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AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
^W..«^.**\U4ruw (V.VWV-. 
 
 CHATEAU DES PAPES, AVIGNON 
 
 From a wood-block by Harold Haven Brown 
 
AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 A BOOK FOR VAGABONDS 
 
 By 
 W. BRANCH JOHNSON 
 
 " O why do you wal\ through the fields in gloves 
 Missing so much and so much F '' 
 
 Frances Cornford 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS 
 

 ^^ 
 
 FIRST 
 
 EDITION 
 1922 
 COPY- 
 RIGHT 
 
 Printed in Great Britain 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTES 
 
 
 PIG 
 
 I. 
 
 The Beggar of the Palace . 
 
 7 
 
 II. 
 
 :fiTIENNE 
 
 . 13 
 
 III. 
 
 In Arles 
 
 . 29 
 
 IV. 
 
 Old Acquaintance 
 
 • 40 
 
 V. 
 
 Why the Train was Late 
 
 . 49 
 
 VI. 
 
 Age and Youth 
 
 . 55 
 
 VII. 
 
 The Open Road 
 
 . 69 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Heart's Desire 
 
 80 
 
 IX. 
 
 The Fiery Cross 
 
 . 88 
 
 X. 
 
 Marcus 
 
 . 97 
 
 XI. 
 
 Thunderwater 
 
 . 117 
 
 XII. 
 
 The Innocence of Arcachon . 
 
 . 129 
 
 xm. 
 
 Wine Water and Sand . . 
 
 139 
 
 XIV. 
 
 The Fashion of Royan . . 
 
 158 
 
 XV. 
 
 Night-birds 
 
 163 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Jean-Fban^ois 
 
 185 
 
 XVII. 
 
 Onions 
 
 203 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 Hollyhock-land 
 
 212 
 
 XIX. 
 
 The Peasants and the Patntek 
 
 227 
 
 XX. 
 
 In the City op Watersmeet . . 
 
 232 
 
 XXI. 
 
 The Crime of Amblie le Ooic . . 
 
 244 
 
 XXII. 
 
 Kergosien the Butcher 
 
 249 
 
 562>^i}"i 
 
AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 THE BEGGAR OF THE PALACE 
 
 Spring is surely the most abused of seasons, 
 for to it are attributed, directly or indirectly, count- 
 less lapses from commonsense. I am instructed 
 by Helen — a wife whose advice is often worth 
 following — to blame the season for the notes which 
 follow. Personally I would blame the employers 
 who, just at that time, took it into their heads to 
 dispense with my services. Had it not been for 
 them I should have spent the summer respectably 
 employed in filling the columns of a daily newspaper. 
 
 But no. Helen remains adamant on the Spring 
 theory. She is romantic. Her only sorrow, I 
 beheve, is that she is not her namesake of Troy, 
 whose beauty inspired poets and embroiled nations. 
 That would have been so exciting. She found it 
 exciting even to be out of a job. She looked up 
 with dancing eyes. 
 
 " We'll wander through France," she enthused. 
 " Just a pack on our backs and a Springtime smile 
 for everyone we see." 
 
 I have yet to meet the person who will stand out 
 against Helen. She listens to no reasoning : did 
 not on this occasion. It was the Spring, she re- 
 peated, the season of the Bohemian, the Wanderlust. 
 The Fates favoured her plan. 
 
 So, on a Spring night we found ourselves in Paris 
 
8 ^y/? 3; AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 and, strolling beside the Seine, watched in the dark- 
 ness a Parisian declaration. 
 
 " Mais c^est vrai que tu rrCaimes ? " There was 
 anxiety in his voice — ^a tremolo which could be felt 
 passionately in spite of the low tone in which the 
 question was put. 
 
 A moment's silence followed, but it seemed like 
 an age. All Paris stood still in expectation. 
 Helen's hand sought mine in the darkness and 
 trembled. So much happiness rested on the answer. 
 
 " Bien sur.^'' The reply was as demure as you 
 please; and there was an answering flash to the 
 dark flowing river in the girl's eyes. 
 
 '' Alors . . ." He was about to demonstrate 
 his afltection, when a great cat, as black as a piece of 
 coal, emerged from the other half of Paris on to the 
 parapet over the river, and looking directly at the 
 couple, sat down in front of them and licked its 
 chops. Helen was sure it winked, but I cannot 
 vouch for that. 
 
 At any rate, the thread was broken. The girl 
 laughed and enticed pussy on her lap, where she 
 fondled it to the utter exclusion of her wooer, 
 while he, poor fellow, sat meekly trying to ingratiate 
 himself with both parties. 
 
 Did ever a black cat make so inauspicious an 
 appearance ? Or was it following the prescribed 
 right of its species to bring luck ? Or was it simply 
 the Spring ? 
 
 Only after long months did we chance upon the 
 sequel. 
 
 n 
 
 There are people who have the knack of fitting 
 into their smToundings — the grande dame in her 
 drawing-room, the colonel at the head of his troops, 
 the old beggar outside the Palace of the Popes at 
 
THE BEGGAR OF THE PALACE 9 
 
 Avignon. To both of us he will remain a 
 living personality long after the splendour of the 
 Popes has been relegated to the hmbo of things 
 forgotten. We turned a corner and he appeared 
 by magic ; and at once the huge empty shell of a 
 building by whose side he stood became aUve and 
 breathing. He was its history incarnate. 
 
 " Look ! " exclaimed Helen rapturously. 
 
 In the more fortunate days of the Middle Ages 
 when men could see the Kingdom of God in stones 
 and the Spirit of God in mankind, some monastic 
 painter would have snapped him up for a model of 
 John the Baptist, and have turned out a truer 
 portrait than all the historical reconstructions put 
 together. He would have emphasised, ever so 
 sHghtly, the thick iron-grey hair and unkempt 
 beard, the lean drooping moustache, the wrinkled 
 broad forehead and deep alert eyes of his subject. 
 Over the ragged clothes and patched boots, through 
 which a toe protruded here and there, he would 
 have bestowed elaborate care : and there would 
 have been a hint of dignity in the carriage of the 
 figure, albeit the shoulders stooped and the knees 
 were bent. 
 
 Helen, noting all this, seized my hand ecstatically. 
 
 " Perhaps he's a king or a prince in disguise," she 
 whispered. She has a hankering after Bohemian 
 royalty, has Helen. 
 
 " And will change at night into a handsome young 
 man to wake the Princess out of her enchanted sleep." 
 
 " Into which she has been put by a wicked fairy, 
 who dwells in the caverns of the mountains over 
 there," she romanced, pointing towards the Alps. 
 " Where does the prince go to find her ? " 
 
 " To a hotel in the Rue de la Republique," I 
 suggested, "where she sleeps so soundly that not 
 even the cafe orchestras or the trams can wake her. 
 Lucky princess ! " 
 
10 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Helen pouted at this and was about to walk away, 
 but I stopped her. 
 
 " Suppose the old beggar-man with the face of a 
 saint were the spirit of one of the early Popes doing 
 penance for the sins of his successors ? The early 
 Popes, you know, were poor men, and it was after 
 they became powerful and rich that their influence 
 declined.'* 
 
 "And so he stops outside this palace — ^wliich is 
 more like a fortress than a palace — " commented 
 Helen, " and begs not for alms, but for the for- 
 giveness of all who pass by." 
 
 " What a punishment ! " 
 
 " He has been here for centuries and will be here 
 for still more centuries, because he has to ask for- 
 giveness of so many injured people." 
 
 " Gently, gently," I put in at a moment when 
 Helen's fertile imagination appeared to be slacken- 
 ing. " After all, the sin of the Papacy was the sin 
 of all the rest of us ; you can't put on to its shoulders 
 everything that's wrong with the world." 
 
 " No," assented Helen. " If you go round kings' 
 palaces you will find their spirits, too, begging for 
 mercy. It's just greed I was meaning — agreed of 
 power and money." 
 
 " At any rate," I continued, indicating the beg- 
 gar, " that poor chap looks like being here to all 
 eternity. Nobody takes any notice of him." 
 
 " Do you expect them to ? " asked Helen, with a 
 little toss of the head. *' You've even forgotten 
 what century you're living in." 
 
 " Perhaps he isn't a Pope after all," I said, *' nor 
 a prince nor a king nor anything of that sort. Per- 
 haps he's just a beggar." 
 
 '* Let's come and ask him." Helen made a bee- 
 line approach. 
 
 " Pierre Oerin a voire service, Madame,^^ I heard 
 him say. You know the noise that frogs make at 
 
THE BEGGAR OF THE PALACE 11 
 
 night when they croak their message to the stars ? 
 His voice was Hke that. 
 
 " Why do you beg for alms here ? " asked Helen in 
 that direct manner of hers, which I have known 
 frighten old maiden ladies out of their wits. 
 
 " Why not ? I feel myself a part of the old build- 
 ing." 
 
 " Then you are a Pope after all ! " Helen clapped 
 her hands with delight. 
 
 " Moi un Pape, par exemple I " The old man 
 croaked loudly, and shook his mane at the joke. 
 " But no, Madame. When I was young — ^that 
 would be . . . well, it would frighten you to know 
 how long ago that was — ^I served my term in the 
 Army in this palace. It was a barracks then." 
 
 " A fine place to be stationed in," I suggested. 
 
 " It is better than Algeria," he replied, " but 
 otherwise . . . ; " he shrugged his shoulders as if 
 to say that all places are much of a muchness when 
 one is in the Army. " I was young, and nothing 
 mattered except to enjoy myself. II y avail des 
 belles filles id, M^sieu, vous compreni{ez. Now, when 
 I am a squeezed lemon, I do not care to move. I 
 shall stay here and die in a ditch. Avignon be- 
 longs to me and I to it." 
 
 " You must have many memories of the palace 
 to think over as you stand here day after day." 
 Helen's voice was filled with sympathy. 
 
 " Yes, but these blank walls . . . they frighten 
 me still. They used to frighten me when I was 
 stationed here — they were so very white and so 
 very blank. They were more like a prison than the 
 prison itself — and I know what I am talking about. 
 Dame, oui, I used to dream about them, and even 
 when I was on furlough they used to follow me to 
 my home. One day I coiild stand it no longer. 
 I ran away — deserted — ^hid my uniform in a ditch, 
 and stole other clothes. For a few days I was a 
 
n AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 free man ; then I was brought back — first to this 
 prison, then to the other. It was a reHef to be 
 moved, this the first of many visits." 
 
 Helen's eyes beamed approval. The ribbon of 
 the Croix de Guerre on his breast would by com- 
 parison have left her cold. 
 
 " You can imagine the rest of the story ; there 
 was nothing else left for a jail-bird. At one time I 
 grew rich on thefts — I could keep myself without 
 begging in addition." 
 
 " Did it ever occur to you to work honestly ? " 
 asked Helen. 
 
 " That I forget. And, anyhow, it is too late now. 
 It is easier to mumble prayers and more profitable " 
 (" with the women, you know," he added to me in an 
 aside). " And one can think in between whiles." 
 
 " Of what ? " I asked. 
 
 The old scallywag's eyes twinkled. 
 
 " Of the thefts one might have committed," he 
 said. 
 
 Helen glanced at me. 
 
 " Did I not say he was the epitome of the 
 Palace ? " she asked. 
 
 But we should not have believed, had anyone 
 told us, that we were to give him opportunity for 
 further thought. 
 
II 
 
 ETIBNNB 
 
 This is to introduce the family Pepino of the Bou- 
 langerie du Jesus. 
 
 There was Hippolyte, the father, who used to 
 bake his bread to the accompaniment of ribald 
 choruses sung sotto voce, Zenobie, his buxom wife, 
 Stephanie, assistant to a fashionable milliner, 
 Andre, the externe at the Lycee, on whom the 
 family hope centred, and Michel, aged about three. 
 One might add also Mattieu Marc Luc Jean, the 
 most venerable creature of the establishment, a cat. 
 
 This Biblical appellation had been flippantly 
 bestowed upon the beast by Madame Pepino on 
 the very day when it had first strayed into the little 
 bakehouse, its one eye cocked, its mangy tail quiver- 
 ing with emotion, and had refused to budge. There 
 was something so respectful in its appearance, she 
 said, and it reposed such trust in the charity of the 
 Boulangerie du Jesus that she could not help giving 
 it a nice name. It usually, however, answered 
 to Escroc, which being interpreted, means rogue 
 or swindler. 
 
 It was, in some ways, the tie which bound all 
 members of the Pepino family together. Hip- 
 polyte, who resembled a cherub with a drooping 
 moustache, used to " shoo " it away on the slightest 
 provocation ; it always made him feel, he complained, 
 as if he ought to confess to it, and he could not think 
 
14 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 what excuse he would give to M. le Cure if one day- 
 he were to fall into the temptation ; Satan took many 
 strange forms. Whereupon Stephanie's eyes would 
 moisten as she scolded her father for saying such 
 wicked things about the creatures of the bon Dieu. 
 Andre looked up from his lessons to take his father's 
 part against Stephanie, but not against the cat, and 
 Michel, with little theology, but a sure instinct for 
 comfort, nestled meanwhile against Escroc and 
 went warmly to sleep. The triangular wrangle 
 would continue in a bantering spirit for some time, 
 when enter Madame : 
 
 " Allons, mes enfantSy la soupe est serviey 
 
 One needed good hot soup at the Boulangerie du 
 Jesus, for it was situated in a part of Nice where 
 the sun and Society seldom penetrate — ^in the 
 crowded quarter at the foot of the Castle rock. 
 Sometimes at midday a long straight shaft of Hght 
 gleamed down on to the pavement for a few minutes, 
 but the height of the houses soon shut it out again, 
 and it was only the narrowness of the unhealthy 
 alley that made it retain any warmth. Yet in 
 the evenings, when one could stroll along the Pro- 
 menade des Anglais in comfort, it was chilly in these 
 stone-built byways. One felt it specially when 
 work drove one abroad in the midday sun, to 
 return hither at night. Hot soup made the good 
 blood flow again ; so said Stephanie when she 
 came back tired from the milliner's in the Avenue 
 de la Victoire. 
 
 " These places are as cold as les hivernantes,^^ she 
 said one day as she entered the warmer bakery. 
 " They seldom reach much above freezing point." 
 
 As the season passed, however, the custom of 
 hot evening soup slackened. Pepino's bakehouse 
 alone made more than a slight difference to the 
 temperature : soon we passed evenings sitting in 
 the roadway chatting casually with acquaintances 
 
ETIElSiNE 15 
 
 at opposite windows or further along the street, 
 while Hippolyte, his brow covered with honest 
 sweat, rushed out occasionally to give us the bene- 
 fit of some bon mot he had conceived at the oven 
 door. As a humorist he fancied himself. 
 
 He used to joke even about the name of his 
 bakery. 
 
 " Cette Boulangerie du Jesus,^^ he exclaimed. " It 
 is the miracle of the loaves. They come and come ; 
 there is no ending to them. They feed the multi- 
 tude. The fishes I leave to the fishermen for what 
 they are worth. It is easier to catch fish in the Baie 
 des Anges than to make loaves in the Boulangerie 
 du Jesus." 
 
 One day he brought out to us a loaf which, 
 through some mischance, had been baked hard 
 through and through. He dashed it on to the 
 roadway, where it lay solid and imscathed. 
 
 ''On salt hien que Jesus etait charjpentier,^y he 
 cried, and burst into a loud laugh. It was a 
 joke on which he harped for several days. 
 
 Helen once asked him why he had chosen such a 
 name for his shop. 
 
 " Eh bien,^^ he repUed. " One must have bread, 
 one must have religion ; the two go hand in hand 
 in the lives of all men. I could have called my shop 
 the Boulangerie de Isaie, de Moise, d'Ezechiel, but 
 those big names would have frightened away cus- 
 tomers. Besides, just at that time le p'tit Andrd 
 arrived : I looked at him when he was ever so 
 tiny and said to myself, ' Le pHit Jesus, It shall be 
 Your bakehouse as a thanksgiving.' It was an 
 inspiration, n'est-ce pas, madame ? " 
 
 The inspiration had been justified. Le pHit 
 Andre was doing well ; he was to become a great 
 man. He had worked his way to the Lycee by 
 sheer grit and was already nearly the top of his 
 class — ^would soon be quite there. He was later 
 
16 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 to go to the University, to travel, to do all those 
 things which Hippolyte himself had been unable 
 to do. Hippolyte had brought up the rest of his 
 family to that idea — ^that Andre, le sage, the bright, 
 hard-working eldest son, was to be the first to 
 benefit. 
 
 The bakehouse, too, had proved successful under 
 Pepino's management, and brought in a return 
 whiich, though not princely, was sufficient for the 
 family's simple needs. Now that Stephanie was 
 earning her own living, the old stocking hidden 
 away in a secret cupboard began to bulge with 
 money put by. 
 
 In a moment of extreme confidence, Madame 
 showed it to Helen. 
 
 " For Andre," she said proudly. 
 
 " But what about Michel ? " asked Helen. 
 
 " Michel will not do anything in the world." 
 Madame's pride had been unconsciously pricked by 
 the question. " We shall keep him at home — you 
 see, he needs looking after. He has never been 
 young ; I am afraid he is born a good-for-nothing, 
 like . . . like . . . one day I will tell you.'' 
 
 Thus in the same cupboard as the family hope, 
 did we come across the family skeleton. 
 
 II 
 
 Now the best family skeletons are dead and dry 
 bones held together by the wires of traditional 
 scandal, which strengthens with each succeeding 
 generation. But the family skeleton of the Pepinos 
 had characteristics all its own. Only a few days 
 after Madame's partial confession to Helen it strode 
 boldly into the Boulangerie. 
 
