Part 3 (1/2)

Far up the hillside a mile back of the churchyard, a barelegged girl driving a cow stopped to listen, her hood pushed back, her brown hands crossed upon her breast.

Lower down, skirting the velvet edge of the marsh, filmy rifts of mist broke into shreds or blended with the spirals of blue smoke mounting skyward from freshly kindled fires.

Pont du Sable was awake for the day.

It is the most unimportant of little villages, yet it is four centuries old, and of stone. It seems to have shrivelled by its great age, like its oldest inhabitants. One-half of its two score of fishermen's houses lie crouched to the rambling edge of its single street; the other half might have been dropped at random, like stones from the pocket of some hurrying giant. Some of these, including the house of the ruddy little mayor and the polite, florid grocer, lie spilled along the edge of the marsh.

As for Monsieur le Cure, he was at this very moment in the small stone church saying ma.s.s to five fishermen, two devout housewives, a little child, an old woman in a white cap, and myself. Being in my shooting-boots, I had tiptoed into a back seat behind two of the fishermen, and sat in silence watching Monsieur le Cure's gaunt figure and listening to his deep, well-modulated, resonant voice.

What I saw was a man uncommonly tall and well built, dressed in a rusty black soutane that reached in straight lines from beneath his chin to his feet, which were encased in low calf shoes with steel buckles. I noticed, too, that his face was angular and humorous; his eyes keen and merry by turns; his hair of the colourless brown one sees among fisherfolk whose lives are spent in the sun and rain. I saw, too, that he was impecunious, for the front edges of his ca.s.sock were frayed and three b.u.t.tons missing, not to be wondered at, I said to myself, as I remembered that the stone church, like the village it comforted, had always been poor.

Now and then during the ma.s.s I saw the cure glance at the small leaded window above him as if making a mental note of the swaying tree-tops without in the graveyard. Then his keen gray eyes again reverted to the page he knew by heart. The look evidently carried some significance, for the gray-haired old sea-dog in front of me c.o.c.ked his blue eye to his partner--they were both in from a rough night's fis.h.i.+ng--and muttered:

”It will be a short ma.s.s.”

”_Ben sur_,” whispered back the other from behind his leathery hand.

”The wind's from the northeast. It will blow a gale before sundown.” And he nodded toward the swaying tree-tops.

With this, the one with the blue eyes straightened back in the wooden pew and folded his short, knotty arms in attention; the muscles of his broad shoulders showing under his thick seaman's jersey, the collar encircling his corded, stocky neck deep-seamed by a thousand winds and seas. The gestures of these two old craftsmen of the sea, who had worked so long together, were strangely similar. When they knelt I could see the straw sticking from the heels of their four wooden sabots and the rolled-up bottoms of their patched sail-cloth trousers.

As the ma.s.s ended the old woman in the white cap coughed gently, the cure closed his book, stepped from the chancel, patted the child's head in pa.s.sing, strode rapidly to the sacristy, and closed the door behind him.

I followed the handful of wors.h.i.+ppers out into the sunlight and down the hill. As I pa.s.sed the two old fishermen I heard the one with the blue eyes say to his mate with the leathery hand:

”_Allons, viens t'en!_ What if we went to the cafe after that dog's night of a sea?”

”I don't say no,” returned his partner; then he winked at me and pointed to the sky.

”I know,” I said. ”It's what I've been waiting for.”

I kept on down the crooked hill to the public square where nothing ever happens save the arrival of the toy train and the yearly fete, and deciding the two old salts were right after their ”dog's night” (and it had blown a gale), wheeled to the left and followed them to the tiniest of cafes kept by stout, cheery Madame Vinet. It has a box of a kitchen through which you pa.s.s into a little square room with just s.p.a.ce enough for four tables; or you may go through the kitchen into a snug garden gay in geraniums and find a sheltered table beneath a rickety arbour.

”Ah, _mais_, it was bad enough!” grinned the one with the leathery hand as he drained his thimbleful of applejack and, Norman-like, tossed the last drop on the floor of the snug room.

”Bad enough! It was a sea, I tell you, monsieur, like none since the night the wreck of _La Belle Marie_ came ash.o.r.e,” chimed in the one with the blue eye, as he placed his elbows on the clean marbletop table and made room for my chair. ”_Mon Dieu!_ You should have seen the ducks south of the Wolf. Aye, 'twas a sight for an empty stomach.”

The one with the leathery hand nodded his confirmation sleepily.

”_Helas!_” continued the one with the blue eye. ”If monsieur could only have been with us!” As he spoke he lifted his s.h.a.ggy eyebrows in the direction of the church and laughed softly. ”He's happy with his northeast wind; I knew 'twould be a short ma.s.s.”

”A good catch?” I ventured, looking toward him as Madame Vinet brought my gla.s.s.

”Eight thousand mackerel, monsieur. We should have had ten thousand had not the wind s.h.i.+fted.”

”_Ben sur!_” grumbled the one with the leathery hand.