The white "misseron"
From the "Tales of a Beer Drinker"
by Charles Deulin
Source : http://netia59a.ac-lille.fr/av-fourmies/class-exp/misseron/missero1.htm
In the olden days, in the days when animals could speak, (I mean, when men, wiser than they are now, could understand the language of the beasts), there lived in the forest Amblise a misseron or, if you prefer, a sparrow which was as white as snow.
In temperament he was no more similar than in plumage to his brothers; he could be accused of neither cheekiness, not thieving nor prattling, which is why none of his peers would be his friend. This mortified him and he resolved to seek one outside his kind. He offered his friendship to the bear, but, dishonestly, the bear answered that he was in need of no one; he offered it to the wolf, but the wolf bared his teeth; he offered it to the fox and the fox accepted, but on seeing his treacherous and cunning air, misseron immediately concluded that such an associate would love him to the point of making him his dinner.
So he then tried
the horse, the ox and the ass. They shrugged their shoulders saying:
- What have we in common with such a puny companion?
One might as well make friends with a gnat.
The poor sparrow grew sadder and
sadder, for he thought himself to be worthy of a friend, able to exchange helping
hand for helping hand, protection for protection . He could, of course, have asked
man, but man is the most malevolent and cruellest of all the animals. For, if
wolves eat sheep, it is out of obedience to the law of nature and to satisfy their
appetite, whereas man does evil for evil's sake; he puts birds in cages, when
not putting them on spits, and slaughters his fellows merely for the sake of honour,
without being driven to it by hunger.
One day in May, when misseron was on his way alone
to Quiévrechain, he came across an old, one-eyed mastiff, limping, gaunt and dragging
himself along with difficulty.
- Where are you going, old chap?
- And
who is this wretch?
- Tafarot, the brewer.
- Tafarot who lives in that
big, desolate house the other side of Quiévrechain?
-
Yes, that's the man.
- I know him. He has an attic full of barley with a hole
in it so that you can get in. He's a brute. Many a time, I have seen him thrashing
his wife ... So, my poor dog, you have nobody to love you and take care of you
in your old age?
- No one.
- Would you like me to be your friend?
- Yes, I would like that, but what can you do for me, my kind little misseron?
- Well, we could give it a try. Time alone will tell. Meanwhile, let's shake
on it.
And the two friends touched each other's paws.
Fluttering along in front of his companion, white misseron
led him to the farmhouse of Vaucelle, the headquarters for sparrows throughout
the neighbourhood.
On the way,
they met dame magpie who chattered on and on like the clattering of the flaps
on a windmill
- "Where are you going like this, flittering along
with this limping dog? cried the magpie.
- He is my friend, the sparrow proudly
replied.
- A miracle! White misseron has found a friend! exclaimed
the magpie. And she flew ahead to tell the news.
- Quick! Come on, all of you! she said.
In no
time, the two companions were surrounded by more than a hundred sparrows who had
come to inspect the dog at close quarters.
- What a queer friend!
- Only one eye!
- Only three legs!
- You can't get more tattered and torn than that !
- Its just the left-overs from an old friend !
- Where on earth did he meet him?
- In Péruwelz, where else?
- Yesterday, there was the flea market.
White misseron weathered the downpour and then answered,
without flying off the handle, that is to say, losing his composure.
- You are all young, handsome, amiable but so loud
mouthed, of that there is no doubt. But now, please, a little bit of quiet and
let people love in peace.
The
dog then intimated to his friend that he was ravenous.
- There is nothing
here but for sparrows to peck at, he said, but if you don't mind trotting on to
Onnaing, I'll invite you for dinner.
The mastiff agreed, and half an hour
later the two companions arrived in the village. As they passed the butcher's,
misseron said to the dog:
- Stay there and wait.
He flew up and perched
on the attic window above the stall, turned his tail towards the street and dropped
something onto a large piece of meat.
-
Misseron, you rascal! cried the butcher. He picked up the meat, wiped it with
his apron, and was about to put it back when he noticed that the wife of the mayor,
who lived opposite, was watching from behind her curtain.
Unfortunately
however, little by little the poor old dog gradually grew weaker, sometimes falling
into long slumbers from which it was difficult to rouse him. One day misseron
said to his friend:
-
Let's go and see how the chicory is doing round Onnaing way - so off they set.
On
the way, as the sun was beating down and it was hot and close, the mastiff felt
tired and lay down on the road for a nap.