 Madame was serving customers at the moment 
 and did not notice the entrance of the strange 
 figure. She had just handed over a couple of 
 
ETIENNE 17 
 
 metre-long loaves to a woman and had turned 
 mechanically to the newcomer. 
 
 " M'sieu desire ? " 
 
 Then she looked up. 
 
 " Etienne ! " she exclaimed ; and there appeared 
 in her kindly face a look so hard, so uncompro- 
 mising, that she ceased almost to be Zenobie 
 Pepino at all. 
 
 " Que veux'tu ? " she said. Her voice sounded 
 like a file. 
 
 The newcomer, a shabbily-dressed, bearded giant, 
 whose eyes seemed to spend most of their time look- 
 ing into another world, smiled. 
 
 '' Hippoljrte," he answered. 
 
 Hippolyte was soon brought from the room in 
 which he was washing as the preHminary to an 
 evening's outing. Madame, meanwhile, drew us 
 aside, so that the two men could talk alone ; a 
 heated discussion was soon in progress, in which 
 the usually mild Hippolyte was the obvious 
 aggressor. 
 
 " I am sorry for this," said Madame simply. " I 
 would not have had it happen for worlds. He is 
 Hippolyte' s cousin, a professional vagabond, a 
 fait-neant, I thought we had got rid of him for 
 good and all." The poor soul was on the verge of 
 tears. 
 
 At this moment Andre, with Michel trotting 
 behind him, entered the shop. 
 
 " Andre, take him away," she exclaimed hur- 
 riedly, pointing to the little one. But Etienne had 
 been quick to see Michel and, before any of them 
 had time to interfere, he swung him up on to his 
 shoulder. 
 
 " My successor in vagabondage, the hope of 
 Pepino aine / " he cried, in a voice that rang round 
 the little bakery and set the loaves a-clattering 
 on the shelves. " Do you not know your Cousin 
 
18 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Etienne, mon Michel ? Has not your mamma 
 dinned sufficient warnings into your infantile ears ? 
 And are you not going now to profit by her expe- 
 rience to spit in his face ? " 
 
 " Maman dit . . ." commenced Michel. 
 
 " I don't want to hear what your Maman has told 
 you — she has told me the same many times. Nom 
 de nom, we have said things to each other, you and 
 I, Zenobie ! " 
 
 " Are you going now you have seen him ? " in- 
 terposed Hippoljrte sternly. 
 
 " Yes, I will not disgrace your family pride be- 
 fore your visitors," replied the giant, indicating 
 Helen and myself. He released Michel (who slipped 
 behind his mother's skirts from whence he peeped 
 shyly at his cousin) and turned full on Hippolyte. 
 
 " There is more family affection in me than you 
 give me credit for," he said, " since I actually 
 ached to catch one more glimpse of le pHiL In a 
 few days I leave this cursed town of bat-eyed 
 moneybags and take to the open country again. 
 If you had any soul beyond your loaves you would 
 come with me. What, in the sacred name of dough, 
 keeps you here ? " 
 
 Without waiting for an answer, he turned to us 
 and continued in excellent English, 
 
 " I beg of you, Sir and Madame, to put this 
 incident from your minds. You are lodging with 
 an eminently respectable family and the sight of 
 their outcast members, however happy these may 
 be, cannot be entirely pleasant. But because I 
 love Michel here as I would my own child, I must 
 come back to him before the Wanderlust over- 
 takes me." 
 
 With a sweeping gesture of his broad-brimmed 
 hat, he made a bow, half ironical, to the embar- 
 rassed company. 
 
 " Au revoir, mes amis,^ he said, and was gone. 
 
ETIENNE 19 
 
 The rest of the evening was spent m receiving the 
 tearful apologies of the Pepinos. 
 
 We came across Etienne some days later. He 
 was sitting under the exiguous shade of a palm 
 tree on the Promenade des Anglais. Great hotels 
 gleamed white behind him, the Mediterranean 
 flashed its purples and blues in front, the prom- 
 enade was crowded with the colour of passing 
 visitors, and in the scene he sat like a blackbeetle 
 in a kaleidoscope. 
 
 " So you have not yet left Nice ? " I asked him. 
 
 " No," he replied somewhat moodily. " The 
 cursed hotels still keep me here, but in a few days I 
 shall have gone." 
 
 Neither of us could imagine the connection 
 between this scarecrow and the luxury palaces 
 behind him. Helen put him the question. 
 
 " A misguided parent taught me the guitar," 
 he answered, " and when one is young one's 
 pleasantest form of amusement is to annoy other 
 people. I, Madame, am a siffleur a deux voix^ paid 
 for annoying by those whom I annoy, and also 
 for strumming on a guitar with red, white and blue 
 ribbons attached to it. It may not have struck 
 you," he continued contemptuously, " that red, 
 white and blue — especially if the blue is so vague 
 that it may be taken for any colour — stands for 
 several nations, and visitors here like to feel 
 patriotic. In addition, I have learned one English 
 song, one American, one Italian and — I have 
 almost forgotten the German ; I must re-learn it. I 
 also whistle some popular operatic selections which 
 people think themselves musical for recognising. 
 I am well known in the dining-rooms of all the 
 hotels. In short, I am one of the sights of the C^^e 
 d'^2itr." 
 
 He stuck out his long legs as he said this, nearly 
 tripping up a fashionably-dressed woman. She 
 
20 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 looked haughtily at him for a second and then, 
 with a gleam of recognition, smiled distantly and 
 vaguely in his direction. Etienne leapt to his 
 feet with an extravagant bow. 
 
 " Part of my stock in trade," he said apologeti- 
 cally as he sat down again. 
 
 He was silent for a minute, and then sighed. 
 
 " Well, what do you think of me ? " 
 
 " You mean ? " 
 
 " You have heard about me from my kind rela- 
 tions whose souls are those of rats and mice. They 
 despise me for what I am ; I despise them for what 
 they are not. Which do you choose ? " 
 
 " Is a choice necessary ? " asked Helen. " Are 
 you not, both of you, good and bad ? " 
 
 " I see how it is with you," he snapped, with a 
 sudden accession of wrath. " You want to effect 
 a reconciliation. That is useless, Madame, you 
 will only miss the friendship of both of us. You 
 cannot mix olive oil with the Mediterranean. You 
 cannot put a candle to the sun. I whistle my way 
 along this damned coast and into the pockets of 
 mincing dolls, not because I like it, but because I 
 must accumulate enough righteous indignation 
 diu*ing the winter to give me energy for the sum- 
 mer — energy to get away from this place. I will 
 not spend my life sweating into loaves of bad flour 
 — earning an honest living, as you call it. I prefer 
 the honesty of the Mediterranean and the sunlight 
 in refusing to follow the time-honoured methods 
 of olive oil and candles. 
 
 " In a few days," he cried, " I shake the dust of 
 respectability from my feet. I go to Marseilles, 
 to Nimes, ri'importe ou, I have taken a liking to 
 you, my children. Will you forsake my respectable 
 relations while you are still in their good books, 
 say nothing as to your future movements, and 
 come with me ? I have had a good season, and we 
 
ETIENNE 21 
 
 / 
 
 will travel luxuriously. My offer is open until to- 
 morrow. I shall be on this seat." 
 
 He rose, and with another fantastic bow, walked 
 in long strides towards the town. 
 
 True to his word, he was awaiting us next day. 
 
 " Well ? " he inquired casually. 
 
 " We will come," I answered. 
 
 ^' Bon, Tuesday next at seven o'clock in the 
 morning, before it gets hot." 
 
 \ 
 
 Between Nice, the Brighton of the Riviera, and I 
 Monte Carlo, lies the little resort of BeauHeu, full i 
 of fashionable villas, and backed by steep rocky 
 heights whose lower slopes are stippled by the 
 rainbow colours of bright creepers. It hes retired 
 in a narrow bay, at the end of which is a toy harbour 
 where toy yachts seem to play at sailing on the 
 great Mediterranean, so diminutive do they look 
 between the sea and the mountains. As if to add 
 the requisite spice of danger to the games of the 
 little yachtsmen, bold white rocks jut at all angles 
 from the water, and the bed of the bay is so shallow 
 that it appears possible to wade to the farthest of 
 these rocks — to which tiny ripples of white foam 
 cling constantly — ^without wetting more than the 
 knees. Beaulieu, in short, is the kind of place 
 which makes one feel very grown-up and important 
 in comparison with the playthings around, and very 
 small and insignificant when one's eyes follow the 
 towering mountains to their full height, and the 
 narrow strip of Mediterranean to its horizon. 
 
 This little spot Helen and I had several times 
 visited solely to gaze into a few square yards of 
 water. Those square yards were to us a magic 
 jewelled carpet on which to travel even as far as 
 the great Kingdom of Nowhere and to explore 
 its wonders. They contained such a concentration 
 
22 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 of greens, blues, purples and whites, such dazzling 
 light and such profound gloom, such purity, such 
 laughter and happiness and such rich melancholy, 
 that whatever our mood, we could call up from 
 them just those parts of Nowhere in which it 
 pleased us most to travel. 
 
 On the day before our departure from Nice 
 with Etienne, we made our final pilgrimage. The 
 tram along the lower Corniche took us to within a 
 few yards of the spot ; we dropped hazardously 
 over a wall ; and in a moment traffic, villas, harbour, 
 everything except the immediate seashore wa« 
 completely cut off. 
 
 " Whither away ? " I inquired. 
 
 '* That's just the question," replied Helen. 
 
 "What part of Nowhere do you want to visit 
 to-day ? " 
 
 Helen did not answer for a few minutes, and 
 then said : 
 
 " Does it matter ? Isn't every part beautiful ? " 
 — and then after a further pause : 
 
 " I should like to know where we're going with 
 Etienne." 
 
 "Step — ^metaphorically speaking, of course — on 
 to this jewelled carpet of sea, and it'll tell you." 
 
 Helen gazed at it for a long time — so long that I 
 imagined she had fallen asleep — before she spoke 
 again. 
 
 " Boy, I'm not certain of Etienne. He's too 
 plausible." 
 
 " Is that what the sea tells you ? " I asked. 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " Then I think it's got a little of the Midi tem- 
 perament itself ; it exaggerates. Etienne's all right. 
 Even Hippolyte gets picturesque sometimes, you 
 know, when he wants you to do things for him. 
 You've got to get accustomed to speaking in the 
 superlative." 
 
ETIENNE 23 
 
 Helen gave an unconvinced grunt. There was 
 another silence. 
 
 "Do you really think the sea exaggerates?" 
 she asked suddenly. 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " Distorts. That white oval pebble down there 
 — the one next the patch of deep blue — ^is really 
 almost square. But the water does away with 
 the hard corners of it and makes it never-ending." 
 
 " Immortal," I suggested. 
 
 " That's it. It goes on for ever being an oval 
 patch of white light instead of a grey square. 
 That's exaggeration." 
 
 " So's everything," I retorted. " Put a litre of 
 the Mediterranean into a bottle and it's just colour- 
 less water, and sunlight, you know, is simply 
 nothing at all. But when you put them all to- 
 gether one exaggerates the other, and the whole 
 effect is of amazing richness " 
 
 " And being rich is nothing more than an exag- 
 geration of someone or something else's poverty," 
 interposed Helen. 
 
 " True for you. But you don't think that every- 
 one should be content to remain as he is ? " 
 
 " Certainly not," 
 
 "Well then, the sort of exaggeration that this 
 bit of sea indulges in is ambition. It tries to make 
 itself beautiful by adorning everything around 
 it." 
 
 " ' Cromwell, I charge thee, put away ambition,' " 
 quoted Helen tritely. 
 
 " And put away that Kingdom of Nowhere of 
 yours," I replied. " What is that little fancy but 
 ambition ? " 
 
 " It's a sort of ideal," she corrected. 
 
 " And you're ambitious to reach it, even though 
 you know you can't. If not, it's a jolly poor sort 
 of ideal. No, young woman, stop bothering about 
 
24 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 the exaggerations of the sea and the eccentricities 
 of Etienne — ^you will fathom neither." 
 
 The hills behind BeauHeu are so steep that at a 
 comparatively early hour the sun sinks behind 
 them. It did so now, and as it suddenly dis- 
 appeared Hke the blowing out of a lamp, the 
 jewels of the sea — ^grey pebbles and the like — were 
 extinguished with it. There remained an expanse 
 of indigo and purple ; the mountain sides were 
 plum-colour in shadow and shimmering cool gold 
 where the Ught still clung affectionately to them. 
 
 " All exaggeration," I told Helen. 
 
 " But the jewelled carpet which takes you to the 
 Kingdom of Nowhere is true." 
 
 " It fades when the sun sinks." 
 
 " It won't fade in my memory. The sun will 
 always be full on it." 
 
 " And Etienne ? " 
 
 "Well, perhaps the sun did go behind a cloud 
 for the moment," admitted Helen. 
 
 IV 
 
 By easy stages we made for Marseilles, sometimes 
 traveUing in the slowest of slow trains omnihuSy 
 sometimes walking across the red, white and green 
 countryside, stumbling uphill and down, or crossing 
 seemingly interminable amphitheatres of olive 
 trees. Etienne, at these times, proved himself a 
 capital companion, always ready with a helping 
 word, an old friend who would put us up for the 
 night, a bottle, mysteriously hidden in his sack, of 
 good thirst-quenching wine, or a hunch of bread and 
 sausage. When conversation grew wearisome, he 
 would squat beneath a convenient tree or wall, and 
 accompany himself on his guitar to old Provengal 
 songs, which needed to be translated into Parisian 
 French before we could understand a word of them. 
 One day it rained heavily ; Etienne would not for 
 
ETIENNE 25 
 
 a moment consent to budging from the tiny farm 
 in which we had spent the night, but passed the 
 entire day between our lodgings, where he practised 
 his whisthng, and the nearest bar — a villainous- 
 looking little tavern calling itself the Bar-Londres 
 — ^where he accumulated moisture for further 
 efforts. 
 
 In the afternoon he returned in tremendous anger. 
 
 " I have seen it," he cried — " the juggernaut 
 that carries damned souls to hell, driven by the 
 devils that drove the Gadarene swine down the 
 steep place and filled by twenty-odd lynx-eyed 
 moles." 
 
 It was just his manner of informing us that he had 
 seen a char-a-banc. - 
 
 " Come away," he cried, waving his arms violently. 
 " Come away before the soul of Mammon enters 
 into you, before you are willing to pay for desecra- 
 ting the country and turning honest. God-fearing 
 men and women into snobs and paupers. Come 
 away, I say ! I will not stop in this place another 
 hour." 
 
 Nothing would pacify him, but that we should 
 immediately pack up our traps and go with him. 
 
 " I will not breathe the same air as those people," 
 he snorted as he stumped along the road. And then 
 turning back, he spat after another car which had 
 just passed. " Do you know the story of the 
 blind man who thought he could see ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " He commenced to run, and because people were 
 kind enough not to put any obstacle in his way, he 
 went on running, and became more and more sure 
 he could see. Then he was certain of it. Finally, 
 he tripped over one of his own feet." 
 
 " There's a moral to it," quizzed Helen. 
 
 " And that is," continued Etienne innocently, 
 " that people in those cars think they see things 
 
26 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 because nothing is put in their way. The only 
 true method of seeing rocks is to experience rocks 
 — to cut your feet on them if necessary. The only 
 way of seeing those Httle villages perched upon the 
 hilltops like the knobs on halma men is to toil up 
 the side of the halma man. Then you'll know 
 what you're seeing — you'll have the rocks and the 
 villages firmly fixed in your memory. But to run 
 about this country — or any country — in a motor- 
 car, and then to imagine you've seen it is simply 
 the quintessence of tom-foolery, like the blind man 
 running. And Uke him, tourists are their own 
 stumbHng-blocks." 
 
 *' Why ? " asked Helen, for Etienne paused as 
 if he had finished his sermon. 
 
 " Because they haven't enough humour to avoid 
 extremities," he rephed sententiously. 
 
 After a few minutes he resumed impatiently : 
 
 " We aren't getting out of this country fast 
 enough. We shall be quicker by train." 
 
 Only when we had already taken tickets did we 
 discover a four-hours' wait in store for us. 
 
 " Why are you in such a confounded hurry to 
 be gone from here," I asked, after every other 
 conversational resource had failed to restore his 
 temper, '* when you know perfectly well you will 
 come back next season ? " 
 
 " By the end of the summer my moral fibre will 
 have slackened. Even the best engines have to 
 get up steam and the strongest metal becomes 
 tired. Besides, a man must live." 
 
 *' Je rCen vois pas la necessiUy^ said Helen, " if 
 the method goes so strongly against the grain." 
 
 " I have already perceived, Madame," replied 
 fitienne caustically, " that you are an idealist. 
 Idealists are dangerous — they deprive a man of 
 the infinite solace of exaggeration. They are 
 mathematicians come full circle." 
 
ETIENNE 27 
 
 " Suppose you tell us how much of what you say 
 you really mean," I put to him. 
 
 " As much or as little as most men," he replied 
 with a shrug, " and more than most women." 
 
 " Who at least try to speak the truth," interrupted 
 Helen, nettled. 
 
 " Thereby foolishly attempting to put religion 
 to the test," went on Etienne imperturbably, " and 
 succeeding in spoiling both stories — ^both life and 
 religion." 
 
 Only when we were nearly half-way on our train 
 journey did Etienne's face relax into a smile. 
 
