Part 6 (1/2)
”And must not the n.o.ble name bring good luck to my daughter!” added Guilhern tenderly kissing the blonde head of the child.
”That powerful and chaste story is worthy of the lips that told it,”
said the stranger. ”It also proves that the Romans, our implacable enemies, have not changed. Avaricious and debauched were they once--and are to-day. And seeing that we are speaking of the avaricious and debauched Romans and that you love stories,” he added with a bitter smile, ”you must know that I have been in Rome ... and that I saw ...
Julius Caesar ... the most famous of the Roman generals, as also the most avaricious and the most debauched man of all Italy. I would not venture to speak of his infamous acts of libertinage before women and young girls.”
”Oh! Did you see that famous Julius Caesar? What kind of a looking man is he?” asked Joel with great inquisitiveness.
The stranger looked at the brenn as if greatly surprised at the question, and answered with an effort to suppress his anger:
”Caesar is nearing old age; he is tall of stature; his face is lean and long; his complexion pale; his eyes black; his head bald. Seeing the man combines in his person all the vices of the worst women of the Romans, he is possessed, like them, of extraordinary personal vanity.
Accordingly, in order to conceal his baldness, he ever carries a chaplet of gold leaves on his head. Is your inquisitiveness satisfied, Joel?
Would you want more details about Caesar's infirmities? That he is subject to epileptic fits?... That--”
But the stranger did not finish his sentence. Letting his eyes wander over the a.s.sembled family of the brenn, he cried with towering rage:
”By the anger of Hesus! Can it be that all of you--as many as you are here capable of seizing the sabre and the sword but insatiable after idle stories--can it be you do not know that a Roman army, after having invaded under the command of Caesar one-half of our provinces, has taken winter quarters in the country of Orleans, of Touraine and of Anjou?”
”Yes, yes; we have heard about it,” calmly said Joel. ”People from Anjou, who came here to buy beef and pork, told us about it.”
”And it is with such unconcern that you speak of the Roman invasion of Gaul?” cried the traveler.
”Never have the Breton Gauls been invaded by strangers,” proudly answered the brenn of the tribe of Karnak. ”We shall remain spotless of the taint. We are independent of the Gauls of Piotou, of Touraine, of Orleans and of the other sections of the land, just as they are independent of us. They have not asked for our help. We are not so const.i.tuted as to offer ourselves to their chiefs and to fight under them. Let everyone guard his own honor and his own province. The Romans are in Touraine ... but it is a long way from Touraine to here.”
”So that if the pirates of the North were to kill your son Albinik the sailor and his brave wife Meroe, it would no wise concern you because the murder was committed far from here?”
”You are joking. My son is my son.... The Gauls of provinces other than mine are not my sons!”
”Are they not, like yourself, the sons of the same G.o.d, as the druid religion teaches you? If that is so, are not all the Gauls your brothers? And does not the subjugation, does not the blood of a brother cry for vengeance? Are you unconcerned because the enemy is not at the very gates of your own homestead? On that principle, the hand, even when it knows that the foot is gangrened, could say to itself: 'As to me, I am well, and the foot is far from the hand--I need not worry over the disease.' And the gangrene, not being stopped, rises from the foot to the other members, until the whole body perishes.”
”Unless the healthy hand take an axe,” said the brenn, ”and cut off the foot from which the evil proceeds.”
”And what becomes of the body that is thus mutilated, Joel?” put in Mamm' Margarid who all the while had been listening in silence. ”When the best regions of the country shall have been invaded by the stranger, what will then become of the rest of Gaul? Thus mutilated and dismembered, how will she defend herself against her enemies?”
”The worthy spouse of my host speaks wisely,” said the traveler respectfully to Mamm' Margarid; ”like all Gallic matrons she holds her place at the public council as well as at her hearth.”
”You speak truly,” rejoined Joel, ”Margarid has a brave heart and a wise head. Often her opinion is better than mine.... I gladly say so.... But this time I am right. Whatever may happen to the rest of Gaul, never will the Romans set foot in our old Britanny. There are her rocks, her marshes, her woods, her sand banks--above all her Bretons to defend her.”
At these words of her husband Mamm' Margarid shook her head disapprovingly; all the men of the family, however, loudly applauded their brenn's words.
CHAPTER VI.
THE STORY OF GAUL.
When the noisy and martial ardor, evoked by the boastful words of the brenn of the tribe of Karnak had subsided, the traveler was seen sitting in somber silence. He looked up and said:
”Very well, one more and last story, but let this one fall upon the hearts of you all like burning bra.s.s, seeing that the wise words of this household's matron have proved futile.”