But his son made ducks and drakes of everything, and did not follow his wise example. Everyone recognised what a good example this was for the country, since a year before his death no one left a morsel of wood on the road he had compelled the most dissipated to be thrifty and orderly. Thus he warmed himself in the winter at the expense of the careless and he did well. This said man had had for a father a Tryballot, who was in his lifetime a skilled artisan, so economical and careful, that he left considerable wealth to his son.īut the young lad soon frittered it away, for he was the very opposite of the old fellow, who, returning from the fields to his house, picked up, now here, now there, many a little stick of wood left right and left, saying, conscientiously, that one should never come home empty handed. Notwithstanding this, he was very popular in the duchy, where everyone had grown used to him, so much so that if the month went by without anyone seeing his cup held towards them, people would say, "Where is the old man?" and the usual answer was, "On the roads."
In the environs of this fair town, where at the time dwelt Duke Richard, an old man used to beg, whose name was Tryballot, but to whom was given the nickname of Le Vieux par-Chemins, or the Old Man of the Roads not because he was yellow and dry as vellum, but because he was always in the high-ways and by-ways-up hill and down dale-slept with the sky for his counterpane, and went about in rags and tatters. The old chronicler who furnished the hemp to weave the present story, is said to have lived at the time when the affair occurred in the City of Rouen.
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