 '' These trains," quoth he, " may spoil life, but 
 they strengthen one's faith enormously." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " In a future heaven," he said, and mopped his 
 brow with a big vari-coloured handkerchief. 
 
 We arrived in Marseilles in the early hours 
 and were taken by our vagabond friend to a 
 dirty little house near the Old Harbour. In the 
 morning we were told by the slatternly housekeeper 
 that M'sieu paid us his compliments and would 
 be unavoidably absent that day. We consequently 
 spent it alone in the City of Climbing Streets, and 
 rowed out to the islands beyond the harbour. That 
 night Etienne was still absent. On the following 
 day also we were alone, and spent the evening in the 
 only cafe we could find which had an orchestra. 
 Marseilles does not seem to be a city of music. 
 
 On our way home we passed along the side of the 
 harbour, watching the twinkling lights on the 
 opposite hill. Suddenly Helen gripped my arm. 
 
 " There he is," she exclaimed. 
 
 About fifty yards down the road, under the glare 
 of a cinema entrance, stood Etienne, swaying danger- 
 ously and talking in a strained, high-pitched voice. 
 But it was not only Etienne who attracted our 
 attention. 
 
28 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 His remarks were addressed to a familiar figure — 
 a dignified figure with shock head, ragged beard 
 and lean, drooping moustache — a figure dimly 
 reminiscent, even at that distance, of John the 
 Baptist. 
 
 " The Pope of Avignon," I exclaimed softly to 
 Helen. She nodded. 
 
 Their backs were half-turned to us. We ap- 
 proached quietly. 
 
 "It is curious you met them," said the Pope. 
 " I remember them : both young ? " 
 
 ifitienne nodded. 
 
 " Five hundred francs," he whispered excitedly. 
 
 " Each," cautioned the Pope. 
 
 " To-morrow ? " enquired Etienne. 
 
 The Pope grinned, and both shook hands. 
 
 " What are you going to do now ? " asked Helen. 
 
 " Take rooms for one night in the most expensive 
 and correct hotel in Marseilles," I replied, securely 
 fastening my pocket-book — for a thousand francs 
 was pretty nearly all I possessed. 
 
 We packed our knapsacks, paid the woman, and 
 entered once more on to the Vieux Port. 
 
 " Sic transit gloria £tiennsis,'^ I remarked to the 
 lights across the harbour. 
 
 " Poor Michel," murmured Helen. She was 
 thinking, I knew, of the Boulangerie du Jesus. 
 
Ill 
 
 IN ARLES 
 
 ^^^Arles, if it were England, would be called Micawber 
 ^TTown, for it is the town where everyone is waiting 
 for something to turn up. You can see them 
 from morning to night lounging their lives away 
 on the seats which are among the few modern 
 improvements of which Aries boasts. There is 
 scarcely a street in which two carriages can pass ; 
 there is — mirabile dictu — only one cinema ; no 
 particular business seems to be carried on in this 
 out-of -the- world little spot ; but in every inch of 
 shade — amid the mottled sunlight of the Place 
 du Forum, under the tall avenues of trees on the 
 Boulevard Victor Hugo, under the pollarded groves 
 in the Place Lamartine — are rows of hard-backed 
 seats on which the venerable inhabitants sit, smoke, 
 spit, discuss local politics, and, since human nature 
 is much the same everywhere, each other's domestic 
 affairs. It is a pleasant spot to linger in, this 
 Sleepy Hollow on the banks of the Rhone, where a 
 sense of impending adventure is the only thing that 
 prevents it from crumbling completely into dust. 
 
 We found it a place after our own hearts, did 
 Helen and I. We lounged in the huge Roman 
 Arena; in the cloisters of St. Trophime, half 
 Roman half Moorish; in the Ali^ttamps, among 
 Roman tombs; finally, and most whole-heartedly, 
 among the other lo\mgers on the shady side of the 
 Boulevard. 
 
30 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 We were sitting over a coffee one afternoon, 
 watching the infernal white dust being raised in- 
 stead of settled by the municipal water-cart, when 
 a lorry stacked high with wine-barrels slowed up 
 alongside us and, after a few minutes' breathless 
 panting, shut off its engine and stopped. 
 
 A perspiring little man, with twinkling black 
 eyes and grossly unshaven chin, carrying in his 
 hand an immense bunch of white Ulac, descended 
 from it, shook the dust out of his clothes, raised his 
 hat and approached Helen. 
 
 '' For the English lady," he said, beaming, handing 
 her the bunch of lilac. 
 
 Helen, I must confess, is usually a dilB&cult per- 
 son to surprise. But when the bouquet was thus 
 suddenly thrust at her she could not restrain a gasp 
 of astonishment. 
 
 " How lovely ! " she exclaimed. " But why for 
 me?" 
 
 *' It is sent by Madame's most devoted admirer," 
 explained the donor of the gift. 
 
 Helen turned a beautiful rose-pink — ^so that had 
 her " most devoted admirer " been present I should 
 not have blamed him for falling there and then on 
 his knees and worshipping her. 
 
 " I think there has been some mistake," I inter- 
 posed. 
 
 *' But no," returned the fat man, somewhat 
 nettled. " There has been no mistake whatever. 
 As if anyone could mistake Madame ! " 
 
 His tone, somehow, made me feel ashamed of 
 myself, in spite of a sternly-suppressed desire to 
 laugh. I subsided. 
 
 " I have a message to give Madame," continued 
 this impertinent Uttle intruder. " Her most 
 devoted admirer begs to offer his heartfelt regrets 
 that he cannot himself present his gift, but there 
 was business to transact which he could not miss. 
 
IN ABLES 31 
 
 He therefore deputed me in his stead, and adjured 
 me to press upon Madame that she should be there 
 next Sunday also. His life depends upon seeing her." 
 
 "Where?" gasped Helen. By this time a small 
 crowd had collected, to our increased embarrass- 
 ment. 
 
 '^ Mon Dieuf at the bull-fight, of course." The 
 " deputy most devoted admirer " was not to be 
 put off with such quibbles. 
 
 " But I was never at a bull-fight in my life ! " 
 exclaimed Helen. 
 
 " Madame has the coyness of the South." The 
 little man's mouth spread itself into an oleaginous 
 smile. 
 
 The effect of this compUment on Helen was 
 magical. Her command of the French language 
 failed her. 
 
 " Don't be a fool ! " she ejaculated in the most 
 unmistakable English. 
 
 Even the " deputy," though apparently in- 
 fatuated (for he had never lifted his eyes from her 
 during the whole conversation), saw that she was 
 annoyed. 
 
 " Madame dit .? " he queried. 
 
 By this time Helen had sufficiently recovered 
 her seK-possession to give him a literal translation 
 of her previous utterance. 
 
 " Look here," I added, as soon as I saw his face 
 drop, " it's no use saying that a mistake hasn't 
 been made. Madame has told you she was never 
 at a bull-fight in her Hfe ; and, as a matter of fact, 
 neither of us was here last Sunday. In addition 
 to that, I think it is extremely bad taste to present 
 bouquets from admirers in the presence of Madame's 
 husband. If I were in England, do you know 
 what apology I should demand ? " 
 
 " No ? " The Httle man's eyes were open wide 
 enough now, and fixed full on mine. 
 
32 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 I began to take off my coat and turn up my shirt- 
 sleeves, to the immense satisfaction of the crowd. 
 
 The " deputy," however, was in no mood for 
 that sort of thing. His eyes suddenly brimmed 
 over with tears ; he dashed his hat on the ground. 
 
 " How can T adequately express my desolation ? " 
 he cried, addressing Helen. " Madame, in the name 
 of my friend and myself, I beg you to forgive me. 
 This mistake has ruined me for life. Listen, I beg of 
 you, while I tell you the desolating history of my 
 friend." 
 
 He pushed away the crowd, retrieved his hat, 
 and sat down beside us. 
 
 " Imagine how it was with him," he continued, 
 " when at the bull-fight last Sunday he saw a 
 beautiful EngUsh lady, with eyes like the cold 
 northern stars — oh, so frigid ! — mouth, a little 
 rosebud — " he put his fingers to his lips and blew 
 a ridiculous kiss which set us both laughing. " Ah, 
 but you must not laugh. You do not understand," 
 he cried, clutching our arms. " When we of the 
 South see your northern goddesses, we are trans- 
 ported, we cry out, we faint, we fall in love. All 
 this my friend did at the bull-fight : they might 
 have killed twenty bulls — fifty, a hundred : he 
 had no eyes, no mind, no soul for anything except 
 the beautiful unknown. 
 
 " But she, on her part, was icy, disdainful, almost 
 aghast, it seemed, at the sport of the arena. She 
 had no eyes for him. She watched frozenly while 
 he dumbly worshipped her. As she left the building 
 she dropped her handkerchief. It was his oppor- 
 tunity. He seized it, restored it to her, spoke to her. 
 
 " She thanked him, smiled upon him. For all 
 the week he has been basking in that smile. 
 
 " To-day he implored me to present myself to 
 the lady — he described her to me, and where I 
 should find her — here, on the Boulevard. It was 
 
IN ARLES 33 
 
 arranged between us that I should be relieved of 
 certain debts if I could induce her to be present at 
 the Arena next Sunday. I tell you these things, 
 Madame, so as to show you I was not altogether a 
 free agent. For these debts were to me — terrible." 
 
 He mopped his brow despairingly. 
 
 " Now I am undone," he sighed. " I can never 
 pay them. My friend is undone. He will die of 
 love. It is a sorry business, mon Dieu.^^ 
 
 He stared gloomily at the roadway for some time. 
 Suddenly his eyes brightened. 
 
 " The Boulevard is long," he exclaimed trium- 
 phantly. " One can but try again. Madame will, 
 perhaps, excuse " 
 
 Before we could reaUse it, he had snatched the 
 bouquet, made a sweeping bow, and hopped on to 
 the lorry. In a few seconds the engine was started. 
 
 As the clouds of white dust followed, we saw a 
 bunch of lilac waved cheerily in our direction. 
 
 n 
 
 " How about this ? " I asked Helen, holding up 
 for her inspection a tiny candlestick with toy candle 
 already ensconed. " If the Sisters of Charity have 
 really God's good gift of imagination, as they should 
 have, they wiU understand this present for little 
 Olga. She will be able now to bum a candle for her 
 doll, which is just what she is longing to do." 
 
 " Right ," assented Helen. We paid the 
 modest sum — you can buy children's toys cheaply 
 in French roadside markets — and left the booth. 
 
 We had suddenly reahsed that Aries was not all 
 comedy, that there was suffering in its sunHght and 
 tragedy lurking among its picturesquely attractive 
 streets. Olga had brought us starkly up against 
 the fact. 
 
 Olga's age was only five, but her history con- 
 trasted curiously with the pleasantness of her 
 
34 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 surroundings. When she was two, her father had 
 been killed at the front — the big, strong, happy- 
 go-lucky father whom she had just begun to know. 
 To Aries he was only one of the Enfants de la Pa- 
 roisse whose names were inscribed on the big war 
 memorial in St. Trophime ; but to his little daughter 
 he was at the same time much less and much more 
 — 8b memory that was already beginning to fade, 
 a blank that was rapidly growing perceptible. 
 
 Olga's mother married again soon after. The 
 kiddy looked upon her new father at first with the 
 wide eyes of childish amazement — for how had he 
 suddenly come to take the place of her other ? — 
 and then with fear and horror. Young as she was, 
 she soon knew what it meant to be cruelly beaten 
 by him. For months he continued this treatment 
 — " discipline " he used to call it — ^while, at the 
 same time, her mother, to whom she ran for pro- 
 tection, became less and less loving, more and 
 more casual and hard. It was so complete a 
 reversal of her former happiness that little Olga 
 was bewildered and scared out of her wits. 
 
 Then came a morning when she woke to find her- 
 self alone in the house. Cry as she would, no mother 
 came to comfort, no stepfather, even, to curse 
 and thrash her. She had been abandoned. 
 
 For some months, when we met her, she had been 
 in the cheerless company of the Sisters of Charity, 
 one among forty other foundlings, many of them 
 luckier than she in having a few toys to play mth 
 and very occasional treats from friends in the 
 town. Of them all, Olga seemed the most com- 
 pletely dependent on the Sisters of Charity, whose 
 training was that of school dragons and whose 
 instincts were those of prison wardresses. 
 
 From the moment she entered the walls of her 
 new " home," the generous sunlight and warmth of 
 the Midi seemed excluded. She was not beaten, 
 
m ARLES 36 
 
 it is true, but there is a kindness which is almost 
 cruelty. 
 
 Her one remaining joy was the Infants' School, 
 with its shaded courtyard ranged round with tiny 
 forms, where she spent some hours each day. It 
 was not so much that she was sage — quick at 
 her lessons and receptive of mind — ; it was her 
 only time in which to garner some of the kindhness 
 of Hfe which her southern soul craved. 
 
 It was here that we found her as we carried our 
 small gift of candles and little gilt candlestick. 
 The doll given her some days previously was lying 
 in her arms. 
 
 " Pour ta poupee, ma petite^'' said Helen, handing 
 her our present. 
 
 A Httle hand, released from the care of the doll, 
 grasped the candlestick ; two bright eyes glanced 
 shyly up to Helen. 
 
 " Merci, madame.^^ The voice was scarcely above 
 a whisper, but all the gratitude of her starved years 
 was in it. 
 
 " What did you do with your dolly last night ? " 
 asked Helen. " TeU me." 
 
 " I put her to bed, Madame." 
 
 " What, without supper ? " Helen pretended to 
 be shocked. 
 
 A knowing smile came into the child's face, which 
 ill-befitted the drab black smock in which charity 
 had clothed her natural daintiness. 
 
 " It cannot eat, Madame. It is only a doll." 
 
 Helen accepted this rebuff meekly. 
 
 " And this morning ? " 
 
 " I woke it up and dressed it and brought it to 
 school." 
 
 " What did you bring it to school for, ma petite ? " 
 persisted Helen. 
 
 *' I have never had one before, Madame. I 
 wanted the other children to see it." 
 
36 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " And what do the Sisters say to it at the Con- 
 vent ? " 
 
 " Nothing, Madame. But they will not let me 
 take it to Communion." 
 
 She slipped away for a moment to examine the 
 candlestick. For the first time she volunteered a 
 statement. 
 
 " I take it in the church and burn the candles for 
 dolly," she said. " In a little comer where no one 
 sees." 
 
 If you should, one day, visit the convent church 
 and see in some niche a tiny gilt candlestick plas- 
 tered with grease, you will know it is Olga's, in 
 which the candles were burnt for her dolly. But 
 by that time, probably, it will have been swept up 
 with the rubbish. 
 
 ni 
 
 From one prisoner to others. We left Aries by 
 road, picking up near the station a friendly cart 
 bound for Tarascon. We were in high spirits, as 
 they should be who visit the town of Daudet's 
 Tartarin, the embodiment of the mercurial Midi. 
 
 It was just after we had bundled our few precious 
 belongings on to the cart, and had driven off at a 
 smart pace — a pace, indeed, that we would have 
 imagined the old horse incapable of — ^that the 
 driver pulled up sharply, and pointed with his 
 whip. 
 
 " There they go," he remarked, shifting his cigar 
 from one side of his mouth to the other. 
 
 We followed the direction in which he pointed. . . . 
 
 There were twenty of them, chained together 
 and guarded by armed warders — as pretty a col- 
 lection of cut-throats as it has ever been our fortune 
 to look upon. Two of them were dressed in their 
 native Moroccan costume — except that the knife 
 at the waist was lacking — a few more were in 
 
IN ARLES 37 
 
 ragged uniform (" Deserters probably," said our 
 driver) ; the majority retained the clothes of decent 
 workmen. 
 
 In sections of four they pulled and dragged each 
 other silently along the road, some apparently 
 anxious to return to the jail they had come to 
 rely on for shelter ; others shy and nervous ; most 
 of them apathetic. The warders, pipe in mouth, 
 regarded them carelessly enough, but with just 
 sufficient attention to urge on a laggard or restrain 
 an impatient movement. 
 
 One of the Moroccans in the front rank suddenly 
 raised a manacled arm threateningly at his guard : 
 a quick prod in the ribs sent him staggering against 
 his companions, and for a second the section was 
 in confusion. A sharp word from the warder : 
 the party reformed instantly, and plodded drearily 
 up the wooded approach to the station. 
 
 " Where are they going ? " asked Helen. 
 
 " Tarascon," replied the driver shortly, and 
 whipping up his horse, left the pack behind. 
 
 It is a long, straight road from Aries to Tarascon, 
 bordered by tall trees and low hedges, very rigid, 
 very straight — very French ; the cemented tele- 
 graph poles and the crimson-topped kilometre 
 stones proclaimed it a Route Nationale. A few 
 farm-houses — dwelling-place, stable and fortress 
 combined — are dotted along its route, as dusty as 
 the road itself. Every now and then, apparently 
 from nowhere, rises a cluster of one-storey cottages 
 round a well. 
 
 And on either side, stretching to the distant 
 hills in one direction, and to the sea in the other, 
 the broad free expanse of the Rhone valley, spring- 
 coloured and virginal, irrigated by small shaded 
 canals and dotted with Httle huts like dolls' 
 houses. 
 
 But on the road itself, dust, dust, dust, that 
 
38 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 filtered through clothes and cemented itself into a 
 plaster of Paris casing for one's body. 
 
 " A curse upon the dust," ejaculated the driver. 
 We stopped at a Httle buvette by the wayside. 
 