- Don't lie down there, his comrade
cried.. You're could get yourself mangled, but the dog was already so fast asleep
that he could no longer hear. The sparrow perched on top of an elm and while watching
over his companion, began chirping, "tweet, tweet, tweet" to pass the
time away.
Ten minutes
later, our lookout saw in the distance, a cart being driven by Tafarot, the brewer
of Quiévrechain and former master of the mastiff.
Tafarot was a brewer and
that day he was in a foul mood. As soon as he saw him, white misseron tried to
awaken his companion. But alas, it was in vain that he shouted into his ears:
- Quick, we've got to be off, your master is coming !
The dog, worn out by
the walk, woke only to fall back into a deep sleep. The sparrow then resolved
to go and face the brewer.
- Master, by virtue of your kindness, he asked
him politely, would you be so kind as not to crush my old friend who is sleeping
there on the road?
- Why don't you wake him up and tell him to clear off?
Tafarot said roughly.
- I have done my best. He is sleeping like a log and
I can't wake him.
- In that case, too bad for him! And the brewer drove on.
- Do you know that he is your faithful dog,
the one who served you for ten years? cried misseron.
- Ah, that old rascal
who ran away, said Tafarot. I am glad to meet up with him again. And he drove
his wagon straight at the sleeper.
- Brewer stop, stop you scoundrel or you
will regret it!
- Really, will I! And what can you do to me? he brute replied
disdainfully.
He whipped his horse on and the wheel passed over the body of
the poor hound who was crushed on the spot.
Misseron
shrieked, his feathers ruffled up, his eyes flashed with rage.
-
You wretch !, he cried, you have killed my friend. Now listen closely to what
I am going to say. The price you'll pay for his death is all that you possess!
- Do your damndest replied the brewer, I don't care a tinker's curse !
White misseron flew off with a grieving heart. He was
wracking his brain to find some way of avenging the poor deceased dog when he
ran into his friend, dame magpie, chattering to herself.
- And what about your friend, where is he? she asked.
- Alas, Tafarot, the brewer has
run him over and crushed him, and, what's more, he called me an ugly old pica
pica...
- An ugly, old pica pica! But it is me that he is insulting! Where is he?
- Look, he is coming..
- Ah, so there he is… Well, you just stay there, my friend, and you'll see.
The sparrow settled in a bush and along came Tafarot, cracking his whip.
- Hey, look here, sony boy cried Mrs.Van Bonbec, is it true that you called
white misseron " an ugly, old pica pica?"
- And what if I did?
- Well, you just take that cap off your head and apologize straight away.
The brewer shrugged his shoulders. When he saw that, as rapid as an arrow,
the bird swooped down upon him, seized his cap by the bobble and carried it off.
My cap, my cap! cried Tafarot. And he ran after the magpie cracking his whip at
him.
She flew up and perched on the top of a poplar. The brewer climbed
into the tree. He was hardly half way up when the thief with the cap in his beak
started taunting him from an ash tree, just twenty yards away.
- Oh, poor me, I am so wretched! wailed the brewer.
- Not wretched enough yet, said misseron, flying off. We'll meet again back
home in your house. Bareheaded and seething with rage, Tafarot pulled the shafts
free from the horse, and as he was as strong as he was ill-natured, he pushed
the cart to Quarouble stopping at Faidherbe to drink a pint of beer to console
himself.
Meanwhile his wife, waiting
for him, was preparing a meat grill for supper. She was a poor creature. He used
to beat the living daylights out of her and he had rendered almost simple-minded.
Her name was Clara, but was called Beatty, in allusion to the beatings she received
all day long.
While the meat was grilling, she remembered that there
wasn't enough beer left and that there was a barrel that needed to be tapped.
If her brute of a husband should return without the jug of beer on the table she
was sure to get a drubbing. . Beatty went down to the cellar, tapped the barrel
and put the jug under it. No sooner had she turned on the tap than she heard a
loud noise like a thousand birds alighting on the roof.
Quickly, she hurried upstairs to see what was going on. When she got to
the attic to her amazement she saw a hundred or more sparrows gorging themselves
on the grain.
White misseron had convened all the sparrows in the
region. On leaving Tafarot, Misseron had flown straight to the farmhouse at Vaucelle,
and, gathering his brothers, he told them that he had found an attic full of March
barley which was as tender as wheat and with an opening in the granary where you
could get in. They all flew off as one man, forming a cloud so thick that as they
passed, people crossed themselves, believing that it was an eclipse.
