"I am an old roadster, I tell you. Accordingly, before entering Britanny, I bravely donned a priest's robe, and painted on my pack a big cross with flames red as hell-fire. The Frankish thieves are as stupid as they are savage; they fear the devil, whom the bishops frighten them with in order to share with them the spoils of Gaul. They would not dare to attack me, taking me for a priest." "Come, supper is ready--to table," said old Araim; and addressing his son's wife, who continued to give signs of preoccupation, he said to her in a low voice: "What is the matter, Madalen? Are you still thinking of the Korrigans?" "This stranger who disguises himself in the robe of a priest without being one will bring misfortune over our house. The tempest's fury seems to have redoubled since he came in." It is an impossible thing to allay a mother's apprehensions once they are aroused. The family and the guest sat down to table, ate and drank. The peddler drank and ate like a man to whom the road imparts a good appetite. The jaws did their ample duty; teeth and tongues played their parts well; the family was in good spirits. It is not every long winter's night that one has a peddler from Paris in his company. "And what is going on in Paris, brave roadster?" "The most satisfactory thing that I have seen in the city was the burying of the King of the cursed Franks!" "Ah! Is their King dead?" "He died more than two months ago--on the 25th of November of last year, of the year 512 of the 'Incarnation of the Word,' as the bishops say who blessed and gave sepulchre to the crowned murderer in the basilica of the Holy Apostles at Paris." "Ah! He is dead, that Frankish King! And what was his name?" "He had a devil of a name, Hlode-Wig." "It must choke one to pronounce it--" "Hlode-Wig was his name. His wife, whom they call the Queen, is no less happily endowed--her name is Chrotechild--and her four children are named Chlotachaire, Theudeber--" "Enough! Friend peddler! A truce of those savage names! Those who wear them are worthy of them."