 " I will tell you something, mon ami,'' he said, 
 " all the ills of the Midi you can attribute to dust. 
 It fills a man's throat to choking point ; and then, 
 to relieve it, he drinks good wine which — ^bene- 
 diction ! — empties his pocket and fills his veins 
 with hotter blood than his parents put there. Then 
 he imbibes more dust and more wine and does 
 things he's sorry for afterwards. Here's to the 
 dust which gives us wine ! " — and raising his glass, 
 he emptied it at a single quaff calhng almost in the 
 same breath for more. 
 
 " That's the story of those fellows we saw," he 
 remarked, alluding to the prisoners. 
 
 " Perhaps it's Olga's story too," said Helen to me. 
 
 Our driver did not understand the allusion, but 
 was not to be left out of the conversation. 
 
 " It's every story down here." 
 
 " You are all prisoners then ? " Helen asked him. 
 
 " Until we are caught," he replied. " Then we 
 become free. When you are clapped into jail all 
 the troubles of living are at an end." 
 
 " But what of those belonging to you whom you 
 leave outside ? " I queried. 
 
 " They cease to have the trouble of looking after 
 you, that's all," he repUed with a grin. 
 
 It chanced that as we arrived in Tarascon the 
 same batch of prisoners were leaving the train for 
 the jail — ^trains travel slowly in the Midi. Here, 
 for the first time, we noticed an upright, refined 
 youth in their midst, brought into such company 
 by I wonder what history of weakness and good 
 intentions. 
 
 " Doesn't he bring back Olga very close to you ? " 
 asked Helen in pointing him out. 
 
IN ARLES 39 
 
 " That's true. She also is a prisoner." 
 
 " And a more hopeless one even than these 
 people," cried Helen. " Whatever has she done 
 to deserve the punishment she is receiving ? " 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders. 
 
 " Punishments aren't meted out according to 
 deserts in this world," I said. 
 
 " By this world, you mean," corrected Helen. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Why are people so proud of what they call 
 civilisation ? " she continued, " most of it's pretty 
 rotten." 
 
 " Not all." 
 
 " No. The material part's all right. But the 
 spiritual, I mean. And you can't separate the 
 two. That's the tragedy." 
 
 " It's Olga's tragedy, at any rate," I assented. 
 
 " And these poor fellows'." 
 
 " But the Frenchman puts it down to the dust." 
 
 " Anything rather than blame himself." 
 
 " He's right, my dear. We're all prisoners in 
 one way or another — prisoners of civilisation, the 
 evil of it as well as the good. We can't help it. 
 Why bother ? " 
 
 " Well then " — Helen tossed her head trium- 
 phantly — " thank goodness I am free to choose what 
 I shall do and where I shall go." 
 
 " You mean ? " 
 
 " I'm out of conceit with Tartarin de Tarascon : 
 at the moment I strongly dislike him. He's super- 
 ficial and lazy. I'm going straight on to Nimes." 
 
 I had Hked the look of Tarascon. But what was 
 I to do when Helen commanded ? 
 
IV 
 
 OLD ACQUAINTANCE 
 
 I 
 
 Those who do not lounge lose much : if we had not 
 lounged so persistently we should not have been 
 invited to the wedding feast of Therese Bessiere and 
 Marcel Dubosc at Nimes. 
 
 We came upon them and their hosts of friends 
 sitting at a long table in a street near the Place 
 Montcalm. They were popular young folk ; and 
 as Marcel had expectations from a rich uncle, a 
 wine merchant in Paris, the match was considered 
 a good one in the neighbourhood, and the feast 
 therefore to be patronised at all costs — especially 
 as Uncle was gracing it with his presence and was 
 suspected of generous tendencies when " under the 
 influence." There was of course no sign of such 
 expansiveness as yet ; for after the tiring day of 
 civil and rehgious ceremonies, of a prolonged car- 
 riage drive round the town, of being dressed in 
 one's best clothes, the company had arrived only at 
 the preliminary stage of aperitifs. 
 
 These, however, were proving liberal both in 
 quahty and quantity to empty stomachs. The 
 guests were growing talkative and impatient for 
 the waiting feast. The bride had removed what 
 I may irreverently term the " fal-lals " of her 
 costume and was sitting at the head of the table in 
 slippers and shawl. The bridegroom had taken off 
 his collar. A free-and-easy atmosphere pervaded 
 
OLD ACQUAINTANCE 41 
 
 the entire section of street and several other loungers 
 besides ourselves were bent on taking advantage 
 of it. 
 
 We edged our way nearer to the table. 
 
 " A song ! " cried one of the guests. " Who will 
 give us a song ? " 
 
 " I will," I yelled at the top of my voice. 
 
 For a moment every face — ^including Helen's — 
 was turned in my direction. A dead silence. Then 
 a shout of approval. 
 
 " Messieurs, Mesdames, I will sing you an EngUsh 
 song you all know — a song we sang together when 
 we fought side by side in the fields of your beautiful 
 France!" 
 
 I jumped on to a small table near-by, and striking 
 an attitude, gave them " Tipperary." Heaven help 
 me, I would no more sing it in England to-day 
 than I would ride a bone-shaker in a beaver hat 
 down the Strand ! — but here it was an immense 
 success. The chorus was sung again and again, 
 and as I descended to terra firma a dozen glasses 
 were held out in my direction. I took that of the 
 bride, naturally, and made my only speech in 
 French. 
 
 " On behalf of your English Allies," I cried, " I 
 drink to the long Hfe, health, prosperity and happi- 
 ness of the newly-married couple ! " 
 
 Two minutes' din followed upon this effort. 
 Helen was pressed into the feast : the bride rose 
 up and kissed me : the bridegroom gripped my 
 hand : I was immediately given a place at the table 
 next to Uncle, and thus only one remove from the 
 bride, while Helen was put next to the bridegroom. 
 
 There are moments of triumph in the lives of 
 most men when, whatever may be their avocation, 
 the artist rises uppermost in them, and they care not 
 for their own success, but for the supreme achieve- 
 ment of their work. This was mine. I would 
 
42 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 rather have been, at the moment, the author of that 
 French speech than any other man aUve ! 
 
 What happened to Helen for the rest of that 
 memorable evening I must leave her to tell you 
 herself if she so wishes : I can only describe my own 
 adventures until the moment when the entrance of 
 our old friend and enemy threw us together again 
 in the dark roadway. 
 
 I soon learnt from Uncle, who wheezed the story 
 into my ear, how Marcel had served his country, 
 had been wounded twice, and had also been pro- 
 moted officer on the field. He was a good boy, 
 was Marcel ; a Httle lazy perhaps — but then the 
 present generation did not know how to work Uke 
 the last — but good, yes, good as young men went 
 nowadays. Therese was a lucky girl to have 
 him — this in a loud stage-whisper accompanied by 
 a sly dig in my ribs. Therese blushed slightly 
 beneath her southern tan. 
 
 " He is a dear," she whispered ambiguously. 
 
 " Come," cried Uncle suddenly. " When will 
 dinner be ready ? " 
 
 " Immediately," rephed a little frock-coated waiter 
 emerging from a neighbouring doorway. "It is 
 waiting." 
 
 We formed a procession and entered the dining 
 hall — a long whitewashed room with oil lamps and 
 paper festoons hanging cheerily from the ceilmg. I 
 was again placed next to Uncle. 
 
 The feast is blurred in my memory. I can only 
 remember that, as course after course was served 
 without the slightest hint of a termination, and as 
 my glass was kept constantly filled, I began sur- 
 reptitiously to wipe my beaded forehead and count 
 the exact number of festoons in a given area of 
 ceiling. No boy at a school treat ever filled him- 
 self more completely with the good things of hfe 
 than did I in the whitewashed room. I was 
 
OLD ACQUAINTANCE 43 
 
 conscious of talking wonderfully fluent French — of 
 even attempting to imitate the hard Proven9al 
 accent. I listened while the praises of everybody 
 in the room — myself included — ^were sung by 
 Uncle, who was beginning to enjoy himself. I 
 learned from other guests the history of Therese, 
 who had been considered one of the cleverest girls 
 at her school, and who had waited for her lover 
 through four long heart-breaking years of war. 
 Marcel, from the opposite side of the table, poured 
 out his gratitude for my song : again and again I 
 wished him every happiness in the future. I 
 clinked glasses with him, with his bride, with 
 Uncle, with Therese's mother and Therese's 
 father ; it was becoming a mechanical business, 
 when a glance from Helen — ^the only time I saw her 
 — ^warned me to stop. 
 
 I waved away yet another course as it approached. 
 Therese looked at me concernedly. 
 
 " Mais, Monsieu afini ? " she inquired. 
 
 I smiled apologetically. 
 
 " Ah comment / " I became for the moment 
 the centre of a commiserating group of guests. 
 Then someone at the other end of the table cracked 
 a fresh joke, and attention was happily diverted. 
 
 At last the meal came to an end. 
 
 " Tiens, tiens I " cried one rising to his feet. 
 " The English m'sieu has given us a song we knew 
 as soldiers. Permit me, messieurs, mesdames, to 
 sing one to him which I, too, learned from his com- 
 patriots on the battlefields." 
 
 Then in a roaring voice he gave us a ribald ditty 
 composed by English Tommies, " Apres la guerre 
 finite I must add that it seemed rather strong 
 meat, even for the gay company in which it was 
 sung. I hid my face and sincerely hoped Helen's 
 French would break down at the critical moment. 
 
 The singer himself, however, failed before that ; 
 
44 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 but his confusion was luckily cloaked by the rest of 
 the company, who rose from the now naked table. 
 Some of them stood round the walls smoking and 
 drinking ; others sauntered out into the street. 
 
 In an incredibly short space of time the table was 
 cleared, taken off its trestles and placed against 
 the wall. There was an awkward pause : everyone 
 seemed expectant, but nothing happened. 
 
 " Eh hien,'' said a young man. " There is a 
 piano. I will play until the musician arrives." 
 
 He struck up a lively tune. First the bride and 
 bridegroom took the floor, followed by the other 
 guests in quick succession. I found myself part- 
 nering a distant cousin of Therese's — a buxom, dark 
 girl who fortunately knew as much about dancing 
 as I did. Faster and faster whirled the music ; 
 and the movements, which had at first been stately, 
 became freer and wilder with it. Gradually the 
 room grew thick, not only with tobacco-smoke but 
 with the fine dust that rose from the earth floor. 
 Wine was called at the conclusion of the dance, and 
 after a few moments' respite we were at it again. 
 The heat was terrific. 
 
 We were in the middle of what purported to 
 be a waltz when an enormous voice drowned the 
 wheezy piano. 
 
 " Etienne Pepino at your service ! " it cried. 
 
 The music stopped ; but not more suddenly than 
 did I. I do not know to this day what happened 
 to my partner. 
 
 Etienne, his hair and beard more unkempt 
 than ever, his eyes sparkling, a great guitar stream- 
 ing with coloured ribbons slung over his shoulder, 
 strode up the room. 
 
 " First, let us have a little dance I learned in 
 Montenegro," he cried. " Take your partners, 
 gentlemen." 
 
 I sought out Helen with my eyes ; she was on 
 
OLD ACQUAINTANCE 45 
 
 the other side of the room. I motioned her to the 
 door. 
 
 " Well ? " I queried when we joined each other 
 in the street. 
 
 " The bad penny," replied Helen. 
 
 " He would have been worth more than that if 
 we had let him," I remarked savagely. 
 
 " Dance, my little manikins, dance ! " shouted 
 Etienne in the distance. The twang of his guitar 
 sounded like devils' laughter. 
 
 II 
 
 We took good care next day to avoid any of the 
 haunts of Etienne — ^we knew from previous ex- 
 perience the type of place in which he would most 
 probably spend his time — and saw no more of 
 him. We watched the passing show from a cafe 
 table facing the Place des Arenes — a somewhat 
 pretentious establishment, with white painted ceil- 
 ings and walls hideously decorated with the " art " 
 of local whitewashers. From our seat in this coign 
 of vantage we saw the town's representatives^ 
 sticking up the gaudy bills for next Sunday's bull- 
 fight in which the chief attraction was a woman, 
 named, I remember, Angelita, who was to pose as a 
 statue before the charging bull. 
 
 That the old Roman amphitheatres should so 
 completely carry on their tradition of savagery, 
 was a fact to which Aries had already accustomed 
 us ; but that a woman should not only watch, but 
 actually take part in the " sport," was something 
 new to our sensitive English minds. We remarked 
 upon it to the waiter. 
 
 " Eh hien,''^ he exclaimed. " They are brought 
 up to it, these Spaniards." 
 
 " Does your Church say nothing ? " asked Helen. 
 
 " It gives them all communion before they enter 
 the bull-ring," he replied. 
 
46 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Here was food for thought ; the Catholic Church 
 giving Communion to bull-fighters in one of the 
 Protestant strongholds of France. Who was it 
 who said that religion was the biggest paradox in a 
 paradoxical life ? 
 
 It happened that as we passed the Arena on the 
 following Sunday during the progress of the Corrida 
 de Toros, there drove up to the entrance a carriage 
 containing four of the celebrated matadors engaged 
 for the day's butchery — four hard-faced, sullen 
 Spaniards, whose very cruelty of countenance lent 
 something impressive to the magnificence of their 
 gold and scarlet attire. An admiring crowd at once 
 collected ; there were cheers and clapping ; but 
 the four remained absolutely impassive in discus- 
 sion with an official of the ring. Then two of them 
 descended from the carriage and entered the stables 
 of the Arena, from which they reappeared a moment 
 later aiding AngeHta " la femme statue^ A more 
 repulsive face we wish never to see, lacking every 
 instinct of true womanliness : but her eyes were 
 filled with tears which occasionally brimmed over 
 down her hard, brown cheeks. One side of her 
 face was patched roughly with cotton wool ; her 
 arm and shoulder were swathed in bandages and 
 she carried her cloak in her teeth. 
 
 There was terrific applause as she emerged : she 
 had been wounded by the bull, it appeared. She 
 rapidly took her place with the others in the car- 
 riage, and they were soon lost to view. We could 
 trace them into the distance by the accompanying 
 cheers. 
 
 The crowd at the entrance to the Arena was just 
 beginning to disperse when there emerged a different 
 figure. He was lying limply on a wooden truck, 
 covered for the most part with rough sacking, his 
 white, drawn face propped up on his hat. 
 
 It was Etienne. 
 
OLD ACQUAINTANCE 47 
 
 " He saved her," said the official who was accom- 
 panying him. " A portion of her robe was caught 
 in the bull's horn as she was making her statue, 
 she was carried off her feet. Then this man, pauvre 
 diahle, jumped into the arena from . . . who can 
 tell where ? . . . No one saw him jump. His 
 roars frightened even the bull. He seized the 
 animal . . . must have been crazy ! . . . almost 
 it seemed by force dragged him o£E Angelita . . . 
 he has paid for it, sacre nam ! " 
 
 " Is he badly hurt ? " asked Helen anxiously. 
 
 The official lifted both eyes and hands heaven- 
 wards and gave vent to a prolonged whistle. 
 
 " There is Uttle of him left," he answered. " I 
 take him to the hospital, but " 
 
 Another whistle. 
 
 At this moment the dying man laboriously turned 
 his head in our direction His eyes lit up. 
 
 " The two infants ! " he ejaculated slowly. 
 
 " What can we do for you ? " Helen was by his side. 
 
 " Only go away and leave me to finish in peace," 
 he groaned. " She really wasn't worth it, you 
 know. . . ." 
 
 He was silent for a time. Helen, with a motherly 
 instinct which was absent from the crowd of men, 
 pushed into the throng, and returned with some 
 water. 
 
 Etienne drank a few drops, and we poured the 
 rest over his forehead. His eyes Hghtened as it 
 brought temporary relief to his sufferings. 
 
 " I tell you," he exclaimed, with a touch of his 
 old vigour, " never let your confounded head run 
 away with you. I did mine and it has taken most 
 of my guts with it — ^you'll excuse the slang, of course ; 
 no time to choose expressions. Besides, you can 
 express best what you want to say in slang. And 
 here's some more advice ; though I shall die just the 
 same whether you accept it or not. It's this — keep 
 
48 AMONG FRENCH POLK 
 
 to the beaten track ; it's safer for everybody con- 
 cerned ; to fly off at a tangent from civilisation is to 
 boomerang — and civilisation's a hard thing to hit 
 against. Listen " — he added with a sneer — " to 
 the complete recantation of a blackguard — when 
 it is too late." 
 
 " I want to ask you one thing," said Helen. " We 
 left you in MarseiUes because you were planning to 
 steal our money. Why did you do it ? " 
 
 The old sinner chuckled — and then groaned 
 heavily. 
 
 " Don't ask too many questions. I'll recant in 
 the general, but never, never in the particular." 
 
 The relief afforded by the water was rapidly 
 passing : it was plain that the end could not be far 
 off. Every now and then Etienne's hands clutched 
 the sides of the barrow convulsively as a spasm of 
 agony beaded his forehead with sweat. 
 
 " Is there anything you would wish done for 
 you ? " It was the only time I have seen Helen's 
 tears unchecked in public. 
 
 Etienne closed his eyes and made no answer ; 
 we who were waiting began to think he had already 
 passed away. Then his breathing, which had 
 become almost inaudible, grew stentorian, the 
 veins in his temples pulsated like snakes — ^it was a 
 tremendous bracing for a last effort. 
 
 "... Michel . . ." he whispered, and col- 
 lapsed. 
 
 The official, who all this time had been standing 
 by callously smoking a cigarette, bustled up ; I 
 covered the dead face with a piece of sacking ; and 
 the corpse of a man who had Hved more fearlessly 
 than wisely was borne unattended to the dank 
 mortuary. 
 
