clucking which shook his chest and reddened his cheeks. Tonight, however, the Minstrel seemed to have more strength than usual; his eyes had an extraordinary brilliancy.
An outburst of laughter greeted the first verses, hailing the sarcastic cleverness of the rural poet.
Febrer did not understand much of it. When he heard this monotonous and neighing music, which seemed to recall the primitive songs scattered over the Mediterranean by the Semitic sailors, he took refuge within his thoughts to pass away the time, and to be less bored by the extraordinary length of the ballad.
The loud laughter of the young men attracted his attention as something which he vaguely comprehended as directed against himself with hostile intent. What was that angry lamb saying? The singer's voice, his rustic pronunciation, and the continual clucking with which he ended the verses, were scarcely intelligible to Jaime, but he gradually began to realize that the ballad was directed at young women who desired to abandon the field, to marry caballeros, and who longed to wear the same ornaments as city ladies. The singer described feminine fashions in extravagant terms, which made the peasants laugh.
The simple Pèp also laughed at these jests, which flattered both his rural pride and his masculine vanity, which was inclined to see in the female nothing but a sharer of his burdens. "True! True!" And he joined his laughter to that of the boys. What an amusing fellow was that Minstrel!
After a few verses the improvisatore no longer sang of young women in general, but of a particular one, ambitious and heartless. Febrer glanced instinctively at Margalida, who remained motionless, with lowered eyes, her cheeks colorless, as if frightened, not at what she had already heard, but at what was undoubtedly yet to come.
Jaime began to stir uneasily in his chair. The idea of that rustic annoying her like that! A louder and more insolent outburst of laughter again attracted his attention to the verses. The singer was making fun of the girl, who, in order to become a lady, wished to marry a poor ruined man possessed of neither home nor family; a foreigner, who had no lands to cultivate.