at them and wonder!"

"Morvan," put in Josseline, "you are this year harvesting earlier than
customary. We, of the region of Karnak would leave our wheat to ripen on
the stalk fully two weeks longer. Not so, Vortigern?"

"No, my sweet Josseline," answered her husband, "I shall follow Morvan's
example. We shall return home to-morrow, so as to start taking in the
harvest as soon as possible."

"I am going to furnish you with still more matter for astonishment,"
Morvan proceeded. "Instead of leaving the sheaves in the barn that the
grain may ripen, this wheat that you see there, and that was cropped
only to-day, will be threshed this very night. Vortigern and myself will
not be the only ones to ply the flails on the threshing-floor of the
barn. So, then, Noblede, let us have supper early, and then to work!"

"What, Morvan!" exclaimed Josseline, "after this tiring day's work,
spent in gathering in the crop, do you and Vortigern mean to spend the
night at work, and threshing, at that?"

"It will be a cheerful night, my Josseline," put in Vortigern. "While
we shall be threshing the wheat, you will sing us some songs, Caswallan
will recite to us some old legend, and we shall stave in a barrel of
hydromel to cheer the laborers who have come to join us. Work goes hand
in hand with pleasure."

"Vortigern," the Christian druid said, smiling, "do you, perchance,
think that my arms are so much enfeebled by old age that I could no
longer wield a flail? I mean to help you at work."

"And we?" put in Josseline, laughing merrily, "we, the daughters and
wives of the field-laborers, did we, perchance, lose the skill of
carrying the wheat to the threshing-floor, or of bagging the grain?"

"And we?" Ewrag and his brother Rosneven cried in turn, "could not we
also carry a stalk, six stalks, twenty stalks?"

"Oh! you are brave boys, my little ones," exclaimed Vortigern, embracing
his children, while Morvan said to his wife:

"Noblede, do not forget to have the guest's chamber in order and
supplied with food."

"Do you expect any guests, Morvan?" inquired Josseline, with great
curiosity. "They will be welcome; they will assist us at the threshing
to-night."

"My beloved Josseline," answered the Chief of the Chiefs, smiling, "the
guests whom I expect eat the choicest of wheat, but never take the
trouble of either sowing or harvesting. They belong to a class of people
who live on the fat of the land."

"The guest's chamber is al