 I would have gone with it, but I had to look after 
 Helen. 
 
WHY THE TRAIN WAS LATE 
 
 If we had not elected to travel by a train which 
 stopped, on the average, twenty minutes at each 
 station ; if the station-master had not been the 
 proud possessor of a mongrel terrier ; if the buffet, 
 where we ran for a cup of coffee, had not scandal- 
 ously overcharged us ; if Helen had not brought 
 with her into France a love of all things small, 
 both of children and animals — ^this story would not 
 have been written. It is a story of how we nearly, 
 through no fault of our own, found ourselves in the 
 Courts for theft. 
 
 We were passing through the perpetual vineyard 
 which extends from the Rhone valley to Narbonne 
 and had arrived at the " southern Calais," Cette. 
 The Httle port runs inland into a mountain of wine 
 barrels, and behind it is an extensive stretch of 
 water used only by light draught barges and as 
 salt beds. On the narrow peninsula between this 
 and the sea stands the station where we stopped 
 for over half an hour, Cette being an important 
 town as towns go in this corner of France. 
 
 We ran for a cup of coffee ; the proprietor of the 
 buffet, thinking us, perhaps, too newly arrived to 
 have become accustomed to the Httle ways of such 
 folk, overcharged us. 
 
 " Five francs," he rapped out. 
 
 " My giddy Aunt ! " I exclaimed. He didn't 
 understand that. 
 
50 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Mon Dieu^'* I continued vehemently. " What 
 do you think we have come over to France for, you 
 old robber ? To be swindled into drinking vile 
 coffee which tastes Hke the water you cook your 
 abominable snails and frogs in, and then further 
 swindled into paying through the nose for it ? Here's 
 two francs for you, and be damned." 
 
 Helen disUkes rows, and before I had got half- 
 way through this eloquence she had shouldered 
 her knapsack and disappeared through the door 
 on to the platform. 
 
 Some altercation followed inside, however, be- 
 tween myseK and the proprietor, until I suggested 
 that the matter might be mutually settled by the 
 aid of the poHce, at which point he gracefully 
 withdrew from the discussion and accepted the 
 francs. 
 
 I left the accursed building to find Helen fondling 
 a dog. 
 
 It was an ugly dog, so hopelessly mongrel that not 
 for generations could it have had what I beheve 
 is termed pedigree. Only a complete remodelling 
 could have made it even presentable. 
 
 " It has such sympathetic eyes, poor darling," 
 murmured Helen. 
 
 " Where did you pick it up ? " I asked. 
 
 " It was running about the platform and under 
 the carriage wheels, little pet " — ^here it was treated 
 to a kiss on its nose — " Let's take it into the com- 
 partment with us. There's still a quarter of an 
 hour before the train starts." 
 
 With Helen a word is a deed. She was already 
 settling herself in a comer, feeding the dog in her 
 lap. So successful was she, indeed, that in a few 
 minutes the brute had curled himself up and was 
 fast asleep, Helen, meanwhile, playing the minister- 
 ing angel by keeping the flies off him. 
 
 I strolled up and down the platform until within 
 
WHY ^THE TRAIN WAS LATE 51 
 
 a few minutes of our time of departure, when I 
 stood near the compartment door. 
 
 " You'd better put him out now," I said to 
 Helen. 
 
 " Just leave him a minute or two longer," she 
 begged. " They always warn you when they're 
 going to start." 
 
 A railway official was strolUng up the train ; it 
 appeared to me that he was looking for something. 
 However, I paid very little attention, as I needed 
 all my wits about me to light French tobacco with 
 French matches. 
 
 A couple of minutes later a second railway official 
 made his way along the platform : he also appeared 
 to be looking for something. A few compart- 
 ments below ours he dropped on his knees and peered 
 underneath the wheels of the train. He kept this 
 attitude for some time — until, indeed, passengers 
 began to collect round him. Then he rose and con- 
 tinued his walk, finishing up by looking under the 
 engine. 
 
 Two others followed. . . . 
 
 By this time we were due to leave, but it appeared 
 that the guard also had been pressed into the mys- 
 terious search. Passengers up and down the train 
 began to take an interest in what was happening. 
 It was all very exciting ; but as the officials re- 
 mained reticent as to its object, no one could really 
 help much. We contented ourselves with furtive 
 glances in every direction, and finally at one another. 
 None of us knew what we were likely to find — a 
 bomb or an anarchist or a disguised camel. We 
 just looked and wondered, and grew more and more 
 uneasy. 
 
 There was shouting in the distance, and from the 
 station offices emerged an irate man very officially 
 attired and bubblmg with indignation. We dis- 
 covered he was the station-master. 
 
52 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " ... if you don't soon, I will have the whole 
 lot of you sacked," we heard him shout. 
 
 The searchers redoubled their efforts under his 
 wrathful eye. His watch was in his hand. 
 
 " Five minutes late already," he snorted as he 
 passed us. 
 
 On his journey up the train he did everything 
 that the others had done already. He looked under 
 the carriages, clambered up on to the roof, dodged 
 from one platform on to the other. All in vain : 
 he grew almost beside himself. 
 
 " I will search every compartment, every passen- 
 ger, if necessary," he muttered. 
 
 He whistled loudly, collected the searchers, 
 and then entered the first compartment. He 
 appeared again in a short time, dumbfounded. 
 He entered the second. He repeated the process 
 three, four, six, a dozen, twenty, twenty-seven 
 times. Then he came to our compartment. 
 
 I heard a bellow, a ferocious barking, Helen's 
 voice raised in seK-defence. Pushing past the 
 station-master's guard of honour, 1 went to the rescue. 
 
 " You were going to steal him. You were 
 stopping the train. I will have the law on you," 
 stormed the station-master. 
 
 " We were doing nothing of the sort," I answered. 
 " Let me explain." 
 
 " And keep the train back still more. Get out 
 while I send for an agent, — Henri," he called to 
 one of his minions, " fetch an agent I " 
 
 " Oti% M'sieu.^' Henri shambled off. 
 
 " We refuse to get out," I said : his manner had 
 irritated me. " We don't want to steal your dog 
 — ^we both think it extremely ugly. As a matter 
 of fact, we were preventing it from getting run over 
 by walking on the line." 
 
 " Listen to what they say. Do you believe 
 them ? " shouted the station-master. 
 
WHY THE TRAIN WAS LATE 53 
 
 " No, M'sieu^'' chorused the staff. It was a 
 comic-opera sort of chorus in its pat delivery. 
 
 There was a crowd round the carriage, of course, 
 and this the station-master harangued until the 
 arrival of the law. He became jubilant when he 
 saw us face to face with Justice. 
 
 The agent began by pulUng out a note-book, 
 and picking his teeth with its pencil. 
 
 The station-master explained the situation at 
 some length : I followed more tersely with my 
 version. 
 
 '' It's a pity the dog can't talk," remarked Justice 
 thoughtfully. 
 
 The station-master urged Justice to the extremest 
 limits of the law. Justice explained his powers in 
 deaHng with the crisis that had arisen and apologised 
 for not being able to do all that M. le Chef de Gare 
 wished in the matter. The station-master implored 
 him to do what he could : Justice promised solemnly. 
 He approached us. 
 
 " You are aware that you have seriously delayed 
 the train ? " he began. 
 
 Helen replied that the train certainly did seem 
 somewhat late in starting. 
 
 " M. le Chef de Gare," he continued, " was 
 sending his dog by this train to Narbonne : otherwise 
 it would not have been missed." 
 
 Helen interrupted with a repeated version of her 
 intentions. Justice waved them aside. 
 
 " I must ask your names," he said, sucking his 
 pencil afresh and spreading himself for writing. 
 
 " Johnson," I replied. 
 
 He looked puzzled. 
 
 " Johnson," I repeated. 
 
 This seemed to increase his perplexity. 
 
 " Spell it, please," he said. 
 
 I did so — three times before he was satisfied with 
 the result. 
 
54 AMONG FEENCH FOLK 
 
 " Address ? " 
 
 " No fixed abode," I smiled. 
 
 " But that is silly," he answered. " You must 
 have an address, you know." 
 
 " Poste Restante ? " I suggested. 
 
 " I'm afraid that won't do," he repHed, without 
 so much as the flicker of an eyehd. Then an idea 
 struck him. 
 
 " What about your passport ? " he said. 
 
 I showed it him. He fumbled down it until his 
 eye caught something resembling a name. 
 
 " Qu'est ce .^ " he exclaimed triumphantly. 
 
 " Walthamstow, Essex." Laboriously he wrote 
 it down. 
 
 " Et pour Madame ? " 
 
 " Northampton." More laborious writing. 
 
 He had written down our places of birth ! 
 
 " You may proceed now, M'sieu, Madame.''^ He 
 bowed to us poHtely. " Father, come and we will 
 talk over the matter." 
 
 And so he left with the station-master — and the 
 dog. 
 
 The train gave a jubilant whistle as it at last 
 steamed out of the station. 
 
VI 
 
 AGE AND YOUTH 
 
 To be " dans une purde,^' is to be in a very bad mess. 
 To find oneself benighted on a strange road is to 
 be in such a mess indeed. We were, through the 
 fault of a villager who had sadly under-estimated 
 the distance to the next village, properly " dans 
 une purde^ 
 
 A great red-wine sunset, whose crimsons and 
 purples were almost beyond belief, had attracted us 
 out of the village of Lezignan, near to Narbonne. 
 
 " How far to the next village ? " we had asked a 
 wayside lounger. He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Three kilometres, perhaps," he answered. 
 
 He must have been used to covering the distance 
 along this old Roman road in a cart : his three 
 kilometres lengthened into miles, and even further. 
 The sunset died away and the heavy indigo sky 
 above it began to shower down cold rain — our first 
 touch of " weather " for many a long day. We 
 pulled up our collars, adjusted our knapsacks and 
 trudged on. It was Helen who first saw the light 
 gleaming through the rain. 
 
 " I don't care what it is," she asserted. " We're 
 going to stop there the night." 
 
 In due course we reached it — a tiny lamp 
 flickering outside a barred gate. By groping, we 
 discovered a bell-handle. 
 
 We had to wait for some time even after the last 
 
56 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 mournful echoes of the bell had died away. Then 
 slowly the door opened, creaking on its heavy 
 rods, and there appeared an aged nun carrying a 
 lantern. She put the lantern to our faces and 
 gently inquired our business. 
 
 " We ask shelter for the night," said Helen. 
 
 *' We cannot give shelter to Messieurs," rephed 
 the old lady. " To you, Madame, but not to your 
 husband." 
 
 " But there is no other house for miles," expos- 
 tulated Helen, " and we can't go on further in such 
 rain. Couldn't you make an exception in this 
 case ? " 
 
 The nun shook her head reluctantly. 
 
 " I am sorry," she said, with an air of finality. 
 
 " Alors " Helen shrugged her shoulders and 
 
 moved a step away. 
 
 The old soul made a gesture of despair. 
 
 " Tenez,^^ she said suddenly. " I will call the 
 Mere Supdrieure, Wait here, please." 
 
 She closed the heavy door behind us, and leaving 
 us in the dark, trotted up the corridor with her 
 lantern. Shortly afterwards the Mother Superior, 
 robed in black, stood before us. 
 
 " You understand," she said in English, "it is 
 not allowed for us take gentlemen here. But I 
 have done so once or twice before on my own 
 responsibility. You will pardon me if I take pre- 
 cautions, M'sieu ? " 
 
 " Certainly," I replied. " It is good of you to 
 have me." 
 
 " It is a bad night outside," she replied, " and 
 a charity to have you within." 
 
 Leaving Helen standing at the entrance, she led 
 me along a corridor into a tiny whitewashed cell 
 where was a bed which she made with her own 
 hands. A crucifix hung on the wall. 
 
 " I wlQ bring you some soup," she said. When 
 
AGE AND YOUTH 67 
 
 she had done this she left the room, locking the 
 door after her. 
 
 I saw Helen next morning. " How did you get 
 on ? " I asked her. 
 
 " I spent the best night of my life," she repHed, 
 " in a bed that was hard yet soft, in a room bare 
 yet furnished, and after a supper meagre yet satis- 
 fying. If I had not married you I fancy I could 
 almost have become a nun." 
 
 " Sleep well ? " I continued. 
 
 " Until six this morning, when I heard the sisters 
 shuffling along the corridors to chapel. I felt I 
 ought to be going with them." 
 
 " And didn't you ? " I asked in mock surprise. 
 
 " You're a cruel man to expose my weaknesses 
 like that," she replied, pouting. " As a matter of 
 fact, I got up when I heard them coming back." 
 
 " You, twenty-five, and they — how old ? " I 
 persisted. 
 
 " Ever so old, I should think, by the way they 
 walked," she answered. 
 
 I asked the Mother Superior how I was to repay 
 her hospitality. 
 
 " You could do so in money," she replied, " but 
 I am going to ask of you something harder. I am 
 going to ask you to work for us : we have something 
 a man can best do." 
 
 I think that day ranks among the happiest of 
 my life, working for the old nuns at what they could 
 not have done for themselves, to earn a night's 
 lodging. I do not know to what Order they belonged ; 
 nor do I care. Charity and kindness were their 
 only thoughts. 
 
 Until midday I lopped trees in the quaint over- 
 grown garden behind the convent buildings. At 
 one time those in the Uttle chapel, which was the 
 one room accessible to all, seemed to chant, in their 
 quavering voices, in imison with the creaking of 
 
58 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 my saw. But there were always one or two at the 
 foot of the tree inquiring progress and offering 
 encouragement. In the afternoon I tossed hay 
 on to a tiny cart pulled by a donkey and stored it 
 in a miniature loft at the end of the garden. Helen 
 spent her time washing our bed-clothes of the 
 previous night. 
 
 But during the middle of the day neither of us 
 was allowed to work. Two chairs were placed for 
 us beneath the trees, and in these we rested until 
 it should become cooler. 
 
 " You may smoke," said one of the sisters to me, 
 with a sympathetic smile. 
 
 It was then that Sister Martha from Ireland 
 hobbled up to us. 
 
 " Sure and I've been wanting to talk to ye ever 
 since ye came here last night," she chattered. " It's 
 good to be able to speak in yer own native tongue, 
 so it is. An' many a year it is since we've enter- 
 tained English people here." 
 
 " You've been here a good many years yourself ? " 
 I suggested. 
 
 " Near thirty in all," she repHed, " an' it's a 
 mortal time when ye reckon it up on end. The 
 newest of us is here well over ten years. We come 
 here to die." 
 
 " How long is it since you were in Ireland ? '* 
 asked Helen. 
 
 The old Irish woman smiled sadly. 
 
 " Not for more years than I'd care to confess to 
 ye, me dear. Its tragedy goes on, they tell me, 
 without my presence, and, sure, I can't help it, an' 
 I would, God aiding me." 
 
 For a moment a far-away look of yearning came 
 into her dear old face. 
 
 " You won't think I'm foolish, now, but d'ye 
 happen to have a bit of shamrock about ye ? " 
 
 By some streak of superstition I carried, through- 
 
AGE AND YOUTH 59 
 
 out the war, a four-leaved shamrock in my pocket- 
 book. I carried it still. 
 
 " Take it," I said, offering it to her. '' May it 
 bring you the happiness it has always brought 
 me." 
 
 The old soul's eyes filled with tears as she clutched 
 the flower. 
 
 "It's wrong of me, I know, to take it," she said, 
 the tears streaming down her cheeks. " But it 
 does me heart good to see it over again, so it does. 
 Ye mean ye don't want it now ? " 
 
 "It's for you," answered Helen. 
 
 " Sure, I've no business to have it," muttered 
 the old nun ; but she hurriedly placed it between 
 the leaves of a devotional book, and smiled 
 bravely. 
 
 " I've got work to do," she said, and hobbled 
 away happy. 
 
 While I was haymaking, I watched the work of 
 the convent progressing. A few nuns were with 
 Helen, washing clothes and hanging them out on 
 a long line to dry in the bleaching sunlight ; others 
 were sewing in shady corners ; a few carried their 
 devotional books into the shade of the trees. There 
 was scarcely a sound to be heard : a motor passing 
 along the high road seemed to be in the distance. 
 
 With evening, we all assembled in the chapel : 
 it made no difference, the Mother Superior assured 
 us, that we were not Catholics — our presence was 
 none the less welcome. Then we prepared our 
 packs for departure. 
 
 " Good-bye," I said to the Mother Superior. 
 " We are both grateful for your hospitahty." 
 
 " It is nothing," she answered gently. 
 
 The sisters pressed round us to bid us God-speed. 
 
 " Good-bye, and God bless ye both," repeated 
 Sister Martha for the tenth time. " Sure, ye've 
 made one old soul very happy, so ye have. I'll 
 
60 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 be praying for ye both for many a long day " — 
 and then, with a sigh — " An' I never thought to 
 be glad to see an Enghshman before I died." 
 
 We approached Carcassonne as one might make a 
 pilgrimage to see a Daguerreotype of one's ancestor. 
 The old walled Cite had been restored only into a 
 semblance of life. It was part of the gigantic 
 backwater of the uselessly picturesque — the relic 
 of a bygone age, whose utility had long since passed 
 — a dead city preserved only for inquisitive 
 visitors. 
 
