United States or Togo ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Indeed he looked so bright and full of life that even Brother Stephen felt the effect of it, and his frown began to smooth out a little as he said: "Well, my lad, who art thou?" "I am Gabriel Viaud, Brother Stephen," answered the boy, "and I have come to help you; for they told me Jacques is fallen ill. What would you like me to do first?" To this Brother Stephen scarcely knew what to reply.
Noticing this, the messenger at once sent word to Count Pierre that he was sure King Louis would be highly gratified, if, in further honour of his coming marriage, the count would supply peasant Viaud with a warm suit of clothes before leaving the castle. This message was almost too much for Count Pierre to bear, but he did not dare to refuse.
And perhaps that Christmas morning no one in all France, not even King Louis himself, was quite so happy as the little peasant boy, Gabriel Viaud. AND to say that he was happier than even King Louis, is saying a very great deal; for King Louis spent the day most delightfully in Bretagne, in the castle of his bride to be, the Lady Anne.
The next morning the messenger rode to the Viaud farm, and, though he did not go into the cottage, he looked it over carefully and the land about it; and then he took the highway that led to the castle of Count Pierre de Bouchage. When he reached the castle, he asked to see Count Pierre, and so was taken into the great hall, where the count received him in a very haughty manner.
Brother Stephen, too, was at first much surprised when his visitor told him he had come from King Louis to inquire about a peasant boy by the name of Gabriel Viaud; though in a moment it flashed through his mind that Gabriel's prayer had found its way to the palace, and that the answer was coming.
Of the promised return of the sheep, and the buying of the farm by the king, the messenger said nothing then; and when they had nearly reached the cottage, he took leave of peasant Viaud and rode back to the Abbey. For, having finished the king's errand, before going away, he wanted to say good-bye to the Abbot and brothers of St.
But the wonders of this wonderful day were not yet over; for presently, as Gabriel raised his eyes, he saw a strange horseman coming down the road and looking inquiringly in the direction of the Viaud cottage. Then seeing the boy standing in the meadow, the horseman called out: "Ho, lad! Is this the farm of the peasant Viaud?" "Yes, sir," answered Gabriel, coming up to the road; and then,
And this is the way it read: "I, Gabriel Viaud, am Brother Stephen's colour-grinder; and I have made the ink for this book, and the glue, and caught the eels, and ground the gold and colours, and ruled the lines and gathered the flowers for the borders, and so I pray the Lord God will be kind and let my father out of prison in Count Pierre's castle, and tell Count Pierre to give us back our meadow and sheep, for we cannot pay the tax, and mother says we will starve."
For it was the very same parchment which King Louis's messenger had made Count Pierre sign to prove that he had sold to the king, for a certain sum of gold, the old Viaud farm, together with a piece of good land adjoining it; and then, at the end of the deed, as the writing was called, there were a few lines from King Louis himself, which said that in honour of the blessed Christmas-time the king took pleasure in presenting to peasant Viaud, and his heirs for ever, everything that he had bought from Count Pierre.
That Gabriel Viaud was a peasant lad, any one could have told from the blouse of blue homespun, and the wooden shoes which he wore; and that he felt the gladness of the April time could easily be known by the happy little song he began to sing to himself, and by the eager delight with which he now and then stooped to pluck a blue violet or to gather a handful of golden cuckoo-buds.
Word Of The Day