The Poniard's Hilt; Or, Karadeucq and Ronan. A Tale of Bagauders and Vagres

"What is the reason of such emotion?"

"A family remembrance – if a Vagre, a 'Wand'ring Man,' a 'Wolf,' a 'Wolf's-Head' can be at all said to have a family – "

"And what is that family remembrance?"

"The sweet Hena, to whom the chant refers, was one of my ancestresses."

"How do you know that?"

"My father often told me so; in my childhood he used to relate to me the histories of olden days, of centuries ago."

"Where is your father now?"

"I do not know. He used to run the Bagaudy, perhaps he now runs the Vagrery, unless he has died the brave death of a brave man. I do not expect to be enlightened upon that until he and I meet again elsewhere – "

"Where?"

"In those mysterious worlds that none knows and that we shall all know – seeing that we shall all continue to live there – "

"You have, then, preserved the faith of our ancestors?"

"My father taught me that to die was to change vestments, because we leave this world to be re-born in yonder ones. Death is but a transformation."

"Is it long since you were separated from your father?"

"Let us drop that subject – it is a sad one. I prefer to keep up a cheerful mood. And yet, I feel drawn towards you, although you are not cheerful – "

"We live in days when, in order to be cheerful, one's soul must be either very weak or very strong."

"Do you think me weak?"

"I think you are both strong and weak. But as to your father – what has become of him?"

"Well, my father was a Bagauder in his youth; later, after the Franks christened us 'Vagres,' he became a Vagre. The name was changed, the pursuit remained the same."

"And your mother?"

"In Vagrery one knows but little of his mother. I never knew mine. The furthest back that I can carry my memory, I must have been seven or eight years old. I then accompanied my father in his raids, now in Provence, and now here in Auvergne. If I was tired of foot, either my father or one of his companions carried me on his back. It is thus that I grew up. We often had days of enforced rest. Sometimes the Frankish counts were so exasperated at us that they gathered their leudes and hunted us. Informed of their movements by the poor folks of the fields who loved us dearly, we would then retire to our inaccessible fastnesses, and there lie low for several days while the Franks beat the field without encountering even the shadow of a Vagre. At such intervals of rest in the seclusion of some solitary retreat, my father used to narrate to me, as I told you, the histories of olden days. Thus I learned that our family originated in Britanny, where the main stock lived and perhaps still lives to this very hour, free and in peace, seeing that the Franks have never yet been able to place their yoke upon that rugged province – its granite rocks are too hard, and its Bretons are like the granite of its rocks."

"I know the saying: 'He is intractable as an Armorican.' "

"My father often used the saying."

"But what induced him to leave that peaceful province, that still enjoys the boon of freedom, thanks to the indomitable bravery that continues to uphold the druid faith, which the evangelical morality of the young master of Nazareth has regenerated?"

"My father was about seventeen years of age when one day his family extended hospitality to a peddler during a stormy night. The peddler's trade took him all over Gaul; he knew and he told them of the country's trials; he also spoke of the life of adventure led by the Bagauders. My father was tired of the life of the fields; his heart was warm, and from his cradle he had drunk in the hatred for the Franks. Struck by the peddler's account, he considered the opportunity good for waging war upon the barbarians by joining the Bagauders. He left the paternal roof and joined the peddler by appointment about a league away. After a few days' march the two reached Anjou and met a troop of Bagauders. Young, robust and daring, my father was an acceptable recruit. He joined the band, and – long live the Bagaudy! Raiding from province to province, he came as far as Auvergne, which he never left. The country was favorable for his pursuit – forests, mountains, rocks, caverns, torrents, extinct volcanos! It is the paradise of the Bagaudy, the promised land of the Vagrery!"

"How came you to be separated from your father?"

"It was about three years ago – agents of the king, they were called antrustions, collected the revenues of the royal domain. They were numerous, well armed, and traveled only by day. We were waiting for the end of their reaping to gather in our harvest. One night they halted at Sifour, a little unprotected village. The opportunity tempted my father. We sallied forth believing that we would take the Franks by surprise. They were on their guard. After a bloody encounter we had to flee before the Frankish lances that followed us in hot pursuit. I was separated from my father during that midnight affray. Was he killed or was he merely wounded and taken prisoner I do not know. All my efforts to ascertain his fate have been vain. Since then my companions elected me their chief. You wanted to know my history – I have told it to you. You now know it."

"You have told me more than you think for. Your father's name was Karadeucq."

"How do you know that?"

"The name of your father's father was Jocelyn. If he still lives in Britanny with his elder son Kervan and his daughter Roselyk, he must be inhabiting a house near the sacred stones of Karnak – "

"Who told you – "

"One of your ancestors was named Joel; he was the brenn of the tribe of Karnak. Hena, the saint sung about in the druid chant, was the daughter of Joel, whose family traces its origin back to the Gallic brenn, whom the Romans called Brennus, and who, nearly eight hundred years ago, made them pay ransom for Rome."

"Who are you that you know the history of my family so accurately?"