 And instead, we found, within these very walls, 
 the City of Youth. There were young things 
 just catching their first chubby gUmpse of the 
 green world ; there were young things of seventy 
 whose conversation rested, not on their ailments, 
 but on the adventures they were yet to have. 
 Nobody grew old in Carcassonne — even the fourth 
 generation of the Massios family was almost sprightly 
 at eighty-five, with a subtle palate in wine and a 
 keen nose for a good tobacco. 
 
 I count him the fourth generation because one 
 must, of course, begin with Mimi, aged five and a 
 half — on no account forget the half, please — who 
 was by far the most important of any of them. 
 Mimi's mother had died two years previously, 
 during an influenza epidemic, and her father was 
 an officer in the French Army of Occupation on 
 the Rhine, but Mimi Hved in the height of luxury 
 with her grandmother, the widow Massios, who 
 kept a delicious little pastrycook's shop. While 
 Mimi, therefore, was the coveted companion of the 
 young youngsters, her octogenarian great-grand- 
 father, who looked in daily at his daughter's, was 
 courted by the youngsters of his own age. The 
 widow, meanwhile, baked her goodies contentedly 
 
AGE AND YOUTH 61 
 
 in a miniature oven in the kitchen and, I suspect, 
 kept back a proportion for both children. 
 
 One has not much choice of feeding estabUsh- 
 ments within the old city ; and the hotel being 
 reserved almost exclusively for the nouveaux riches, 
 we had no difficulty in discovering the widow 
 Massios. 
 
 Her face, which in profile was more like a good- 
 natured Pomeranian than anything I have seen, 
 beamed in reply to our request for an omelette. 
 
 Then Mimi pulled back the curtain communicating 
 between the shop and the kitchen. 
 
 " Bonjour, Madame,^ ^ she whispered, and put 
 her hand into Helen's. From that time they were 
 firm friends. 
 
 So after lunch we took Mimi for a walk and Mimi 
 introduced us to Fanlair, the six-weeks-old puppy 
 whose only joy was in destruction. We returned 
 later for a cup of coffee. 
 
 " Tai une chambre,^^ began Madame. 
 
 The man who travelled Europe with no luggage 
 but a carpet bag was a lucky — and wise — fellow. 
 We, too, shared his luck. Within ten minutes of 
 her tentative remark, we were installed in her room, 
 while Mimi waited to escort us again for a play 
 that was to be the most joyful, irresponsible game 
 we had enjoyed since we were fooHsh enough to 
 grow up. 
 
 But it was not only through Mimi that we dis- 
 covered the youth of Carcassonne. Madame 
 Massios' shop was the centre of it. For there were 
 surprises — 10 centimes each — which contained 
 sweets and medals and drawings and goodness 
 only knows what other wonderful things : there 
 were hectic-coloured " strawberries " at the same 
 price, which, with careful mastication, could be 
 made to last quite a long time ; there were tiny 
 chocolate animals, little packets of nougat, comfits. 
 
62 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 liquorice sticks — ^hundreds of delights that used 
 to bring the half-Spanish, half-French boys and 
 girls of the Cite round-eyed to the window. 
 
 We took our meals in the shop, and thus grew to 
 know the process by heart. 
 
 The nervous clank of the door-bell meant that 
 one of the expectant crowd without had decided to 
 brave the terrors of a pubHc purchase. 
 
 " Bonjour, M^sieu, Madame " meant that he paid 
 a tribute to our vast age and experience, and his 
 smile, that he knew us as people who stood on no 
 ceremony. 
 
 " Une surprise, s'v' plait, M^dame,^^ meant that 
 the widow had bustled out of her kitchen, and plac- 
 ing her fat hands on her knees, the better to catch his 
 answer, had inquired kindly, " Et toi, mon ami ? " 
 
 " Merci, Au r'voi M'sieu, M^dame,^' meant that 
 he was throwing himself as fast as he could through 
 the doorway, where he would be caught by the 
 waiting crowd of children, and the surprise packet 
 switched from one hand to another till it had been 
 the round of the company. 
 
 Then the good widow would watch them through 
 the window, beaming till her little snub nose seemed 
 almost to disappear in the air and her faithful 
 dog-like eyes to melt away into nothingness. 
 
 " lis sont tous hons,''^ she would say, handing one 
 of the surprises for our inspection. " I bought 
 them myself in the market yesterday. They are 
 wonderful things — ^look what they contain." 
 
 If — as happened sometimes — they contained a 
 paper cap, folded as in our English crackers, she 
 would perch it jauntily on Helen's head and 
 regard the result as an artist might regard his 
 masterpiece. 
 
 Once she stuck a cap on her own. 
 
 " One must not grow old," she said. "It is a 
 sin. One's duty is simply to be good to others, 
 
AGE AND YOUTH 63 
 
 and enjoy one's life. That should be easy if one 
 could find the right way." 
 
 Her own goodness to others extended far beyond 
 the reach of her family. She pressed upon us 
 sweets and cakes to send to Olga in Aries. One 
 day she beckoned me to her. 
 
 " Look," she said, " there is Albert.' He is 
 fourteen months, and his father was a prisoner of 
 war in Germany. Give him this packet of nougat, 
 but don't say where it comes from." 
 
 " Le jpHit Albert," received the gift without em- 
 barrassing questions as to its donor. Nougat was, 
 apparently, a favourite of his ; and as he was 
 supported sturdily in his father's arms, he had just 
 nothing to think about except appreciation of the 
 sticky sweetmeat. 
 
 " Au'voi,''' he said when I gave it him, tugging 
 his father's cap from the parental head and waving 
 it in the air. 
 
 " Au^voi,'''' or, as it sounded rather, " Waw-waw," 
 was Albert's almost sole venture, so far, into French. 
 It had to serve for many purposes — for greeting 
 and farewell, for enquiries as to his age, his well- 
 being, the health of his parents, and a host of other 
 important questions. But if you asked him, 
 " Comment fappelles-tu, wx)n petit .? " he would look 
 solemn for a second — and was it not indeed a 
 solemn question ? — then chuckle. 
 
 " Albert, ai^'voi," he would say. 
 
 " Where do you live ? " 
 
 Why on earth do these grown-ups make one 
 think so much, confound 'em ! 
 
 Silence ; then : 
 
 " La Citd, au^voi.^^ 
 
 He was one only of the widow Massios' pro- 
 teges ; they must have totalled dozens. They 
 used to congregate with their parents on the open 
 ground in front of the old castle and discuss the 
 
64 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 topics of the day with mature deUberation and 
 occasionally even heated controversy. 
 
 There was a new arrival while we were in Car- 
 cassonne ; and a day or two before we left, he made 
 his first wizened appearance at the Meeting of the 
 Elders. 
 
 " Where on earth did you come from and what, 
 in Heaven's name, do you mean by intruding on 
 us here ? " asked dozens of pairs of baby eyes as 
 plainly as if everyone present had shrieked it out at 
 the top of his tiny voice. 
 
 The new infant, however, was not to be outdone. 
 
 "What a lot of old frumps ! " he exclaimed to him- 
 self. " Why, they're most of 'em getting teeth ! " 
 
 Which was true : many of them were getting 
 teeth. So that the new arrival at the one end of 
 the scale and Grandpa — or rather Great-grandpa 
 — at the other were truly the youngest inhabitants 
 of the Cite. 
 
 " Never had a day's illness in my life," croaked 
 the old man, as he hobbled along one morning by 
 my side. " What I say is — don't ever think about 
 growing up and getting old. If j^ou're going to 
 die young, well, thinking about it won't put off the 
 day. Eat and drink well, sleep well, work hard in 
 the air, and don't worry about what you can't 
 alter. And keep out of towns — ^they make me 
 ache all over." 
 
 He smacked his lips in hearty enjoyment of his 
 own philosophy. 
 
 " Yes, it's a young place, is the Cite," he said. 
 *' Living on top of a hill makes you healthy, and 
 watching the visitors who come to see the walls 
 makes you fat with laughing. I can't see them 
 quite so well as I used to be able to, but my hear- 
 ing is as good as ever, and some fine days I sit 
 myself in a corner and listen to 'em. It's as funny 
 as can be." 
 
AGE AND YOUTH 65 
 
 He had to support himself against a wall before 
 he completely recovered from his humorous 
 memories. 
 
 " There's Uttle Mimi, now," he continued. " She's 
 going to school and growing up. School's good, 
 but somehow no one remains young there. They 
 stick 'em in rooms, and not in the fields. Schools 
 weren't meant for this place ; we're all too happy 
 for 'em. Come, here's Bioult's cafe : we might 
 have a glass of wine, don't you think — while we're 
 all young together ? " 
 
 m 
 
 It was pecuUarly fitting that while we were in the 
 City of Youth, there should have been celebrated the 
 Feast of France's youngest heroine, Jeanne d'Arc. It 
 was fitting that we should take our part in what 
 amounted to the apotheosis of all things young in this, 
 perhaps one of the few cities which Jeanne d'Arc, 
 if she could return to earth, would recognise as 
 famihar in structure. It mattered little that the 
 day was wet, or what festivities were taking place 
 at Orleans or other towns more particularly conse- 
 crated to the Saint : these in the old thirteenth- 
 century Cite of Carcassonne were simple, sincere, 
 and bubbling over with the joyous Springtime. 
 
 Of course the town was decorated with countless 
 bits of coloured stuff that had been saved in the 
 houses for years — the last time many of them were 
 displayed, we were told, was at the signing of the 
 Armistice — the reprieve of Youth. Although the 
 war is still very near to one everywhere in France, 
 Carcassonne forgot it on this day, except for the 
 salvos of artillery with which she opened the Cele- 
 bration of Youth — an ungentle reminder of events 
 best left to rot on their own dung-heaps. 
 
 Of course, too, everyone dressed in his best, and 
 turned up at the Httle church of St. Nazaire 
 
66 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 punctually to thank God for his own strength and 
 heartiness. Even the old dames of the village, in 
 their black dresses and white lace caps, put on an air 
 of extra sprightUness for the occasion. The kiddies, 
 down to Albert, rambled familiarly about the old 
 building throughout High Mass. There was a 
 choir of fifty children hidden behind the altar, 
 whose fresh young voices put new heart and zest 
 into the old service, which always retains its hold 
 on the emotions of men. The town band, which 
 had escorted the Town Council, well sheltered under 
 family umbrellas, to the Church, performed lustily 
 during the anthems as if to emphasise the fact that 
 they, too, were young. 
 
 The celebrant priest had no need to add any 
 emphasis of his own juveniUty ; his sixty-odd years 
 had left him still eager-eyed and vigorous ; but he, 
 too, seemed to let the years drop from him as he 
 spoke to his flock from the altar rails of the heroism 
 of France's most popular national saint. His keen 
 voice rose and fell as he pointed the moral : his 
 arms, consciously hampered by the gorgeous vest- 
 ments about him, worked hard to drive home a 
 point or expand an illustration : with his head 
 thrown back and his eyes flashing, he looked the 
 picture of the Church MiUtant. What he said 
 was of indifferent quality ; but to be inside the 
 Church with its tri-coloured altar below the deep 
 reds and blues of the medieval window, to form 
 part of the silent, reverent congregation of youth, 
 made it a proud thing to be a Frenchman. 
 
 " I wish I wasn't English — almost," whispered 
 Helen. 
 
 " Why ? " I asked, surprised. 
 
 " Didii't we burn Joan ? " asked Helen. 
 
 "True," I assented. "But, 'other times, other 
 manners,' you know. We're all friends now. 
 Doesn't that take something of the sting out of it ? " 
 
AGE AND YOUTH 67 
 
 " Or show how silly it is to make national heroes 
 of soldiers," she replied. 
 
 Perhaps Carcassonne thought the same, for on 
 that day specially, it seemed, the people went out 
 of their way to show us little courtesies as visitors. 
 
 "What does it matter that you burned her," 
 they might have said. " That's all over and 
 done with now, and much water has passed down 
 the river Oude since, since . . . 1431, wasn't it ? 
 I never was good at dates." 
 
 And so, as we left the Church, everyone had a 
 " Bonjour M'sieu, M'dame " for us. Two dear old 
 things, family heirlooms just taken out of lavender, 
 insisted on shaking our hands. A hearty farmer, 
 who had also attained to the dignity of a Town 
 Councillor, drew us aside and drank our healths 
 in the good red wine of the country. He toasted 
 us boisterously as Allies ; and then suddenly he 
 lowered his voice. 
 
 " I have one more toast to give you," he said. 
 " To the League of Nations ! " 
 
 He drank, and then added : " I lost four sons in 
 the war. Down there " — indicating the new town — 
 " they are holding military inspections. France 
 must be guarded, we know . . . but it must not 
 happen again." 
 
 " France sincerely believes in the League ? " I 
 asked him. 
 
 " A dying man clutches at a straw," he repUed. 
 "The League is a tree that will grow: it is very 
 well worth clutching. May France realise all that 
 that means before it is too late ! " 
 
 With that he rejoined his friends. 
 
 We walked slowly along the narrow cobbled 
 little alleyways which pass as streets in the Cite : 
 we were both pondering, I think, over the common 
 grief of Europe in her lost manhood, when the shrill 
 voice of Mimi broke in, not unpleasantly. 
 
68 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Le pHit chien veut s'amusery' she shrieked, 
 bouncing up to us with Fanlair in her arms. There- 
 upon we chased the puppy round and round the 
 courtyard of the castle till his Uttle bellows squeaked 
 with overwork, and Mimi confessed herself out of 
 breath. What did it matter that it rained ? — one 
 could only be young once, and if one were sufficiently 
 irresponsible one never caught cold. 
 
 In the evening there was to have been an open- 
 air concert outside the walls, at which the sympathetic 
 cure had arranged that the artistes were to be those 
 of his flock whom he had married during the year. 
 But the rain had settled down into the perpendicular 
 faU which indicates its determination not to go 
 home till morning. So we loitered under an arch- 
 way to the accompanying murmur of a hidden and 
 unsuspecting loving couple. We had done the 
 same in Paris, but here it seemed more than ever 
 a part of the Celebration of Youth. The two, 
 we afterwards discovered, had been already married 
 over twelve months ; which proved conclusively 
 that they must have been almost ridiculously 
 young ; for when people grow up and forget their 
 youth they quickly tire of each other. It is only 
 children who always see fresh things as they walk 
 along the same road. 
 
 And so these two found it in no way strange to 
 sit hand in hand in the darkness and exchange 
 long kisses, although they had Hved together for 
 many months. Indeed, it seemed that their en- 
 joyment was increased by this sense of intimacy ; 
 there was no vague, dark spectre between them. 
 I wonder whether Joan of Arc, a spinster, imder- 
 stood as she watched them from Heaven ? 
 
VII 
 
 THE OPEN ROAD 
 
 " Come to the fair," cried Mimi, " tout le monde 
 yva:' 
 
 Now it is a plain duty in France to attend the 
 travelling fairs which halt for several days, or 
 even weeks, at bigger villages and towns. Helen 
 was always conscientious : we went, with Mimi 
 tripping along like a fairy beside us. 
 
 " Look," she cried in rapture as we approached 
 the big boulevard near the Cavalry barracks. 
 " Ever so many shows to watch and so much 
 music. And Grandma gave me five francs. Let's 
 hurry." 
 
 I doubt whether Grandma could afford the 
 money : but she had generally a habit of spoiling 
 Uttle Mimi — and who could help it ? — enlivened 
 by periods of strictly enforced discipline, during 
 which the child went almost in terror of her Hfe. 
 It was not that dear Mme. Massios was in the least 
 hard-hearted : far from it : I verily believe such 
 periods were intended more as a salve to her own 
 conscience than as a part of a considered plan 
 for Mimi's bringing up. Now, however, the mood 
 was relaxed : hence the generosity. 
 
 In response to Mimi's command we hurried, 
 and at every step the blatant music grew louder, 
 the shouting and bell-ringing gradually more intel- 
 hgible ; the mass of broken Ught which had swung 
 
70 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 to and fro among the dusty trees of the boulevard 
 composed into side shows and tempting stalls, 
 flickering oil flares and the small steady lamps in- 
 side the caravans. The hurrying crowd about us 
 gradually thickened : everyone, as Mimi had said, 
 was going there. 
 
 Then we drew level with the first stall : and after 
 that a perpetual dehght of shooting galleries, round- 
 abouts, strong men, houp-las, mountain railways, 
 headless lions, boxing booths, sticky sweetmeats 
 made before your eyes, fat women and anatomical 
 museums, with such a hullabaloo of singing, shout- 
 ing, laughing, screaming, blowing of trumpets, 
 banging of drums, grinding of organs, barking of 
 dogs, as has never been heard before or since, except 
 in countless other fairs up and down the entire 
 world. 
 
 In fine, it was just a happy fair to which all the 
 peasants thronged in eager enjoyment and in 
 which Mimi's five francs were swallowed up in an 
 incredibly short time. For five francs does not 
 go far when one indulges in merry-go-rounds, 
 wooden horses, and vivid sweets. 
 
 Helen, however, came to the rescue ; and when she 
 was tired I took her place in attempting to tire 
 Mimi. But the child was out for pleasure, and it 
 was with difficulty that we induced her at length 
 to sit down in a quiet comer to recuperate. 
 
 We had chosen one behind the caravans, when a 
 gruff voice in the darkness made us all start. 
 
 " What do you want here ? " 
 
 " Rest," I answered. " Have you ever taken a 
 child to a fair ? " 
 
 " Moi, en effet I Why should I do any such 
 thing ? " 
 
 " No, of course you wouldn't," put in Helen 
 sweetly. " What he means to ask is whether 
 you've ever tried to tire a child by amusing it ? " 
 
THE OPEN ROAD 71 
 
 "As to that, Madame, I make my own four 
 walk." (A cock tethered by one leg to a wheel of 
 the caravan crowed confirmation of the statement.) 
 
