tte.

"Sign," said he. "If you are afraid to make a cross, infidel, you pass
your own death sentence, and I shall take on myself to execute it." He
drew his heavy sword from the scabbard as he spoke, and threw it on
the table.

For her only answer, Finette leaped out of the window and ran to the
stable. The seneschal pursued her thither, but, on attempting to
enter, an unexpected obstacle stopped him. The frightened cow had
backed at the sight of the young girl, and stood in the doorway, with
Finette clinging to her horns and making of her a sort of buckler.

"You shall not escape me, sorceress!" cried the seneschal, and, with a
grasp like that of Hercules, he seized the cow by the tail and dragged
her out of the stable.

"_Abracadabra!_" cried Finette. "May the cow's tail hold you, villain,
and may you hold the cow's tail till you have both been around the
world together."

And behold! the cow darted off like lightning, dragging the unhappy
seneschal after her. Nothing stopped the two inseparable comrades;
they rushed over mountains and valleys, crossed marshes, rivers,
quagmires, and brakes, glided over the seas without sinking, were
frozen in Siberia and scorched in Africa, climbed the Himalayas,
descended Mont Blanc, and at length, after thirty-six hours of a
journey, the like of which had never been seen, both stopped out of
breath in the public square of the village.

A seneschal harnessed to a cow's tail is a sight not to be seen every
day, and all the peasants in the neighborhood crowded together to
wonder at the spectacle. But, torn as he was by the cactuses of
Barbary and the thickets of Tartary, the seneschal had lost nothing of
his haughty air. With a threatening gesture he dispersed the rabble,
and limped to his house to taste the repose of which he began to feel
the need.

VI

While the steward, the bailiff, and the seneschal were experiencing
these little unpleasantnesses, of which they did not think it proper
to boast, preparations were being made for a great event at Kerver
Castle, namely, the marriage of Yvon and the fair-haired lady. Two
days had passed in these preparations, and all the friends of the
family had gathered together for twenty leagues round, when, one fine
morning Yvon and his bride, with the Baron and Baroness Kerver, took
their seats in a great carriage adorned with flowers, and set out for
the celebrated church of St. Maclou.

A hundred knights in full armor, mounted o