HOW THE AWFUL WAR BETWEEN THE BUNMAKERS OF LERNE AND GARGANTUA'S
COUNTRY WAS BEGUN.
[Illustration: Initial W.]
While Gargantua, studying day after day, was finding out that the tasks
he had at first thought to be so hard were so easy that they became
more a pastime than anything else, and while he was growing to be a
skilful soldier and a most learned gentleman, his old father, King
Grandgousier, without his knowing it, had got into a terrible muss with
certain Bunmakers of Lerne.
This is how it happened.
It was vintage-time, when the great purple grapes, bursting with their
ripeness, were to be gathered, and when the Shepherds of Grandgousier's
kingdom used to watch the vines like hawks to prevent the starlings
from pecking at the juicy clusters. This vintage-time always made
business for the Bunmakers of Lerne. Even when in the best of humor,
however, they were always a peppery-touch-me-if-you-dare sort of
fellows. They brought their buns to market along the great highway,
in ten or eleven big carts, which filled the air around them with the
sweetest odors. Of course, trudging along through the white dust of the
road, they were sure to meet King Grandgousier's Shepherds watching
their vines, who always made it a rule to step out politely to the edge
of the highway, hats in hand, to beg the Bunmakers to give them some of
their fine, smoking buns in exchange for their money.
I dare say the Shepherds knew what they were doing. Never were there
such buns as the Bunmakers of Lerne had the fame, all around that
region, of making. Taken at breakfast with ripe grapes they were a dish
fit for a King's table!
By ill luck, this year above all other years, the Bunmakers chose to
show how hot and peppery they could be. Being asked by the Shepherds
in the usual polite way to sell their buns, they not only refused
outright, but they began to call the honest Shepherds all the bad names
they could think of. There was one Shepherd named Forgier,--a good man,
and a gay one besides,--who, stepping forward, said in a mild voice to
the Bunmakers:--
[Illustration: THE BUNMAKERS OF LERNE.]
"Friends, this is not acting like neighbors. Haven't you always come by
the highway? Haven't you always found us ready to give you good silver
and copper for your buns? And haven't you always had from us in return
our fine cheeses, which give their richness to your buns?"
It is an old saying that oil will make troubled waters still. But old
sayings are not always true. This particular saying proved false, for,
when the Bunmakers received Forgier's oil, it only set _their_ water
on fire. "Come here, sirrah!" shouted Marquet, the chief Bunmaker, to
Forgier, "and _I_ will give you your buns."
Forgier, being a very worthy, unsuspecting fellow, came near with his
money in his hand, like an honest man, thinking all the time that
Marquet really would let him have the buns, in spite of his rough voice
and sneering tones. What did Marquet do but, with his long whip, cut
the good Forgier about his body and legs so as to make him dance more
nimbly than he had ever danced before! After that, Marquet got a little
frightened and wanted to slip away; but Forgier, while he was bawling
for everybody to come to his rescue, took from under his arm a big
cudgel, with which he hit the bad Bunmaker such a blow on his head as
to make him fall from his horse more like a dead man than a living one.
But this was not the end. The good Shepherds, hearing Forgier's cries
for help, rushed from their grape-vines to the white, dusty road,
holding their poles in their hands ready to avenge their comrade. The
Bunmakers, peppery as they might be, were just then trying to get off
as fast as their horses could carry their carts away; but they were not
fast enough to prevent the Shepherds from taking from them four or five
dozen delicious buns, for which they offered, like honest men, to pay
the usual price. But the Bunmakers were in too great a hurry for that.
They laughed angrily at all these offers, and bore Marquet's body, in a
dead faint, away with them.
And this was how the great and bloody war between the Bunmakers of
Lerne and Gargantua's country began.
The first thing the Bunmakers did, on getting safe home at Lerne, even
before taking a bit of food or a sup of wine, was to hasten to the
palace, where, bowing low before their King Picrochole, they spread out
their broken baskets, torn robes, crushed buns, and, at last, with a
grand flourish, displayed Marquet himself all covered with dry blood,
and groaning dreadfully.
"Who has dared do this?" shouted King Picrochole, getting very red in
the face.
[Illustration: THE ANGER OF PICROCHOLE.]
"The Shepherds and vine-watchers of that old Giant Grandgousier, may it
please Your Majesty," answered the Bunmakers.
"Oh! oh! oh!" roared Picrochole furiously.
Without asking for further information or a single proof, Picrochole
ordered the drum to be beat around his city, commanding everybody,
under pain of the halter, to appear at broad noon in the great
square. Then he went to dinner. While he was dining, he gave out his
commissions to his officers in the army, which, when gathered together,
was found to consist of sixteen thousand and fourteen bowmen, and
thirty thousand and eleven infantry. To the great Equerry Touquedillon
was given the command of the artillery, which, when mustered, numbered
nine hundred and fourteen great brass cannon, culverins, catapults, and
other pieces of artillery.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN SWILLWIND'S CAVALRY.]
