"Will you be my groomsman?" And Bihan replied,--
"Yes, yes; and I will give you a hundred crowns. And all that your
mother may ask of me she shall have. But hasten, hasten, dear friend, or
the waves will carry me off."
Sylvestre Ker's blood was pouring from the wound in his eye, and his
sight was dimmed; but he was generous of heart, and boldly leaped from
the top of the promontory. As he fell, his left leg was jammed against a
jutting rock and broke, so there he was, lame as well as one-eyed;
nevertheless, he dragged Bihan to the shore and asked,--
"When shall the wedding be?"
As Matheline hesitated in her answer--for Sylvestre's brave deeds were
too recent to be forgotten--Pol Bihan came to her assistance and gayly
cried,--
"You must wait, Sylvestre, my saviour, until your leg and eye are
healed."
"Still longer," added Matheline (and now Sylvestre Ker saw the two new
pearls, for in her laughter she opened her mouth from ear to ear);
"still longer, as limping, one-eyed men are not to my taste--no, no!"
"But," cried Sylvestre Ker, "it is for your sakes that I am one-eyed and
lame."
"That is true," said Bihan.
"That is true," also repeated Matheline, for she always spoke as he did.
"Ker, my friend Ker," resumed Bihan, "wait until to-morrow, and we will
make you happy."
And off they went, Matheline and he, arm-in-arm, leaving Sylvestre to go
hobbling along to the tower, alone with his sad thoughts.
Would you believe it? Trudging wearily home, he consoled himself by
thinking he had seen two new pearls behind the smile. You may, perhaps,
think you have never met such a fool. Undeceive yourself; it is the same
with all the men, who only look for laughing girls with teeth like
pearls. But the sorrowful one was Josserande, the widow, when she saw
her son with only one eye and one sound leg.
"Where did all this happen," she asked, with tears.
And as Sylvestre Ker gently answered, "I have seen them, mother; they
are very beautiful," Josserande divined that he spoke of her
god-daughter's two pearls, and cried,--
"By all that is holy, he has also lost his mind!"
Then seizing her staff, she went to the Abbey of Ruiz to consult St.
Gildas as to what could be done in this unfortunate case. And the wise
man replied,--
"You should not have spoken of the two pearls; your son would have
remained at home. But, now that the evil is done, nothing will happen to
him contrary to God's holy will. At high tide the sea comes foaming over
the sands, yet see how quietly it retires. What is Sylvestre Ker doing
now?"
"He is lighting his furnaces," replied Josserande.