"That chant of the slaves in revolt against the Romans – 'Flow, flow, thou blood of the captive! Drop, drop, thou dew of gore!' – was sung by one of your ancestors named Sylvest, who was cast to the wild beasts in the circus of Orange. And I imagine that your father taught you another thrilling chant, one sung two hundred and odd years ago, on the occasion of one of the great battles fought on the Rhine against the Franks, and won by Victorin, the son of Victoria, the Mother of the Camps – "

"You are right – often did my father sing that chant to me. It began this wise:

" 'This morning we said: How many are there of these barbarous hordes? How many are there of these Franks?' "

"And it closed this wise," replied the monk:

" 'This evening we say: How many were there of these barbarous hordes? This evening we say: How many were there of these Franks?' "

"Schanvoch, another of your ancestors, a brave soldier and foster-brother of Victoria the Great, sang that song – "

"Yes, Gaul, on that day proud, free and triumphant, had just driven the barbarians from both banks of the Rhine, while, to-day – but let us drop that topic, monk; if those days were glorious, the present ones seem to me all the more horrible. Oh! blameworthy was the credulity of our fathers, martyrs to this new religion – "

"Our fathers could not choose but place faith in the words of the first apostles, who preached to them love for their fellow men, the pardon of sins, the deliverance of the slaves, in the name of the young master of Nazareth, whom your ancestress Genevieve saw crucified in Jerusalem – "

"My ancestress Genevieve? You seem to be informed on every particular detail concerning my family. Only my father could have instructed you on such matters – you must have known him! Answer me!"

"Yes, I knew your father. Did you never notice, after you entered the heart of Auvergne, that from time to time your father absented himself for several days?"

"Yes, he did – I never knew the reason."

"Your father, each such time, went to visit a poor female slave near Tulle. She was bound to the glebe of the bishop of that city. That female slave, it is now at least thirty years ago, one day found your father Karadeucq, who was then the chief of the Bagauders, wounded and in a dying condition in a hedge along the road. She took pity upon him; she helped him to drag himself to the hut which she inhabited with her mother. Your father was then about twenty years of age – the young female slave was of about the age of that child who is asleep near us. The two loved each other. Shortly after he was well again, your father was one day discovered in the slave's hut by the bishop's superintendent. The man considered Karadeucq a good prize and sought to take him as a slave to Tulle. Your father resisted, beat the agent, and fled and rejoined the Bagauders. The young slave became a mother – she gave birth to a son – "

"I then have a brother!"

"The son of a female slave is born a slave and belongs to his mother's master. When the boy, whom your father named Loysik in remembrance of his Breton extraction, was four or five years old, the bishop of Tulle, who had noticed in the child certain precocious qualities, had him taken to the episcopal college, where he was brought up with several other young slaves who were all to become clerks of the Church. From time to time Karadeucq went at night to visit the mother of his son at Tulle. The boy being always notified in advance by his mother, always found some means of repairing to his mother's hut on such occasions. There the father and the son held long conversations concerning the men and things of the olden days of Gaul when the country was glorious and free. Your father preserved as a family tradition an ardent and sacred love for Gaul. He strove to cause his son's heart to beat proudly at the grand recollections of the past, to exasperate him against the Franks, and some day to take him along to run the Vagrery with him. But Loysik, who was of a quiet and rather retiring disposition, feared such an adventurous life. Years passed. Had your brother so desired, he could have won honors and riches, as so many others did, by consecrating himself to the Church. But shortly before being ordained a priest, he had the opportunity of gaining so close a view of the clerical hypocrisy, cupidity and profligacy, that he declined to enter priesthood and he cursed the sacrilegious alliance of the Gallic clergy with the conquerors. He left the episcopal house and went to the frontier of Provence, where he joined the hermit-laborers. He was previously acquainted with one of their set, who had stopped for several weeks at the episcopal alms-house for his cure."

"Did the hermit-laborers establish a colony?"

"Several of them gathered in a secluded spot to cultivate the lands that had been laid waste and were abandoned since the conquest. They were plain and good men, faithful to the recollections of old Gaul and to the precepts of the gospels. Those monks lived in celibacy, but took no vows. They remained lay, and had no clerical character. It is only since recent years that most of those monks have begun entering the Church. But having become priests, they are daily losing the popular esteem that they once enjoyed, and the independence of character that rendered them so redoubtable to the bishops. At the time that I am speaking of, the life of those hermit-laborers was peaceful and industrious. They lived like brothers, obedient to the precepts of Jesus; they cultivated their lands in common; and they jointly and forcibly defended them whenever some band of Franks, on the way from some burg to another, took it into their heads, out of sheer wantonness, to injure the fields or crops of the monks – "

"I must say that I love those hermits, who are at once husbandmen and soldiers, who are faithful to the precepts of Jesus, to the love for old Gaul, and to horror for the Franks. You say that those monks fought well – were they armed?"

"They had arms – and better than arms. See here," said the hermit drawing from under his robe a species of short sword or long poniard with an iron hilt; "observe this weapon carefully. Its strength does not lie in its blade but in the words engraven on the hilt."