George Sand - George Sand - The Collected Works (The Greatest Novelists of All Time – Book 11)

THE HEMP-BEATER.

Then you have been as far as Sainte-Solange?

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We have been to Sainte-Solange, for sure; but we have been farther still.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

You lie; you have never been as far as Sainte-Solange.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We have been farther, for we have just returned from Saint-Jacques de Compostelle.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

What foolish tale are you telling us? We don't know that parish. We see plainly enough that you are bad men, brigands, nobodies , liars. Go somewhere else and sing your silly songs; we are on our guard, and you won't get in here.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Alas! my dear man, have pity on us! We are not pilgrims, as you have rightly guessed; but we are unfortunate poachers pursued by the keepers. The gendarmes are after us, too, and, if you don't let us hide in your hay-loft, we shall be caught and taken to prison.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

But what proof have we this time that you are what you say? for here is one falsehood already that you could not follow up.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

If you will open the door, we will show you a fine piece of game we have killed.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

Show it now, for we are suspicious.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Well, open a door or a window, so that we can pass in the creature.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

Oh! nay, nay! not such fools! I'm looking at you through a little hole, and I see neither hunters nor game.

At that point, a drover's boy, a thick-set youth of herculean strength, came forth from the group in which he had been standing unnoticed, and held up toward the window a goose all plucked and impaled on a stout iron spit, decorated with bunches of straw and ribbons.

"Hoity-toity!" cried the hemp-beater, after he had cautiously put out an arm to feel the bird; "that's not a quail or a partridge, a hare or a rabbit; it looks like a goose or a turkey. Upon my word, you are noble hunters! and that game did not make you ride very fast. Go elsewhere, my knaves! all your falsehoods are detected, and you may as well go home and cook your supper. You won't eat ours."

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Alas! mon Dieu ! where shall we go to have our game cooked? it's very little among so many of us; and, besides, we have no fire nor place to go to. At this time of night, every door is closed, everybody has gone to bed; you are the only ones who are having a wedding-feast in your house, and you must be very hardhearted to leave us to freeze outside. Once more, good people, let us in; we won't cause you any expense. You see we bring our own food; only a little space at your fireside, a little fire to cook it, and we will go hence satisfied.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

Do you think that we have any too much room, and that wood costs nothing?

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

We have a little bundle of straw to make a fire with, we will be satisfied with it; only give us leave to place the spit across your fire-place.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

We will not do it; you arouse disgust, not pity, in us. It's my opinion that you are drank, that you need nothing, and that you simply want to get into our house to steal our fire and our daughters.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

As you refuse to listen to any good reason, we propose to force our way into your house.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

Try it, if you choose. We are so well protected that we need not fear you. You are insolent knaves, too, and we won't answer you any more.

Thereupon, the hemp-beater closed the window-shutter with a great noise, and went down to the lower room by a ladder. Then he took the bride by the hand, the young people of both sexes joined them, and they all began to dance and utter joyous exclamations, while the matrons sang in piercing tones and indulged in loud peals of laughter in token of their scorn and defiance of those who were attempting an assault without.

The besiegers, on their side, raged furiously together: they discharged their pistols against the doors, made the dogs growl, pounded on the walls, rattled the shutters, and uttered terror-inspiring yells; in short, there was such an uproar that you could not hear yourself talk, such a dust and smoke that you could not see yourself.

The attack was a mere pretence, however: the moment had not come to violate the laws of etiquette. If they could succeed, by prowling about the house, in finding an unguarded passage, any opening whatsoever, they could try to gain an entrance by surprise, and then, if the bearer of the spit succeeded in placing his bird in front of the fire, that constituted a taking possession of the hearth-stone, the comedy was at an end, and the bridegroom was victor.

But the entrances to the house were not so numerous that they were likely to have neglected the usual precautions, and no one would have assumed the right to employ violence before the moment fixed for the conflict.

When they were weary of jumping about and shouting, the hemp-beater meditated a capitulation. He went back to his window, opened it cautiously, and hailed the discomfited besiegers with a roar of laughter:

"Well, my boys," he said, "you're pretty sheepish, aren't you? You thought that nothing could be easier than to break in here, and you have discovered that our defences are strong. But we are beginning to have pity on you, if you choose to submit and accept our conditions."

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Speak, my good friends; tell us what we must do to be admitted to your fireside.

THE HEMP-BEATER.

You must sing, my friends, but sing some song that we don't know, and that we can't answer with a better one.

"Never you fear!" replied the grave-digger, and he sang in a powerful voice:

"' Tis six months since the spring-time ,"

" When I walked upon the springing grass ," replied the hemp-beater, in a somewhat hoarse but awe-inspiring voice. "Are you laughing at us, my poor fellows, that you sing us such old trash? you see that we stop you at the first word."

" It was a prince's daughter —"

" And she would married be " replied the hemp-beater. "Go on, go on to another! we know that a little too well."

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

What do you say to this:

" When from Nantes I was returning —"

THE HEMP-BEATER.

" I was weary, do you know! oh! so weary ." That's a song of my grandmother's day. Give us another one.

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

" The other day as I was walking —"

THE HEMP-BEATER.

" Along by yonder charming wood !" That's a silly one! Our grandchildren wouldn't take the trouble to answer you! What! are those all you know?

THE GRAVE-DIGGER.

Oh! we'll sing you so many of them, that you will end by stopping short.

Fully an hour was passed in this contest. As the two combatants were the most learned men in the province in the matter of ballads, and as their repertory seemed inexhaustible, it might well have lasted all night, especially as the hemp-beater seemed to take malicious pleasure in allowing his opponent to sing certain laments in ten, twenty, or thirty stanzas, pretending by his silence to admit that he was defeated. Thereupon, there was triumph in the bridegroom's camp, they sang in chorus at the tops of their voices, and every one believed that the adverse party would make default; but when the final stanza was half finished, the old hemp-beater's harsh, hoarse voice would bellow out the last words; whereupon he would shout: "You don't need to tire yourselves out by singing such long ones, my children! We have them at our fingers' ends!"

Once or twice, however, the hemp-beater made a wry face, drew his eyebrows together, and turned with a disappointed air toward the observant matrons. The grave-digger was singing something so old that his adversary had forgotten it, or perhaps had never known it; but the good dames instantly sang the victorious refrain through their noses, in tones as shrill as those of the sea-gull; and the grave-digger, summoned to surrender, passed to something else.