The Gold Sickle Part 2

These several structures formed an oblong square that surrounded a large yard, closed up at night with a ma.s.sive gate. On the outside, a strong palisade, raised on the brow of a deep ditch, enclosed the system of buildings, leaving between it and them an alley about four feet wide.

Two large and ferocious war mastiffs were let loose during the night in the vacant s.p.a.ce. The palisade had an exterior door that corresponded with an interior one. All were locked at night.

The number of men, women and children--all more or less near relatives of Joel--who cultivated fields in common with him, was considerable.

These lodged in the houses attached to the princ.i.p.al building, where they met at noon and in the evening to take their joint meals.

Other homesteads, similarly constructed and occupied by numerous families who cultivated lands in common, lay scattered here and there over the landscape and composed the _ligniez_, or tribe of Karnak, of which Joel was chosen chief.

Upon his entrance in the yard of his homestead, Joel was received with the caresses of his old war dog Deber-Trud, an animal of an iron grey color streaked with black, an enormous head, blood-shot eyes, and of such a high stature that in standing up to caress his master he placed his front paws upon Joel's shoulders. He was a dog of such boldness that he once fought a monstrous bear of the mountains of Arres, and killed him. As to his war qualities, Deber-Trud would have been worthy of figuring with the war pack of Bithert, the Gallic chieftain who at sight of a small hostile troop said disdainfully: "They are not enough for a meal for my dogs."

As Deber-Trud looked over and smelled the traveler with a doubtful air, Joel said to the animal: "Do you not see he is a guest whom I bring home?"

As if he understood the words, Deber-Trud ceased showing any uneasiness about the stranger, and gamboled clumsily ahead of his master into the house. The house was part.i.tioned into three sections of unequal size.

The two smaller ones, separated from each other and from the main hall by oaken panels, were destined, one for Joel and his wife, the other for Hena, their daughter, when she came to visit the family. The vast hall between the two served as a dining-room, and in it were performed the noon and evening in-door labors.

When the stranger entered the hall, a large fire of beech wood, enlivened with dry brush wood and seaweed burned in the hearth, and with its brilliancy rendered superfluous the light of a handsome lamp of burnished copper that hung from three chains of the same metal. The lamp was a present from Mikael the armorer.

Two whole sheep, impaled in long iron spits broiled before the hearth, while salmon and other sea fish boiled in a large pewter pot filled with water, seasoned with vinegar, salt and caraway.

The panels were ornamented with heads of wolves, boars, cerfs and of two wild bulls called _urok_, an animal that began to be rare in the region; beside them hung hunting weapons, such as bows, arrows and slings, and weapons of war, such as the _sparr_ and the _matag_, axes, sabres of copper, bucklers of wood covered with the tough skin of seals, and long lances with iron heads, sharpened and barbed and provided with little bra.s.s bells, intended to notify the enemy from afar that the Gallic warrior approached, seeing that the latter disdains ambuscades, and loves to fight in the open. There were also fis.h.i.+ng nets and harpoons to harpoon the salmon in the shallows when the tide goes out.

To the right of the main door stood a kind of altar, consisting of a block of granite, surmounted and covered by large oak branches freshly cut. A little copper bowl lay on the stone in which seven twigs of mistletoe stood. From above, on the wall, the following inscription looked down:

Abundance and Heaven Are for the Just and the Pure.

He is Pure and Holy Who Performs Celestial Works and Pure.

When Joel stepped into the house, he approached the copper basin in which stood the seven branches of mistletoe and reverently put his lips to each. His guest followed his example, and then both walked towards the hearth.

At the hearth was Mamm' Margarid, Joel's wife, with a distaff. She was tall of stature, and wore a short, sleeveless tunic of brown wool over a long robe of grey with narrow sleeves, both tunic and robe being fastened around her waist with her ap.r.o.n string. A white cap, cut square, left exposed her grey hair, that parted over her forehead. Like many other women of her kin, she wore a coral necklace round her neck, bracelets inwrought with garnets and other trinkets of gold and silver fas.h.i.+oned at Autun.

Around Mamm' Margarid played the children of Guilhern and several other of her kin, while their young mothers busied themselves preparing supper.

"Margarid," said Joel to his wife, "I bring a guest to you."

"He is welcome," answered the woman without stopping to spin. "The G.o.ds send us a guest, our hearth is his own. The eve of my daughter's birth is propitious."

"May your children when they travel, be received as I am by you,"

answered the stranger respectfully.

"But you do not yet know what kind of a guest the G.o.ds have sent us, Margarid," rejoined Joel; "such a guest as one would request of Ogmi for the long autumn and winter nights; a guest who in the course of his travels has seen so many curious things and wonderful that a hundred evenings would not be too many to listen to his marvelous stories."

Hardly had Joel p.r.o.nounced these words when, from Mamm' Margarid and the young mothers down to the little boys and girls, all looked at the stranger with the greed of curiosity, expectant of the marvelous stories he was to tell.

"Are we to have supper soon, Margarid?" asked Joel. "Our guest is probably as hungry as myself; I am hungry as a wolf."

"The folk have just gone out to fill the racks of the cattle," answered Margarid; "they will be back shortly. If our guest is willing we shall be pleased of his company at supper."

"I thank the wife of Joel, and shall wait," said the unknown.

"And while waiting," remarked Joel, "you can tell us a story--"

But the traveler interrupted his host and said smiling:

"Friend, as one cup serves for all, so does the same story serve for all.... The cup will shortly circulate from lip to lip, and the story from ear to ear.... But now tell me, what is that bra.s.s belt for that I see hanging yonder?"