Beatty tried to chase them
away, they fluttered around her but wouldn't leave. She tried opening the window;
but it wasn't any better. Those waiting outside flew in in droves. Beatty rushed
downstairs, as fast as her legs would carry her to fetch a stick and there, at
the bottom of the stairs, what did she see but the new house dog running off with
the grilled meat in his mouth!
She
ran after him in pursuit. Unfortunately, he disappeared into the countryside and
there was no way she could catch him. The woman then hurried back to turn off
the tap of the barrel, but while she had been rushing across the fields, the beer
had spilled over into the cellar. The barrel was empty and the cellar flooded.
- Oh Lordy
me! said Beatty, what on earth can I do so that he doesn't see this mess? She
struggled upstairs again and caught sight of a bag of flour that the miller had
brought the day before. In her simplicity she thought that if she sprinkled flour
over the beer, it would be soaked up and leave the flagstones clean.
The bag was heavy. As Beatty
brought it downstairs she tipped over the beer jug and its contents, like the
rest of the beer, was lost . It was the last jug of beer in the house, the other
barrels hadn't yet settled and weren't ready to be tapped. A short time later
Tafarot arrived, as drunk as a fiddler's bitch and as cheerful as a tombstone.
At Faidherbe's, he had met two archers from Onnaing on the way back from a competition
at
As soon as his wife saw him in the distance she called out:
Quick, go up to the attic, there are more than a thousand
sparrows eating all our grain. Armed with his staff, the brewer rushed up the
stairs two at a time. Aghast, he saw, a thousand sparrows tucking into the piles
of barley. And there in the middle, like a general, was white misseron, who seemed
to have taken command.
- Thunder and lightning! Tafarot cried, and he began
lunging to the right and left, - slash, swish and that's for you!
And so the brewer was able
to get an idea of the extent of the disaster. Three quarters of the barley had
disappeared with the cursed pilfers.
- God almighty ! Poor me, he cried, tearing his hair.
- Oh, but you will be poorer still! misseron replied,
coming out from the corner where he had been hiding.
- Your cruelty will cost you your life! And off he
flew. Tafarot threw his staff after him, it missed him but fell onto the head
of the dog returning home who was quite astonished to find himself being belaboured
by beatings falling from the sky.
The brewer and his wife went
down to the kitchen and, dejected and with bowed heads, sat down opposite each
other. Tafarot then recounted to his wife all the misfortunes that had befallen
him. She did not dare to say too much, but deep in her soul she did not think
that white misseron was so much in the wrong. Why had her husband run over the
poor old dog?
The effort of all this sighing however, made the brewer
realize that he was feeling peckish. It was his wife's turn to tell the story
of the meat, the barrel of beer and the bag of flour, all lost due to the mischief
of misseron. In any other circumstances, he would have thrashed his wife to a
frazzle, but overwhelmed by this relentless persecution, he could only repeat
one last time:
- Oh, poor me, how unhappy I am!
- Still not unhappy enough! cried a voice. Your cruelty
will cost you your life!
It was the eternal misseron perched outside on the
window sill. Tafarot jumped up like a scalded cat, grabbed a stool and threw it
into the window panes which shattered. White misseron then had the nerve to enter
the room. The brewer threw at him everything that he could get his hands on: pots,
pans, dishes, plates, chairs and benches, but didn't hit him once.
At last, however,
he did manage to catch hold of him.
- Wring his neck! said his wife,
afraid of seeing the little animal suffer.
- No! Tafarot said, foaming with
rage, that would be too easy. First, we will first teach him how to sing by burning
his eyes out as they do for finches, and then we will tear out his feathers, one
by one and then his wings and legs. Put the poker in the fire to heat. Beatty
obeyed. When the poker was red hot, her husband ordered her to approach. He felt
with delight the poor bird quivering in his hands.
Suddenly white misseron raised his
head and cried with all his strength:
- Brewer, it will cost you your life!
Tafarot started. He was livid with rage and grinding his teeth. The sight of this
scared Beatty and, inadvertently, she burned his hand.
Beside himself, he let the
sparrow go and gave his wife such a clout that she saw ten thousand stars. He
tried to catch misseron again; he saw him on the window sill, out of reach. The
bird looked at him with a look that exasperated him even more. He grabbed a knife
and stabbed Beatty.
This
is tale that people are fond of telling for it shows that we should despise no
one, that neither friend nor enemy is ever small, and that courage prevails over
brute force.
The End