 He came into a patch of Hght — a big, humorously 
 solid man, with tanned, lined face and powerful 
 chest. From where he was he could see us more 
 clearly, and apparently we embarrassed him, for 
 he remained silent for a moment. 
 
 ''I did not know what you were doing here," 
 he apologised. 
 
 " No harm, I hope," I said. 
 
 " If Madame is tired she would perhaps prefer 
 to rest inside," he added, dragging off his cap with 
 a rough politeness. He opened the door of the 
 caravan, in which a Ught was burning. 
 
 " Oh ! " exclaimed Helen and jumped into the 
 interior at a single leap. 
 
 For a row of burnished copper pots, twinkling 
 in the lamp-Hght, hung along one side of the van, 
 and on the floor rested a huge earthenware pitcher, 
 in which greens and blues mixed magically. A 
 Uttle roll of white bedding set off the massed colours 
 with glorious effect. 
 
 " How perfectly sweet ! Is it yours ? " Helen's 
 hands assumed the position of a saint in rapture. 
 
 " Madame is pleased ? " the f airman smiled, 
 gratified. 
 
 " It's magnificent," I told him — *' the sort of 
 thing an artist longs to paint." 
 
 " M'sieu is perhaps an artist ? " 
 
 "A showman like yourself, my dear feUow, 
 who showed his tricks in the pages of a newspaper. 
 Shall we say, a member of the chorus ? " 
 
 " M'sieu has perhaps left because he did not 
 like it ? " 
 
 ** You're wrong," I rephed. " I loved it. Just 
 as you love to give enjoyment to people in the glare 
 of the hghts, so did I in cold print." 
 
72 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " It is also hard work," he assented. 
 
 " Most enjoyment is ! " I said, thinking of Mimi. 
 
 "It is good to have one's friends," he added, 
 after a pause. 
 
 " The people one works with ? " I asked. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " The best of fellows," I exclaimed. 
 
 " We will toast them," he cried, suddenly en- 
 thusiastic. Out came a bottle and some glasses : 
 and each of us saw different pictures in the purple 
 of the wine. 
 
 " You stay here long ? " 
 
 " Three or four days only," he replied. " It is 
 never worth while to stop too long in one place. 
 We shall come back next year." 
 
 At this moment there entered a small woman, 
 whose large earrings set off to perfection the jet- 
 black of her hair and the flash of her eyes. She 
 hesitated a moment on the threshold when she saw 
 us within. 
 
 " My wife." The showman's cap was again 
 dragged from his head. 
 
 The smile with which she greeted us lit up her 
 rather heavy features, so that at the moment she 
 was almost beautiful. Then she looked reproach- 
 fully at her husband. 
 
 " M'sieu and Madame are welcome, but, you 
 know, Rene, the van is very untidy " 
 
 " It is wonderful," interrupted Helen. 
 
 She smiled again and drank some wine. 
 
 " We are not doing so well to-night," she said, 
 addressing her husband. " You had better Uven 
 things up." 
 
 He slouched out of the door into the dim and 
 flickering darkness. 
 
 " He can always make things go," she told us. 
 " He can talk so as to amuse people." 
 
 " Which stall is youirs ? " asked Helen. 
 
THE OPEN ROAD 73 
 
 " We have the shooting gallery," repUed the 
 woman. " It has been popular lately. And Rene 
 makes people come to it : he has so many tricks. 
 Some of them return, year after year, to hear him 
 talk. He bullies them, teases them, cajoles them. 
 They love it." 
 
 Outside, the breeze carried occasional sentences 
 of the talented Rene. 
 
 '* . . . better than that . . ." he was shout- 
 ing, ". . . didn't they teach you better than that 
 in the Army ? Aim at the camel — that's big 
 enough . . . Another miss ! Good gracious ! . . . 
 Ah, I see how it is . . . yes, in my own courting 
 days she always made me nervous . . . Look the 
 other way, my girl, so that he can aim better. The 
 poor boy is trembling . . . Careful, now ! Oh, 
 EUzabeth, he has missed again. You will bring 
 him no luck ! . . . Not EUzabeth ? — ^Irene, then ? ^ 
 Agnes? . . . Well, they are all pretty names ! ..." 
 
 There was pride in his good wife's eyes as, later 
 in the evening, he brought in the first bundle of 
 earnings — dirty notes, copper and nickel coins and 
 all the expedients — ^stamps and tram passes — ^to which 
 lack of small change had at that time put France. 
 
 " It is thirsty work, sacre nom,^^ he exclaimed. 
 
 " And you ? " he inquired. " If it is not rude to 
 ask, where do you go next ? " 
 
 We shrugged our shoulders. He broke into a 
 hearty laugh. 
 
 " The true vagabond," he exclaimed. " Come 
 with us to Toulouse." 
 
 " Shall we ? " I asked Helen. 
 
 " We shall upset your arrangements ? " 
 
 " By no means," replied the wife kindly. 
 
 " We have a tent," explained Rene. " We shall 
 put you in that." 
 
 " Heavens above ! " exclaimed Helen suddenly, 
 " what's become of Mimi ? " 
 
74 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 n 
 
 Three days later we bade farewell to the City of 
 Youth and clambered up into Rene's caravan, 
 which was in the advance guard, as it were, of the 
 fair. The main body left Carcassonne the next day. 
 
 It was not a surprising thing that we had seen 
 nothing of his chil(h*en on our first visit, because, 
 we discovered, they had a habit of sleeping wherever 
 they chanced to feel tired. The eldest, a sturdy 
 youngster of twelve, usually made his bed in the 
 shooting gallery when the fair was open and weather 
 permitted. The second boy slept with a cousin 
 who had only one child of his own, and the third, 
 of whom nobody took any particular notice, did just 
 what he jolly well pleased. But what about Baby ? 
 
 Baby, it appeared, enjoyed the prerogative of 
 all youngest children in being the darling of her 
 parents, besides which, as the only girl, she was 
 entitled to some extra consideration. She slept, 
 therefore, the hearty sleep of three years, suspended 
 in a basket from the roof of the caravan. The 
 atmosphere must at times have become somewhat 
 thick, but Baby showed always a bright morning 
 face when the basket was lowered. It is also to be 
 remarked, that once she had been put to bed, no 
 further sound was heard from her ; from which it 
 may be inferred that she was in some ways a model 
 child. 
 
 The day's programme, as we plodded the ninety- 
 odd kilometres to Toulouse, never varied. We 
 rose with the sun and by half-past seven at the 
 latest the whole caravan had been cleaned and 
 polished like a new pin, the old horses groomed, the 
 trailer on which the make-up of the shooting-gallery 
 was carried fastened behind the dwelling van and 
 the night's camping ground left behind. Two 
 hours' halt was made in the middle of the day 
 
THE OPEN ROAD 75 
 
 when the sun grew fierce and by dusk our tent 
 was pitched and we were preparing for the night. 
 
 " You'll have to walk," said Rene on the first day. 
 '' The horses have already as much as they can 
 carry ; and you're strong enough." 
 
 So we all walked, only Madame and Bebe, both 
 of whom had domestic duties to perform, being 
 allowed in the van. Occasionally the boys, and 
 sometimes Helen, perched themselves on the tender, 
 but Rene had always a sharp eye on such backsliders, 
 and the boys knew what it meant to feel a flick of 
 his whip when they rode too far. He himself was 
 a silent soul, striding for mile after mile at the 
 horses' heads without uttering so much as a word. 
 Perhaps a long-drawn " Hue I " would be now and 
 again necessary to sharpen the animals' wits ; then 
 Rene would lapse again into silence. 
 
 *' I need it all at other times," he said when I 
 taxed him with being no very cheerful companion. 
 " A man cannot go through this world shouting at 
 the top of his voice." 
 
 " Some men do," I suggested. 
 
 He grunted. " Tant pis pour eux,''^ he said. 
 " If you talk you cannot think. I prefer a cigar ettos, 
 a broad hat and a white road : one can meditate 
 for long with these three." 
 
 " On what ? " I asked. 
 
 *' On the impertinence of asking unnecessary 
 questions," he said and spat into the hedge. 
 
 No other word was uttered until we halted for 
 the night. 
 
 Rene came nearest to conversation when we had 
 eaten our frugal evening meal — bread and sausage 
 usually — and the red wine had warmed his veins. 
 
 ''Tell me," said Helen one evening, "why are 
 you going this way ? " 
 
 " Madame means ? " he asked. Rene was always 
 scrupulously polite to Helen. 
 
76 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Towards Toulouse, and not towards Saintes- 
 Maries-de-la-Mer ? " 
 
 " We are not gipsies," he replied with a touch 
 of pride, " and we do not go to those gipsy feasts. 
 Their songs and dances and rites are nothing to 
 us. We are of pure Gascon descent. The feast 
 of the St. Maries, they tell me, is a curious sight, 
 but sale. ..." 
 
 He puckered up his nose and shrugged his shoulders 
 as he said it. 
 
 " There are a few in our lot who go there every 
 year," he continued. " Curiously enough, they 
 are the ones we do not like." 
 
 " The feast is a two-days' affair, I beUeve ? " 1 
 enquired. 
 
 " And nights. Drinking and feasting, and not 
 often without its tragedy. They mount a guard 
 over their shrine, but neglect to do so over them- 
 selves. A mixed lot, and sales, ..." 
 
 Again the pucker of the nose and expression of 
 disgust. 
 
 " From seeing your van I can understand your 
 dislike of dirt," said Helen. 
 
 "It is a beautiful home," he replied proudly. 
 " And one can take it where one wishes, with only 
 the trouble of accompanying it." 
 
 " I should imagine it a better job to be a show- 
 man in France than in England," I put in, remem- 
 bering certain glimpses of English caravan life. 
 
 " Some years ago I met some Englishmen with 
 a fair," replied Rene. " Madame will understand 
 me when I say that they were des gens fort droleSy 
 par exempUy 
 
 He rose and yawned. 
 
 " But I must not decry Madame's countrymen," 
 he said. " When one is impolite one should either 
 go to bed quietly or be sent there." 
 
 We stayed with the fair in Toulouse for a week, 
 
^ THE OPEN EOAD 77 
 
 wandering about the dusty boulevards and leaning 
 over the bridges which cross the broad Garonne. 
 We struck up an acquaintance, too, with a little 
 corporal whose love of absinthe was likely to be 
 his final undoing. He was a well-educated youth, 
 with a notable fluency in English swear- words ; 
 but when he discovered our connection with the 
 fair, his sense of what befitted our station in life 
 was so grossly outraged that we saw no more of 
 him. 
 
 In the evenings sometimes, I was persuaded to 
 act as a decoy in the shooting gallery. My method 
 was to form part of the crowd, and then casually 
 to examine a gun. 
 
 " Go for the camels," Rene had said to me before- 
 hand. " You can't miss them." 
 
 There were, besides, metal Hons, horses, dogs, 
 cats, tigers, leopards, giraffes, bulls, and even, I 
 recollect, crocodiles, serving as targets ; but Rene 
 was right when he said that the camels were the 
 easiest to hit. 
 
 " Look," he would shout as I potted one exactly 
 in the centre of the hump. " Look at that. Now, 
 if he can do it, you can hit a giraffe in the neck. 
 Come and have a try." 
 
 Usually the ruse would work ; and as I retired 
 to make way for more paying customers, a momen- 
 tary flash of Rene's white teeth would tell me that 
 he appreciated that fact. 
 
 " What do you want for it ? " he asked one 
 night when he had done unusually well. 
 
 " Only to be allowed to journey a few more 
 kilometres with you," I answered. 
 
 " As far as you like," he replied with a laugh. 
 
 And so we took again to the westward road, arriv- 
 ing in due course at the village of Boussens, which 
 watches from a distance the snow-capped Pyrenees. 
 Here it was that Rene and his fair took the high 
 
78 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 road, while Helen and myself contented ourselves 
 with the low road — ^the railroad. It happened like this. 
 
 I had played the decoy with moderate success 
 on the first of the three evenings the fair was stop- 
 ping in Boussens : on the second, things, in a very 
 literal fashion, hung fire considerably. On the 
 third, a crowd of youths, of whom Rene obviously 
 had great hopes, gathered round the stall. 
 
 " It is a trick," muttered one of them, watching 
 my shooting. 
 
 " Come yourself, then," cried Rene. " Try the 
 neck of the giraffe." 
 
 The silly youth did so, and, of course, failed. A 
 second fared no better. 
 
 " Look at the guns he gives us," said a third. 
 
 " Choose your own, then," cried Rene, nothing 
 daunted. " Mes amiSy make way for the M'sieu 
 who would choose his own gun." 
 
 There was a sheepish laugh at this ; but the victim 
 was nettled by Rene's amiability. 
 
 " We will come back later," he shouted, as several 
 of them left the booth. 
 
 Sure enough, they did so ; but the first intima- 
 tion we had of their arrival was a blow with a big 
 piece of timber, used as a battering-ram, which 
 knocked the lightly-constructed side of the shoot- 
 ing gaUery completely in. With a shout of triumph 
 the beam was wielded again, and in a few seconds, 
 it seemed, only a pile of broken wood remained, 
 over which Rene lay with a damaged head and 
 sprained ankle. His tongue, however, was in very 
 excellent working order. 
 
 He twisted himself into a sitting position. 
 
 " It was you, you rogue," he yelled, pointing a 
 trembhng finger at me. 
 
 " What on earth do you mean ? " I repUed. If 
 anyone had kicked me I could not have been more 
 surprised. 
 
THE OPEN ROAD 79 
 
 " You egged them on," he cried. 
 
 " In gratitude for your kindness, I suppose ? " 
 I retorted. " Or in anticipation of further favours ? " 
 
 He made no reply to this, but turned to his wife, 
 who had rushed from the caravan when the smash 
 occurred. 
 
 " Have you missed anything from the van ? " 
 he cried. " These people are thieves and robbers." 
 
 The crowd gathered round the shouting invalid 
 began to show hostility to us. 
 
 " Who are you ? " they asked us. 
 
 " According to our friend Rene, we are thieves 
 and robbers," I answered. " Bring a gendarme 
 here, and we will satisfy him as to our identity." 
 
 One was soon forthcoming. With much pom- 
 pousness he examined our passports. 
 
 " Have M'sieu and M'dame anywhere to sleep 
 to-night ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not at the moment. I don't think we are very 
 popular tenants with our last landlord." 
 
 " I have a bed which you could use. If you 
 will come with me I will see about it." 
 
 We thanked him in all sincerity. 
 
 " Thieves and robbers," shouted Rene, as we 
 shouldered our packs. He had been carried inside 
 the caravan. 
 
 " If you miss anything you will find us already in 
 the hands of M, le Gendarme,^'' I cried back. 
 
 As we left, the copper pots were twinkling on their 
 hooks, and the magic blue-green pitcher was 
 standing near the doorway, half illuminated by the 
 oil-lamps. Rene was spread on the floor of the 
 van, cursing volubly. From up above, gently 
 swinging her basket. Baby stared with wondering 
 eyes on the strange scene below. 
 
VIII 
 
 heart's desire 
 
 " Hue," cried the peasant driving his oxen, " Car- 
 dinal. Cardinal ! " — which means " Turn to the 
 left." The patient beasts in the plough turned 
 obediently at the tap of his stick, and continued their 
 monotonous rotation of the field. The peasant 
 mopped his forehead. 
 
 A torrid heat brooded over the valley in which 
 Helen and I were plodding. To the mountains 
 clung dense black clouds of thunder, but as yet 
 the storm had not broken. The birds were still, 
 the briUiant butterflies which had so far accom- 
 panied us were making for shelter. An unhealthy 
 smell rose from the undergrowth. The silence was 
 tense. 
 
 Out of this silence came a vague low cry. We 
 could not trace it : it seemed part of the atmosphere. 
 We turned a comer. . . . 
 
 She was sitting at the roadside at a point where 
 it crossed a patch of sparsely-covered moorland. 
 Some sheep browsed about her : a tiny baby, so 
 still and so tiny that it looked doll-like, lay in her 
 arms while her bent body heaved again with her 
 sobbing. She had thought no one near ; and as 
 soon as she heard our footsteps, hurriedly dried 
 her eyes — smiled, even. 
 
 Helen, however, was not to be deceived. 
 
 " You are in trouble ? " she asked. 
 
HEART'S DESIRE 81 
 
 *' Not more than most," replied the girl in a 
 subdued voice. 
 
 " Is baby ill ? " 
 
 *' No." 
 
 " What is it, then ? " 
 
 The girl shook her head. " Nothing," she 
 answered. 
 
 " But you do not cry for nothing," persisted 
 Helen. 
 
 The girl gave a little scared look and for a few 
 minutes remained silent. Then : 
 
 " I cry for peace," she said. 
 
 ** From what ? " Helen sat down in motherly 
 fashion beside her. 
 
 " Oh, from everything. The world is so cruel. 
 I have prayed fervently to Our Lady of Consolation, 
 but alas ! in vain." 
 
 " Tell me about it." Helen's persuasive tone 
 was not to be resisted. 
 
 '' Let me make baby comfortable first ... I 
 don't know why I should tell you, Madame, but as 
 I shall probably never see you again, perhaps it 
 doesn't matter. How old do you think I am ? " 
 
 " Eighteen or thereabouts." 
 
 *' Madame is discerning. Yes, I am eighteen. 
 And a year or so ago I married against my parents' 
 wishes. They live in the same village as I do, but 
 I am forbidden their home until I am of age. It 
 sounds little, but do you know what it means ? " 
 
 Helen shook her head. " Not all," she replied. 
 