"Have you not also in your country the belt of agility?"

"Explain yourself, Joel."

"Here, with us, at every new moon, the lads of each tribe come to the chief and try on the belt, in order to prove that their girth has not broadened with self-indulgence, and that they have preserved themselves agile and nimble. Those who cannot hitch the belt around themselves, are hissed, are pointed at with derision, and must pay a fine. Accordingly, all see to their stomachs lest they come to look like a leathern bottle on two skittles."

"A good custom. I regret it fell into disuse in my province. And what is the purpose of that big old trunk? It is of precious wood and seems to have seen many years."

"Very many. That is the family trunk of triumph," answered Joel opening the trunk, in which the stranger saw many whitened skulls. One of them, sawn in two, was mounted on a bra.s.s foot like a cup.

"These are, no doubt, the heads of enemies who have been killed by your fathers, friend Joel? With us this sort of family charnel houses has long been abandoned."

"With us also. I preserve these heads only out of respect for my ancestors. Since more than two hundred years, the prisoners of war are no longer mutilated. The habit existed in the days of the kings whom Ritha-Gaur shaved of their hair, as you mentioned before, to make himself a blouse out of their beards. Those were gay days of barbarism, were those days of royalty. I heard my grandfather Kirio say that even as late as in the days of his father, Tiras, the men who went to war returned to their tribes carrying the heads of their enemies stuck to the points of their lances, or trailed by the hair from the breast-plates of their horses. They were then nailed to the doors of the houses for trophies, just as you see yonder on the wall the heads of wild animals."

"With us, in olden days, friend Joel, these trophies were also preserved, but preserved in cedar oil when they were the heads of a hostile chieftain."

"By Hesus! Cedar oil!... What magnificence!" exclaimed Joel smiling.

"That is the way our wives reason: 'for good fish, good sauce.'"

"These relics were with us, as with you, the book from which the young Gaul learned of the exploits of his fathers. Often did the families of the vanquished offer to ransom these spoils; but to relinquish for money a head conquered by oneself or an ancestor was looked upon as an unpardonable crime of avarice and impiousness. I say with you, those barbarous customs pa.s.sed away with royalty, and with them the days when our ancestors painted their bodies blue and scarlet, and dyed their hair and beard with lime water to impart to them a copper-red hue."

"Without wronging their memory, friend guest, our ancestors must have been unpleasant beings to look upon, and must have resembled the frightful red and blue dragons that ornament the prows of the vessels of those savage pirates of the North that my son Albinik the sailor and his lovely wife Meroe have told us some curious tales about. But here are our men back from the stables; we shall not have to wait much longer for supper. I see Margarid unspitting the lambs. You shall taste them, friend, and see what a fine taste the salt meadows on which they browse impart to their flesh."

All the men of the family of Joel who entered the hall wore, like him, a sleeveless blouse of coa.r.s.e wool, through which the sleeves of their jackets or white s.h.i.+rts were pa.s.sed. Their breeches reached down to their ankles; and they were shod with low slippers. Several of these laborers, just in from the fields, wore over their shoulders a cloak of sheep-skin, which they immediately took off. All wore woolen caps, long hair cut round, and bushy beards. The last two to enter held each other by the arm; they were especially handsome and robust.

"Friend Joel," inquired the stranger, "who are those two young fellows?

The statues of the heathen G.o.d Mars are not better shaped, nor have so valiant an aspect."

"They are two relatives of mine; two cousins, Julyan and Armel. They love each other like brothers.... Quite recently an enraged bull rushed at Armel and Julyan saved Armel at the peril of his own life. Thanks to Hesus we are not now in times of war. But should it be necessary to take up arms, Julyan and Armel have taken 'the pledge of brotherhood'.... But supper is ready.... Come, yours is the seat of honor."

Joel and the unknown guest drew near the table. It was round and raised somewhat above the floor which was covered with fresh straw. All around the table were seats bolstered with fragrant gra.s.s. The two broiled muttons, now quartered, were served up in large platters of beechwood, white as ivory. There were also large pieces of salted pork and a smoked ham of wild boar. The fish remained in the large pot that they had been boiled in.

At the place where Joel, the head of the family, took his seat, stood a huge cup of plated copper that even two men could not have drained. It was before that cup, which marked the place of honor, that the stranger was placed with Joel at his left and Mamm' Margarid at his right.

The old men, the young girls and the children then ranked themselves around the table. The grown up and the young men sat down behind these in a second row, from which they rose from time to time to perform some service, or, every time that, pa.s.sing from hand to hand, beginning with the stranger, the large cup was empty, to fill it from a barrel of hydromel, that was placed at a corner of the hall. Furnished with a piece of barley or wheat bread, everyone received or took a slice of broiled or salted meat, which he cut up with his knife, or into which he bit freely without the help of knife.

The old war-dog Deber-Trud, enjoying the privileges of his age and long years of service, lay at the feet of Joel, who did not forget his faithful servitor.

Towards the end of the meal, Joel having carved the wild boar ham, detached the hoof, and following an ancient custom, said to his young relative Armel, handing it to him:

"To you, Armel, belongs the bravest part! To you, the vanquisher in last evening's fight!"

At the moment when, proud of being p.r.o.nounced the bravest in the presence of the stranger, Armel was stretching out his hand to take the wild boar's hoof that Joel presented to him, an exceptionally short man in the family, nicknamed "Stumpy" by reason of his small stature, observed aloud:

"Armel won in yesterday's fight because he was not fighting with Julyan.