The White Inn and the Red Room1
By A. Le Braz
Once upon a time there was an inn at Ponthon called the White Inn, because it had a white front.
The innkeepers were honest, good people, who fulfilled their Easter religious duties, and whose bills might safely be paid without reckoning up.
Travellers frequented the White Inn, and horses knew its stable door so well that they stopped there of themselves.
Autumn had begun to shorten and to sadden the days, when, one evening that Floc’h, the landlord of the White Inn, stood at the door, a traveller, apparently a personage of importance, stopped before it. He was riding a white horse of a breed not known in that part of the country. Raising his hat, he said to the innkeeper, “I should like to have some supper and a private room.”
Floc’h took his pipe from his mouth and then his hat off his head, and answered, “May God bless you, sir! You can have supper, certainly, but I don’t know how we can manage to give you a private room, for we have six muleteers upstairs who are on their way home to Redon, and they have engaged all the six beds of the White Inn.”
The traveller exclaimed; “For God’s sake, my good man, don’t leave me out in the cold! Even the dogs have kennels, and it is hard that a Christian should have no place to sleep in, such weather as this!”
“Sir” replied Floc’h, much distressed, “I can only tell you that the inn is full,—there is only the Red Room 1”
“Well then, let me have the Red Room!” said the stranger.
The innkeeper scratched his head and seemed perplexed and troubled. He felt he could not offer the Red Room to the traveller.
“Ever since I have been at the White Inn,” he said at last, “two men only have slept in that room, and the next day the hair of each had turned white in the night!”
The traveller fixed his eyes on the landlord.
“Do the Dead visit your house, then, my good man?”
“They have done so,” answered Floc’h, under his breath.
“Then, in the name of God, and of His Virgin Mother, make me a fire in the Red Room, and warm the bed, for I am cold!”
The innkeeper did as he was bidden.
After having supped, the traveller bade goodnight to all at the table, and went upstairs to the Red Room.
The innkeeper and his wife shuddered, and began to say their prayers.
The stranger having entered the chamber in which he was to sleep, glanced all round it.
It was a large room, painted flame-colour, and on its walls were great glistening stains, which fancy might have declared to be painted in fresh blood. In its depths, there was a large bed, enclosed by thick curtains. Except for the bed, it was empty of furniture.
The wind wailed in the chimney, and outside through the passages, like the cry of sad Souls beseeching prayers.
The traveller knelt down and spoke silently to God.
Then he laid him down without fear, and was soon sound asleep.
But as midnight struck from the clock of the distant church, he heard the curtains being drawn back upon their iron rods, and saw that they were being opened on the right hand side.
The traveller sprang from his bed. His feet struck against something cold,—he drew back, startled.
Before him stood a coffin, with four wax lights at the four corners, a large black pall covered it, dotted with white specks, signifymg tears.
The stranger rushed to the other side of the bed, but immediately the coffin crossed over also, and again stood before him.
Five times he strove to get away from it, and five times the bier placed itself before him, with its wax lights and heavy black pall.
All at once the traveller comprehended that the dead man must have a request to make. He knelt up upon his bed, and having made the sign of the Cross, said “Who are you, dead man? Speak, a Christian asks!”
A voice came out of the coffin, and said:
“I am a traveller who was murdered by the people who had the house before the present man came. I died without the Sacraments, and I am suffering in Purgatory.”
“What askest thou, suffering Soul, for thy relief?”
“I ask that six Masses be said in the church of Nôtre Dame de Folgoat, by a priest in a black and white vestment, and that a pilgrimage be made on my behalf to Notre Dame de Rumengol.”
After that, the wax lights went out, the curtains drew together, and all was still.
The stranger passed the night in prayer. On the morrow he told the innkeeper all that had happened, and added this: “My good man, I am Monsieur de Rohan, belonging to the noblest family in Brittany. I promise to make the pilgrimage to Rumengol, and I will pay for the six Masses. This Soul shall be delivered.
A month later, the blood stains had vanished from the Red Room, and it had become as clean and bright as the other rooms of the inn.
The only sound to be heard in it was that of the swallows in the eves building their nests, and it contained three little beds surmounted by a crucifix.
The stranger had kept his word.
1 This last narrative, “The Story of the White Inn,” does not appear in M. Le Braz’s book, but is taken from a volume of Breton folk-lore by Mr Emile Souvestre, published about twenty years ago.
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