The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-12-03

Yves Pengaverec was i'll at heart.
1t was but an nour ago that old Ma
thurin, his fosterfather, had dispelled the
dreamcloud which had lowered like a
glorious nimbus about the young mans
head for close on three years past. Aye,
and had dispeIled it roughly enough, too
the grim, sour old man-without q
trace Of tenderness or remOrse, with only
a crease of amusement across his with
cred chops and a cackle of anger rising
In his shrIl voice.
What! Thee marry Anne?" he had
rasped. Go on with thy work, my son,
and blow thyself sober. The cider had
been too strong for thee. Thee marry
Anne? Why, she's but a chick; and
thee-thee a great hulking loon that Is
indebted to me for every mOrsel Of rye
bread that goes into thy great mouth!
thee that l have reared out of charity,
only at the bidding of my sainted wife
the Blessed Virgin be her helper! Thee
marry Anne? Show me thy pouch with
twenty gold pieces in its bottom, and 1
will say aye; but-til them. Go on with
thy hoeing, lad, and talk sense" And
SO the old man had hobbled off down
the sun-browned slope of the field, tit
tering.
II was a cruel blow to Yves Pengaverec.
Il shattered his hopes, his happiness, his
very life and reason-so thought the
swarthy, wild-eyed young peasant as he
clutched his strong hands on the top Of
the weu-used hoe, and dug his chin into
the knuckles of them. 1t was unjust,
mean. brutal And yet it was so true.
What was he-an alien, a nameless
stranger, whose very face betrayed him
no true Breton, but a native of the
South-what was he, to look up to Anne
Pengaverec, the daughter of the veal
thiest peasant in all the valley of Pol
Mac? Aye, the wealthiest; for had
not Mathurin Pengaverec two broad
fields of rye and a cow of his own on
the common pasturage, and a cottage Of
hewn granite, when none of the others
dwelt in more than novels of baked
mud? Yet this same Mathurin had adopt
ed him almost as a son, and had reared
him. when he might have suffered him
to starve and become food for the kites
on the desolate landes. There was graf
itude due for that, to be sure; though
the Old man need not have blurted 1t
so coarsely.
1t was twenty years ago that 1t had
happened but Yves had not forgotten.
Twenty years ago in this very month Of
September Mathurin PengaVerec-then
middle-aged widower with his young wife
but one week buried in the little hillside
cemetery of the chapel of St. Gildas-had
been tramping home from the market at
Pontivy with his baskets over his arm,
ba
month-oId baby girl whom he had left
with a neighbor that morning when he
started for Pontivy; and he had turned
aside, as the harvest moon crept over the
edge Of the lande, to do a reverence at
the foot Of the crucifiX which surmOunt-
ed the lonely menhir on the crest of the
heath-the great granite menhir that had
once been heather giant, 50 they said,
whom st. GildaS himself had stricken into
stone with that token of ChristendOm on
his brow And as Mathurin PengaVerec
had drawn nearer to the menhir, he had
seen a figure, which he took to be one
of the market women, Frustrated at the
foot of the stone, but the figure never
stirred. Then he saw that the clothing
was not that of a BretOnne; and he
touched the arms that were clasped
around the rough stone, and they were
cold and stiff; and the dusky face-the
dusky, rounded face of SOuthe- woman
was rigid in death. And beneath the
crouching figure laid, as it were, in the
shelter Of the cruciiX, sprawled a sturdy
four-year-old b y, whimpeling in a
strange tongue.
Mathurin PengaVerec was God-fear-
ing man. He led the frightened child
back to Polniac, and made a comforta Die
bed Of straw for him in the shed where
the COW lay. And on the morrow the
neighb0rs had set forth and buried the
body of the stranger w0man-the wander
ing OutcaSt Of whose faith and origin
naught was knOWn-decently-a the foot
Of the great granite menhir in the midst
OF the landes. And thus their care had
ended. But in the night vision had
come to Mathurin PeugaYerec HIS dead
wife had appeared to him and hidden him
bring up the boy IS his own, to be a
brother to the mOtheress babe Anne;
ard Mathurin had obeyed the bidding I'M
QuestiOnably, though his inner self gruu-
bled.
IT had not turned out such a bad bust
ness for him after all, he had confessed
later on. The little mother had baen
right; second pair of hands was not
amiss in the fields. And so the bow
had grown UP, and fallen in with Rre
ton ways and the Breton tongue. and
been endowed by common assent with
the name Of Yves Pengaverec-hfs own
being unknown. OF late, as years and
stiffness had crept over the old man
, the harder part of the field work had
fallen to the lot of Yves, and he had
bargained for a wage; but Mathurin had
grown close and grumbling with age, and
the wage was pitifully small.
Twenty good gold pieces in his pouch,