When the army was all got together, a troop of Light Cavalry, three
hundred strong, under Captain Swillwind, was sent forward to scour the
country of the enemy, and find out what ambuscades had been laid; but
they could find none. Grandgousier's Shepherds were still peacefully
watching their grape-vines, and looking out only for the bad starlings.
When the report was made that the land was clear, Picrochole, all of
a sudden bold, ordered a quick advance, each company marching under
its own captain. Without any order or discipline, the army swept over
King Grandgousier's fields, meeting no opposition; laying them waste;
sparing neither rich nor poor; respecting no holy place; carrying away
the bellowing oxen, mooing cows, roaring bulls, crying calves, bleating
lambs, ewes, rams, goats, cackling hens, crowing cocks, piping chicks,
goslings, ganders, geese, grunting swine, and suckling pigs; beating
down the ripe walnuts; tearing up the vines, and pulling all the fruit
from the trees. Now and then, a frightened Shepherd would crawl from
his hiding-place and beg for mercy, on the ground that he and the
Bunmakers had always been the best neighbors together, and that it
would be a shame to treat him like a foe. All the Bunmakers did was to
laugh at so mean-spirited a fellow, while shouting that they were bound
to teach him how to eat their buns. So, like a great wave of blood,
they rolled on till they reached Seuilly. Then the mighty army, after
sacking the town, rushed, shouting like madmen, to the very walls of
the great and venerable Abbey of Seuilly, which they found very thick,
and strengthened by a huge gate made fast against them. The main body
marched away towards the Ford of Vede, leaving seven bodies of infantry
with their standards, and two hundred lancers, to break down the wall,
which they did very soon, with fierce cries of "Let us spoil the monks!"
[Illustration: SPOILING THE MONKS.]
Of course, the poor monks were not fighting men. And when they found
their convent walls broken through and their fields at the mercy of the
Bunmakers, all they could think of doing was to go to their Chapel,
from which they intended to come forth in a solemn procession to
entreat the wicked men to leave them alone. While the monks, headed by
their Prior himself, were singing psalms and getting ready to leave
the Chapel, in rushed a young monk, with flaming eyes, who had seen
what was going on in the vineyard.
"That's very well sung, brethren!" he shouted; "very well sung, indeed!
But why don't you sing, 'Good-by, basket, the vintage is over'? Don't
you know that those fellows are breaking down our vines, and that we
shall have no good wine this year?"
Now this young monk, who was called Friar John, was, I am afraid,
looked upon by his pious brethren as rather a black sheep. He was tall,
straight as an arrow, strong as a bull, a little quick of speech,
skilful in all games, and as brave as a lion. So, when he looked in
upon the singing monks, and found them ready to give up everything,
off came his frock, and catching up a great staff near by, which was
as long as a lance and as big around as the fist, he rushed out and
fell upon the enemy, who were thinking of everything save the praying
monks in the Abbey. The flag-bearers had piled their flags all along
the walls to work the better, the drummers had opened one end of their
drums and stuffed them with grapes, and the very trumpets were running
over with juice.
[Illustration: FRIAR JOHN ATTACKS THE BUNMAKERS.]
Then it was that Friar John--holding his staff high in the air--swept
down upon the scattered Bunmakers like a hurricane! It was "first come,
first served" with Friar John. The first thwack crashed through the
crown of a big-headed bun-man, and brought him down. Then the staff,
with just a little blood on it now, went spinning around to the right
and left--up and down, first on one, then another--in fact, everywhere.
It broke the legs of this one, the arms of that one, and the neck of
still another. It gouged the eyes, drove teeth down throats, smashed
in ribs, and made jaws crack. If any one wanted to hide between the
thick vines, Friar John was sure to spy him out and bring him to the
ground with a broken back. If any one wanted to run away, the terrible
staff would reach him, and he would fall, shouting: "I surrender!" When
the slaughter had gone on for some time, Friar John stopped, and for
good reason; for, looking around him, he could no longer see a single
Bunmaker standing on his feet, and he was only giving wild blows in the
air. Then he rested, and it was found that he had, with his single
arm, killed the whole army which had remained behind in the vineyards
of the convent, numbering thirteen thousand six hundred and twenty-two
men. But Friar John had struck down some other things besides the army,
and these were the purple vines loaded with the rich and juicy grapes,
which made the delicious convent wine famous throughout all the land.
After all, the rascal Bunmakers _had_ spoiled the vintage!
[Illustration: FRIAR JOHN TO THE RESCUE.]