And the Vagres and Vagresses screamed, and sang, and shouted. Wildly they tumbled about, and started a giddy reel upon the sward by the pale illumination of the moon.
Wrapped in silence the hermit-laborer had listened to the conversation of the Vagres. Seated beside little Odille, he seemed to shield her with a paternal protection. The child seemed a stranger to what happened around her. When at the close of the repast Ronan gave his companions the signal for the songs and dance, they ran away tumultuously from the place of the recent banquet to give a loose to their bacchic gayety and indulge in a giddy dance on the sward of another and nearby clearing.
Approaching the hermit-laborer and the little girl, both of whom had kept their places as they gazed up at the sky, Ronan said to her in a merry voice:
"Will you dance, little Odille? The reel is started; it will last until dawn."
The young girl shook her head melancholically, made no answer, and continued to gaze at the sky.
"Odille, what is it you are dreaming about as you gaze at the moon? Whither do your thoughts fly, my child?"
"Sleep is overpowering me, and my thoughts are running over an old druid chant that my mother used to sing to me, to rock me asleep when I was little."
"Oh! It is old, very, very old--my mother used to tell me. It has been sung in Gaul for over five or six hundred years."
"The chant of Hena, the Virgin of the Isle of Sen."
"The chant of Hena!" cried the Vagre and the hermit simultaneously with a tremor of delight.
Both grew immediately silent, while Odille, astonished at their visible emotion, looked from the one to the other, and asked:
"You also seem to know the chant of Hena?"
"Sing it, my child," answered Ronan in a tremulous voice.
More and more astonished, little Odille was hardly able to recognize her friend. The dare-devil and merry Vagre had become pensive and grave.
"Yes, yes, my child! Recite that chant to us with your sweet voice of fifteen years," put in the hermit. "But not here--the dance and yonder wild carousal, although far enough away, would drown your voice--"
"The hermit is right. Come with us, little Odille, to yonder large oak. It will be far enough away from the dancers. It is surrounded by a soft moss carpet. You will be able to sleep there. I shall cover you up with my cloak to protect you from the damp."