Part 11 (1/2)

”Where is your father?”

”He, as well as my mother, are dead.”

”He surely was not of the Northman race?”

”No, although he was born in their country, and always went to battle with them. He was of the Gallic race--”

”In what year did your father's father go to live among the Northmans?”

”Towards the middle of the last century.”

”Was that not after a fresh and violent insurrection broke out in Brittany, when the Bretons, in order to make a head against the Franks, applied for aid from the Northmans, who happened to have their camp at the mouth of the Loire?”

”Yes,” answered Gaelo. ”But how come you to know all that? Who told you of it?”

”What were the circ.u.mstances that induced your grandfather to join the Northmans?”

”After the fresh insurrection of Armorica, which at first bade fair to succeed, dissensions broke out among the Breton chiefs. Even my grandfather's family was divided. In the course of a violent altercation with one of his brothers, the two drew their swords. Wounded in that fratricidal duel, my grandfather left Brittany forever, and embarked with a troop of Northmans who were just then setting sail at the mouth of the Loire to return to Denmark, where my father and myself were born.”

”Your grandfather's name was Ewrag,” Eidiol proceeded with increasing emotion; ”he was the son of Vortigern,[5] one of the most valiant companions-in-arms of Morvan, who heroically resisted the arms of Louis the Pious on the moor of Kennor, the marsh of Peulven and across the defiles of Armorica. Vortigern's grandfather was Amael, who lived to be more than a hundred years, declined to be the jailor of the last descendant of Clovis, and was one of the chiefs of the bands of Charles Martel, the ancestor of Charles the Great, whose descendant reigns to-day under the name of Charles the Simple.”

”Old man!” cried Gaelo, ”who could have informed you so accurately on the history of my family?”

”Your family is mine,” answered Eidiol, over whose eyes the film of a tear was gathering. ”I am a descendant of Joel, the brenn of the tribe of Karnak.[6] My grandfather was your grandfather's brother. That is our kins.h.i.+p.”

”What say you?” cried Gaelo. ”Are you really of Joel's stock, like myself? Are we of the same family?”

”These words, which your father traced on your arm as a sign of identification, are carried by me also, as well as by my son and my daughter, obedient to the recommendation of Ronan the Vagre,[7] one of our joint ancestors who lived in the days of Queen Brunhild.”

”We are relatives!” cried Anne and Guyrion in chorus, drawing near to Gaelo, while s.h.i.+gne and Rustic listened with redoubled interest to the conversation between the old skipper and Gaelo.

”We are relatives!” repeated Gaelo looking alternately from Eidiol to Anne and Guyrion, and turning to the warrior maid he proceeded: ”s.h.i.+gne, I am doubly grateful to you; the young girl so magnanimously saved by you happens to be my own relative.”

”She shall be like a sister to me,” answered the Buckler Maiden in her grave and sonorous voice. ”My sword will ever be ready in her defense.”

”And in default of your sword, fair heroine,” put in Rustic, ”my two arms joined to those of Master Eidiol and of my friend Guyrion will ever protect Anne the Sweet, although it unfortunately happened that all our three pairs of arms proved insufficient to defend the poor child from Rolf.”

”Good father,” Gaelo said to Eidiol, ”please tell me for what reason you left Brittany.”

”Your grandfather, Ewrag, had two brothers, like himself, the sons of Vortigern. When, on the occasion of the fatal dissension that you spoke of, Ewrag quitted Brittany to settle down in the country of the Northmans, his two brothers, Rosneven and Gomer, the latter of whom was my grandfather, continued to live at the cradle of our family, near the sacred stones of Karnak. Nominoe, Judicael, Allan Strong-Beard were successively elected the chiefs of Armorica. More than once during that time did the Franks invade and ravage our country, but they never were able to establish their conquest as firmly as they succeeded in doing in the other regions of Gaul. The druid influence long kept alive among our people an inveterate hatred for the foreigner. Unhappily, the perfidious counsels of the Christian priests, coupled with the example set by the Frankish seigneurs, who had gradually become by the right of conquest the hereditary masters of both the land and the peoples of Gaul, at last had their fatal effect upon the Breton chiefs themselves. Originally elected by the free suffrage of the people, as was the ancient Gallic custom, and chosen by reason of their bravery, wisdom and patriotism, these chiefs sought to render their office hereditary in their own families, in imitation of the seigneurs all over Gaul. The Christian priests joined the Breton chiefs in their iniquitous scheme, and ordered the people to submit to these new masters, as they had ordered them to submit to Clovis and his leudes. By little and little Brittany lost her old franchises. The chiefs, one time elective and temporary, now having become hereditary and autocratic with the a.s.sistance of the clergy, stripped the Breton people of almost all their rights. Nevertheless, until now they have not degraded them to the point of treating them as slaves or serfs. Of the two brothers of your grandfather, one, Gomer, my own grandfather, saw the gradual debas.e.m.e.nt of Brittany with grief and indignation. Gomer was a mariner. His home being in Vannes, like Albinik's,[8] one of our ancestors, he often made trips to England and also carried cargoes as far south as the mouths of the Somme and the Seine. On one occasion he ascended the river as far as Paris. His trade of mariner brought him in contact with the dean of the Skippers' Guild of Paris, who had a pretty and bright daughter. My grandfather married her. My father was born of that union. He also became a skipper. His life was spent amidst the ordinary trials of our people, good and evil successively alternating. I followed the same trade. My life has until now been as happy as it is possible to be in these disturbed times. Only two misfortunes have so far befallen me: the death of Martha, whom I lost yesterday, and, about thirty years ago, the disappearance of a daughter, the first born of all my children. Her name was Jeanike.”

”And how did she come to disappear?”

”My wife, being sick at the time, confided the child to one of our neighbors for a walk outside of the city. We never saw her again, neither her nor the neighbor.”

”Fortunately the children that are left to you must have alleviated your grief,” remarked Gaelo. ”But tell me, good father, did you ever have any tidings from the branch of our family that remained in Brittany?”

”I learned from a traveler that the tyranny of the Breton seigneurs rested ever heavier upon the people of Armorica, and that they are now wholly ridden by the priests.”