The Gold Sickle Part 7

CHAPTER VII.

"WAR! WAR! WAR!"

A furious barking of dogs in the yard and a distinct noise of hard rapping at the gate of the palisade interrupted the stranger's narrative. Still laboring under the painful impression of the traveler's words, the family of the brenn for a moment imagined their homestead was being attacked. The women rose precipitately, the little ones rushed to their mothers' arms, the men ran for their arms that hung from the walls. But the dogs soon ceased barking, although the rapping at the gate continued unabated. Joel said to his family:

"Although they are still rapping, the dogs do not bark. They must know who is at the gate."

Saying this, the brenn stepped out. Several of his kinsmen, the stranger included, followed him out of prudence. The yard gate was opened and two voices were heard outside the palisades crying:

"It is we, friends, ... Albinik and Mikael."

Indeed the two sons of the brenn were distinguished by the light of the torches, and behind them their horses, panting for breath and white with foam. After tenderly embracing his sons, especially the mariner, who was absent over a year on his sea journeys, Joel entered the house with them, where they were received with joy and not a little surprise by their mother and other relatives.

Albinik the mariner and Mikael the armorer were, like their father and their brother, men of large and robust stature. Over their clothes they carried a caped cloak of heavy woolen fabric streaming with the rain.

Upon entering the house, and even before embracing their mother, the new arrivals stepped to the altar and approached their lips to the seven small twigs of mistletoe that stood dipped in the copper bowl on the large stone. They there noticed a lifeless body covered with oak branches, near which Julyan still sat.

"Good evening, Julyan," said Mikael. "Who is dead?"

"It is Armel; I killed him this evening in a sword contest," answered Julyan; "but as we have both pledged brotherhood to each other, I shall join him to-morrow beyond. If you wish it I shall mention you to him."

"Yes, yes. Julyan; I loved Armel and expected to find him alive. In the bag on my horse I have a little harpoon head of iron that I forged for him; I shall place it to-morrow on the pyre of you two--"

"And you must tell Armel," added the mariner smiling, "that he went away too soon; his friends Albinik and Meroe would have told him their last experience at sea."

"It is Armel and myself," replied Julyan with a smile, "who will later have pretty stories to tell you. Your sea trips will be like nothing to the travels that await us in those marvelous worlds that none has seen and all will see."

After Margarid's two sons had answered the tender inquiries of their mother and family, the brenn said to the unknown traveler:

"Friend, these are my two sons."

"May it please heaven that the suddenness of their arrival may not be caused by some evil event," answered the traveler.

"I say so, too, my children," rejoined Joel. "What has happened that you come at so late an hour and in such hurry? Happy be your return, Albinik, but I did not expect it so soon. But where is the gentle Meroe?"

"I left her at Vannes, father. This is what has happened. I returned from Spain by the gulf of Gascony on the way to England. The bad weather forced us to put in at Vannes. But by Teutates, who presides over all journeys by land and sea, here on earth and beyond, I did not expect--no, I did not expect to see what I saw in that town. I, therefore, left my vessel in port in charge of my sailors with my wife as their chief, I took a horse and galloped to Auray. There I gave the news to Mikael, and we hastened hither to forewarn you, father."

"And what is it you saw at Vannes?"

"What did I see? All the inhabitants, in revolt, full of indignation and rage, like the brave Bretons that they are!"

"And what is the reason of it all, children?" asked Mamm' Margarid without leaving her distaff.

"Four Roman officers, without any other escort than four soldiers and as calmly insolent as if they were in some enslaved country, came in yesterday and commanded the magistrates of the town to issue orders to all the neighboring tribes to send to Vannes ten thousand bags of wheat--"

"And what else?" asked Joel laughing and shrugging his shoulders.

"Five thousand bags of oats."

"And what else?"

"Five hundred barrels of hydromel."

"Of course," said the brenn laughing louder, "they must also drink--and what else?"

"A thousand heads of beef."

"And, of course, the fattest--What else?"

"Five thousand sheep."

"That's right. One soon gets tired of beef only. Is that all, my boy?"

"They also demanded three hundred horses to furnish new equipages to the Roman cavalry, besides two hundred wagons of forage."

"And why not? The poor horses must be fed," continued Joel sneeringly.

"But there must be some more orders. If they begin to issue orders, why stop at all?"

"The provisions were to be taken in wagons as far as Poitou and Touraine."

"And what is the wide maw that is to swallow up those bags of wheat, those muttons, those heads of beef and those barrels of hydromel?"

"Above all," added the traveler, "who is to pay for all those provisions?"

"Pay for them!" replied Albinik. "Why, n.o.body. It is a forced impost."

"Ha! Ha!" laughed Joel.

"And the wide maw that is to gulp up the provisions is none other than the Roman army, which is wintering in Touraine and Anjou."

A shudder of rage mixed with disdain ran through the family of the brenn. "Well, Joel," the unknown traveler remarked, "do you still think that it is a long way from Touraine to Britanny? The distance does not seem to me long, seeing that the officers of Caesar come calmly and without escort, empty-pursed and swinging high their canes, to provision their army here."

Joel no longer laughed; he dropped his head and remained silent.

"Our guest is right," put in Albinik; "these Romans came empty-pursed and swinging high their canes. One of them even raised his cane over old Ronan, the oldest magistrate of Vannes, who, like you, father, objected strongly to the Roman exaction."

"And yet, children, what else can we do but laugh at these demands. To levy these provisionings upon us and the neighboring tribes of Vannes; to force us to carry the requisitions to Touraine and Anjou with our oxen and horses which the Romans will surely keep also, and all that at the very season of the late sowing and of our autumn labors; to ruin next year's harvest;--why, that is to reduce us to living upon the gra.s.s that would have fed the cattle that they rob us of!"

"Yes," said Mikael the armorer; "they want to take away our wheat and our cattle, and leave the gra.s.s to us. By the iron of the lance that I was forging this very morning, it shall be the Romans who, under our blows, will bite the gra.s.s on our fields!"

"Vannes is now preparing to defend herself if attacked," added the mariner. "They have begun to throw up trenches in the neighborhood of the port. All our sailors are to be armed, and if the Roman galleys attack us by sea, never will the sea crows have had a like feast of corpses upon our beach."

"While crossing to-night the other tribes," resumed Mikael, "we spread the news and sounded the alarm. The magistrates of Vannes have also sent out messengers in all direction ordering that fires be lighted from hill to hill, and thereby give immediate notice of the imminent danger from one end of Britanny to the other."

Without once dropping her distaff, Mamm' Margarid had listened to the report given by her sons. When they stopped speaking she calmly said:

"As to those Roman officers, my sons, were they not sent back to their army--after a thorough caning?"