"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, nobody. 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 grass
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 grass 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 grass 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?"
"No, mother; they were lodged in jail at Vannes, all except two of their
soldiers whom the magistrates charged to declare to the Roman general
that no provisions whatever were to be furnished him, and that his
officers were to be as hostages."
"It would have been better to give the officers a thorough caning and
drive them in disgrace out of the town," replied Mamm' Margarid. "That
is the way thieves are treated, and these Romans tried to rob us."
"You are right, Margarid," said Joel; "they came to rob us--to starve
us! to carry away our harvests and our cattle!" And Joel, now in a
towering rage, added: "By the vengeance of Hesus! To think of their
taking our fine turn-out of six young oxen with skins slick as wolves!
Our four yokes of black bulls that have such a beautiful white star in
the center of their foreheads!"
"And our beautiful white heifers with yellow heads!" said Mamm' Margarid
shrugging her shoulders and never quitting her distaff, "our sheep whose
fleece is so nice and thick.... Come, a good caning for these Romans!"
"And the powerful horses of the stock of your magnificent stallion
Tom-Bras," put in the traveler. "They will, after all, have to draw your
harvest to Touraine, and will then serve to replace the worn-out horses
of the Roman cavalry.... True, to them, the labor will not be excessive
... because you will now probably discover that it is not far from
Touraine to Britanny."
"Well may you mock, friend," said Joel. "You were right, and I confess
myself to have been wrong. Oh! If only the provinces of Gaul had from
the start confederated themselves against the first assault of the
Romans! If united they had put forth but one-half the efforts that they
put forth separately--we would not now be exposed to the insolent
demands and to the threats of these heathens! Well may you mock!"
"No, Joel, I will mock no longer," gravely answered the traveler. "The
danger is near; the hostile camp lies only a twelve day's march from
here; the refusal of the magistrates of Vannes and the imprisonment of
the Roman officers--all that means speedy war--a merciless war, as only
the Romans know how to wage! If we are vanquished it means to us death
on the battle field, or slavery far away! The slave merchants follow the
tracks of the Roman army; they are greedy after prey. Whatever survives,
whether whole or wounded--men, young women, girls, children--all are
sold at auction like cattle for the benefit of the vanquisher, and are
forthwith consigned by the thousands to Italy or to Southern Gaul where
the Romans are settled! Arrived at their destination, the male slaves of
robust frame are often forced to fight ferocious animals in the circus
for the amusement of their masters; the young women and girls, even the
children are subjected to monstrous debaucheries. Such is war with the
Romans if vanquished!" cried the stranger. "Will you allow yourselves to
be vanquished? Will you submit to such disgrace? Will you deliver to
them your wives, your sisters, your daughters and children, ye Gauls of
Britanny?"
Hardly had the traveler uttered these words when the whole family of
Joel--men, women, young girls, children--all down to the dwarfy Stumpy,
rose to their feet and with their eyes shooting fire, their cheeks
inflamed, cried tumultuously, waving their arms:
"War! War! War!"
Joel's large battle mastiff, fired by these cries, rose on his hind legs
and laid his fore-paws on the breast of his master, who, while caressing
his enormous head said:
"Yes, old Deber-Trud, like our tribe you will hunt the Romans.... The
quarry shall be for you.... Your jaws shall be red with blood!... Wow!
Wow, Deber-Trud! At the Romans! At the Romans!"
Hearing the well-known war-cry, the mastiff responded with furious
barks, displaying fangs as redoubtable as a lion's. Hearing Deber-Trud,
the outside watch-dogs, as well as those locked up in the kennels,
answered him. Frightful was the war-cry raised by the pack.
"A good omen, friend Joel," observed the traveler. "Your dogs bark death
to the enemy."
"Yes, yes; death to the enemy!" cried the brenn. "Thanks be to the gods,
in our Breton Gaul, on the day of peril, the watch-dog becomes a
war-dog! the draw-horse becomes a war-horse! the ox of the field a
war-ox! the harvest carts chariots of war! the laborer a warrior! even
our peaceful and fruitful earth turns to war and devours the stranger!
at every step he finds a grave in our fathomless marshes, and his
vessels vanish in the whirlpools of our bays which are more terrible in
their calm than in the tempest of their fury!"
"Joel," now said Julyan, who had left the body of his friend, "I
promised Armel to meet him to-morrow yonder--Such a death would be
pleasant to me.... To die fighting the Romans is a duty.... What shall I
do?"
"Ask to-morrow one of the druids of Karnak."
"And our sister Hena," said Albinik the mariner to his mother. "It is
nearly a year I have not seen her.... She is surely still the pearl of
the Isle of Sen? My wife Meroe charged me to remember her to Hena."
"You will see her to-morrow," answered Mamm' Margarid; and laying down
her distaff she arose. It was the signal for the family to retire. Mamm'
Margarid looked around and said:
"Let us retire, my children; it is late; to-morrow at break of day we
must begin our war preparations;" and turning to the traveler:
"May the gods grant you a good rest and pleasant dreams!"