 " It means, Madame, that you are outcast from 
 everyone. Father is one of the largest farmers 
 about here> and, of course, his word is law. I used 
 to be known and, I believe, liked. Now people 
 pass me with scorn. ' There she goes,' they say, 
 ' she will soon be moving to the town.' You know 
 what they mean ; and I am a respectably married 
 woman. 
 
82 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " ' Why could she not have waited ? ' they say 
 ... I who waited so long. Is it a strange thing, 
 Madame, to fall in love when you are fifteen ? 
 These older people who know life so well say it is ; 
 but all the same, I know better . . . much 
 better. ..." 
 
 " And your husband ? " asked Helen softly. 
 
 " He is a man : he can look after himself. Be- 
 sides, he is out in the fields all day and does not 
 see me cry. I do try, Madame — ^I try very hard 
 — ^to be cheerful when I am with him, but it is 
 difficult, sometimes, when one lives in a hovel. 
 You see, he is a peasant, and my father was all the 
 more incensed that I should throw myself away on 
 such as he. And when my father is angry he says 
 all sorts of things he does not mean." 
 
 " Like Rene," I mused, wondering how far be- 
 hind his caravan might be ; for we were only just 
 turning off the main road into the valley. 
 
 " And yet," continued the girl, with a brave 
 smile, " I am happy, you know. It is only occa- 
 sionally that I am weak enough to cry. But I do 
 not think I have deserved their sneers — the village 
 folk, I mean. When I pass my father in the street 
 —as I can't help doing sometimes — ^he never looks 
 at me. I think mother would, but she is afraid. 
 It is so lonely and so cruel. ..." 
 
 She was again silent ; and then : 
 
 " I only want peace," she said. " It is my heart's 
 desire." 
 
 The storm broke, and we took refuge in a deserted 
 cottage. 
 
 " RvA^'' cried the peasant to his oxen, " Cardinal, 
 Cardinal ! " and they continued their monotonous 
 rotation of the field. They did not bother about 
 so small a thing as a storm — they must plough on. 
 
 I wondered what the girl's husband was doing 
 at the moment. It might indicate much. 
 
HEART'S DESIRE 83 
 
 We discovered our City of Heart's Desire near to 
 where the exile girl had told us her story. 
 
 A great cathedral broods over it, and every house 
 is a palace. Only one road approaches it, and this 
 cHmbs steeply up the side of the isolated hill on 
 which it is built, so that whether you be pilgrim or 
 tourist or inhabitant, you must toil up its rough 
 surface alongside the ancient ramparts and enter 
 by the old gate, guiltless now of portcullis or other 
 military accessory. Even before this you must 
 have walked hard miles by a stony road : for Heart's 
 Desire can be achieved only by peine forte et dun 
 But as you reach it, the mellow bell of the Cathedral 
 will, as likely as not, toll out a solemn and reserved 
 welcome to you, as if it were specially celebrating 
 the arrival of a friend. That it is merely sounding 
 the half -hours seems impossible : its vibrations 
 have the confidential charm of a secret shared, an 
 understanding taken for granted. 
 
 From the Cathedral cloisters you may see up and 
 down the green valley and over to the blue fir- 
 covered hillsides — ^perhaps, here and there, catch a 
 glimpse of the snow-covered Pyrenees. But while 
 we stayed there, these distant views — ^almost, indeed, 
 the opposite hills — ^were shrouded in soft grey 
 mountain mist, and we were thrown back on to 
 the intimacy of the cloister itself, with its sarcophagi 
 of priest and crusader, its deep cool well, its soft 
 relaxing shadows, its exuberant grass through 
 which sprang hosts of tiny flowers. It is not ten 
 yards from corner to corner, this refuge from even 
 the green and empty world of the hillsides, and the 
 merest whisper runs round its arches with dis- 
 approving stridency ; but here we found all the 
 drama, pathos, and humour that a busy life could 
 hold. 
 
84 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 *' See this," said Helen softly, pointing to the 
 carved capital of one of the arches — " two monks 
 fighting for the possession of a stick." 
 
 " And fine, strong fellows they look, too," I 
 said, " like the one who was birching his brother 
 monk in the choir-stall carvings." 
 
 "Is it intended as humour or pathos ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " It's history, and whatever you like to make 
 of it," I replied. " You might ask the monks in 
 the little cell outside what they think." 
 
 For outside the Cathedral is a small cell, attached, 
 I beHeve, to a monastery at Toulouse ; it contains 
 some eight or nine monks — ^youngsters most of 
 them — and, when the Cathedral organ is not play- 
 ing, you may hear their murmured prayers, the 
 harmonium in the cell mingling with their boyish 
 voices. Sometimes they come down to fetch water 
 or make modest excursions to gather roses in the 
 village ; but at few times do they rest from their 
 labours of humiliation and praise. 
 
 "I wonder why they live in that uninteresting 
 house," I mused, " when every other one in St. 
 Bertrand de Cominges is a reHc of the days when 
 monasticism was at the height of its power." 
 
 " Perhaps it would make them proud," suggested 
 Helen. 
 
 That was probably true ; it must make any 
 tenant — except those who actually inhabit them — 
 proud to live in dwellings with such a history. 
 For every house is a count's castle or bishop's 
 palace — ^you may see the armorial bearings of 
 their original owners over any door you choose 
 to look at. The first two that greet you as 
 you enter the old city gateway bear the dates 
 1440 and 1549. Nor do you find any touch of 
 restoration. 
 
 " Can't you see the gay-coloured nobles and 
 
HEART'S DESIRE 85 
 
 sombre priests going to and fro in their courtyards ? " 
 whispered Helen. 
 
 " Or the laden pack-horses bringing up the food 
 supplies and the crowds of chattering servants 
 waiting to unload them ? '' I suggested, " or the 
 silent men-at-arms waiting their turn to defend the 
 city during those rehgious wars." 
 
 " Then," pursued Helen, " when the original 
 nobles were dead and their descendants had moved 
 to Versailles and Paris, the small merchant owners 
 of these same houses — stiff-necked men, with a quick 
 eye for a bargain ? " 
 
 " Imagine what the Revolution must have meant 
 to such a place as this," I assented. " Half these 
 armorial bearings have been defaced by axes even 
 though their owners were dead for centuries. 
 And there's a lot of damage, too, in the 
 Cathedral." 
 
 " And now," continued Helen, " what is left of 
 it all ? — empty shells ; stables and haylofts where 
 there were once feastings and masquerades ; poor, 
 mean-living people who have not the intelligence 
 or the wish to think beyond their own Uttle potato 
 patches. Why, even the Cathedral is now only a 
 parish church." 
 
 Helen's sohloquy was interrupted at this point 
 by the flutter of a brood of chickens in the grass- 
 grown lane. A few yards away some ducks were 
 making what use they could of the eighteenth 
 century fountain, whose jet of water ran neglected 
 into the cobbly gutter. A slatternly woman, on 
 whose face was written well-founded suspicion of 
 the whole world, passed with a cheap enamelled 
 jug of thin milk. The pale sun melted into a cloud 
 and the mountain mist fell almost at once. 
 
 " I wonder," resumed Helen, " whether there is 
 any hope for a place Uke this." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
86 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 *' Whether it wouldn't be better to pull it down 
 and start afresh. It's outlived its usefulness : it's in 
 the way — all except the Cathedral, from which 
 came Bishops who were Popes and Saints : they are 
 still useful, either as warnings or as examples. 
 History may repeat itself perhaps. But the rest 
 of it ? " 
 
 " Would you like it restored ? " 
 
 " No," — this emphatically. 
 
 " Would you like a modem town on this site ? " 
 I queried. 
 
 " No, I suppose not," repHed Helen dubiously. 
 " But it seems such a pity." 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 " This waste." 
 
 " It's no waste, surely ? " I replied. " Except 
 in the sense that practical-minded people Uke you 
 would call any refuge a backwater and any medi- 
 tation waste of time." 
 
 " I'm only I, and I can't be anyone else," pouted 
 Helen. 
 
 " Suppose you had been severely battered by this 
 cruel old world," I suggested, " wouldn't you like 
 to end your days in such a quiet remote spot 
 as this, with the Cathedral bell to remind you 
 pleasantly that your troubles are over ? " 
 
 " Perhaps." 
 
 " With the spirit of the past around you and the 
 children stretching out their hands to the future ? " 
 
 " But the children would grow up and leave, 
 and no one would take their place." 
 
 " They would come back — ^in time." 
 
 *' Yes, but in what time ? You want the world 
 to stop for you." 
 
 " That's just what it doesn't do here. In this 
 forgotten spot you're in All Time and in No Time. 
 You're deep in the Midst of Time : but it's so big 
 you can't grasp a fraction of its size, and it moves 
 
HEART'S DESIRE 87 
 
 so fast you don't see it move at all. It all seems 
 as silent and peaceful and awe-inspiring as the 
 Dream City men eaU Heart's Desire." 
 
 '* Maybe you're right." 
 
 There was still a note of doubt in Helen's voice. 
 
IX 
 
 THE FIERY CROSS 
 
 I WONDER, if we had always our Heart's Desire, 
 whether we should not be rather melancholy folk, 
 because there is something cloying in contentment. 
 At least, so Helen and I found at St. Bertrand. For, 
 on closer inspection, it proved not only a dead city 
 but a withered city — a city of stunted human beings. 
 The postman who passed our window once a day 
 had a withered arm ; two men who kept a ddhit de 
 tahac had a withered hand and a withered leg 
 respectively ; the children were crooked and rickety 
 and halt. As we could not offer help, we decided 
 to do the next best thing. 
 
 " For Heaven's sake, let's go," exclaimed Helen 
 one morning. " The sight of so much avoidable 
 suffering which one cannot cure is beginning to get 
 on my nerves." 
 
 So, in spite of heavy rain, we shouldered our 
 packs, and left the illusions of Heart's Desire be- 
 hind. Our original idea of going to Luchon, where 
 rich invalids foregather with those who imagine 
 themselves sick, was distasteful : we made for the 
 high road. 
 
 For the first few miles it rained steadily. The 
 fields were deserted. Once or twice we passed 
 heavy oxen dragging a farm waggon, which looked, 
 like its driver, sodden and glum — ^not even creaking 
 its way as it does on happier occasions. We had to 
 
THE FIERY CROSS 89 
 
 ford the overflow of a brook which had burst its 
 banks and was pouring over the road. Except for 
 the monotonous splash and uniform grey of the 
 rain there seemed no sound and no colour any- 
 where. The mountains had gone. St. Bertrand 
 gone. Everything that was familiar had deserted 
 us. 
 
 Gradually it cleared. The rain ceased, and, as 
 the clouds lifted, the road stretched in front of us 
 every kilometre or so marked with its gaunt wooden 
 wayside cross. Indeed, one measures distances, 
 here, by them — " the fourth cross on the right-hand 
 side," you will be told when asking the way. 
 Women appeared in the fields. We entered upon 
 the life of the high road, and were soon splashed by 
 passing motors. 
 
 We put up that night with a good soul who dried 
 our clothes before a blazing log fire on an open 
 hearth — so that the whole room was pungent with 
 the acrid-sweet fumes of the wood — and set off again 
 next morning. 
 
 It was still early when we first saw caravans in 
 the distance. By midday we had caught them up 
 as they were about to halt. 
 
 The last of them had the familiar aspect of Rene's. 
 The shooting gallery, patched up once more after 
 the affair at Boussens, was on the tender and the 
 eldest boy walked behind it. 
 
 " Hullo," he said as we called to him. He had 
 his father's gift of silence. 
 
 Rene himself looked at us sheepishly enough. 
 He was riding on the front of the van, his ankle 
 roughly bandaged. His wife had taken his place 
 at the horses' heads. 
 
 " So you have come back," he grunted. 
 
 It was we, this time, who preferred to keep 
 silence. 
 
 During the halt his wife drew us aside. 
 
90 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 *' You will forget what he said at Boussens ? " she 
 asked us. " He did not mean it. It was a great 
 calamity to have the gallery broken up as it was. 
 M'sieu will recognise that." 
 
 " We'll let the matter drop, of course," I said. 
 
 Rene seemed grateful. At the midday meal he 
 silently Hfted his glass in our direction and drank. 
 We followed suit. Not a word was spoken on 
 either side, but the past was healed in the 
 pledge. 
 
 " Will you come with us ? " he asked afterwards. 
 
 " To where ? " 
 
 "Tarbes." 
 
 We nodded. We might as well go there as any- 
 where else : it mattered httle. With Rene we 
 should at least have shelter if it reverted to bad 
 weather. 
 
 The sun now, however, was blazing, and we had 
 left behind the region of shade. A great plain of 
 tough grass, thistles, heather, broom, and other 
 useless beautiful things, stretched about us : to 
 the South, the snow on the mountains winked and 
 stared and dazzled against the colourless sky, and 
 the fir forests below, with Hghter green glades cut 
 through them by the tree-fellers, made one think 
 that evening had fallen there prematurely. 
 
 "If all this could only be made known to Eng- 
 land," I said to Helen, " the Alps would have a 
 powerful competitor." 
 
 " With hoUday-makers ? " 
 
 " Yes. This is richer, more concentrated than 
 Switzerland, without lacking anything of its attrac- 
 tion. What a pity it's so largely the preserve of 
 wealthy invahds." 
 
 " But would you have the place over-run as 
 Switzerland is ? Switzerland must have been very 
 lovely in WilHam Tell's time — ^but now " 
 
 " It's good enough for the people who go there." 
 
THE FIERY CROSS 91 
 
 *' It isn't the people I'm talking about, it's the 
 place itself. It loses its romance." 
 
 '' That's sheer stuff and nonsense." Talk of 
 this kind, to use an Americanism, " gets me riled." 
 — " The most romantic place I know is Margate 
 beach on a Bank Holiday. There's romance 
 enough there to charge one's mental accumulator 
 for a Ufe time." 
 
 " True, but here's a different kind of romance, 
 the kind that belongs to mountains, the romance 
 of soHtude. It belongs specially to these Pyrenees. 
 For centuries they have cut off one country — an 
 amazing country in its good and in its evil — ^from 
 the rest of Europe. They've kept back influences 
 which would have changed the course of world 
 events — if there had been only one pass in the 
 whole of their length you and I might have been 
 leading very different lives. Now you're wishing 
 they could be thrown open for the world and his 
 wife to stare at. Don't you see that you're tam- 
 pering with the foundations of history — and not 
 only history, of Europe ? " 
 
 *' Most of history has got to be pretty consider- 
 ably tampered with," I suggested, ** so that it 
 may not repeat itself." 
 
 " In wars ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then these Pyrenees have probably been the 
 means of avoiding more slaughter than any other 
 agency. They kept out the Moors. They've 
 worked well, my dear, for international peace. 
 Now let them rest free from tourists, to enjoy for 
 themselves their romance of soUtude." 
 
 I fear it is not altogether good to be plastic in 
 the hands of one's wife. 
 
 During one of our midday halts I wandered into 
 a village church and saw there the epitome of the 
 war. Before the crypt altar, in the semi-darkness, 
 
92 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 was laid a wreath of withered flowers with a little 
 metal tablet " Protegez mon mariy 
 
 I suppose some poor woman placed it in 
 dread and longing and faith when her husband 
 left for the Front : thousands of women in France 
 did the same. They heard of vague terrible hap- 
 penings to other people's husbands ; but it seemed 
 impossible that anything could befall one's own. 
 " Mon mari " was always, somehow, different from 
 other people's. And yet . . . 
 
 " I wonder if he came back," whispered Helen. 
 
 I could find no later wreath of thanksgiving for 
 his return : perhaps when he turned the corner and 
 strode, worn but cheerful, into the house, ^motion 
 was too deep at first for that ; and afterwards, a 
 candle, a prayer together, a kiss, a laugh and the 
 normal life shaped slowly again before them. 
 
 " Or perhaps," I said, " he came back mutilated, 
 blinded. Or a brief official communication ^" 
 
 " At any rate, we shall never know." 
 
 Which is true. For we can see only her agony 
 in the flowers she left, and even these will soon drop 
 into dust. But her helpless cry will remain, for it 
 is written in iron. 
 
 On the third day we reached Tarbes, birthplace 
 of soldiers from D'Artagnan to Marshal Foch. 
 
 " What an infernal hole," I exclaimed. " Its 
 only purpose seems to be the manufacture of 
 artillery — and that is the purpose of the Devil. 
 Come away." 
 
 n 
 
 We left Tarbes by the first road that presented 
 itself and sheltered that night in a grey stone, 
 grey-tiled village surrounded by tall trees in a sUght 
 dip of the hills. 
 
 It happened that Anton Peresc and his donkey 
 were setting out the following afternoon on a 
 
THE FIERY CROSS 93 
 
 journey, and as a portion of our road to Where you 
 Will was his, we hung back for him. But Anton 
 was a glummer travelling companion even than 
 Rene ; his deep-set eyes always seemed to be look- 
 ing back into themselves. A Spanish curse levelled 
 at the donkey was all the conversation he vouch- 
 safed and a grunt and a touch of his tight-fitting 
 Basque cap the only parting when we left him. 
 
 So we trudged on and on. A sharp shower 
 blotted out for a time all except the grey road ; 
 then evening set in, misty and cold. Suddenly 
 Helen stopped. 
 
 As if suspended from the sky, and waxing and 
 waning in brilliance as the mists drifted across it, 
 hung a fiery cross. In a moment of exceptional 
 clearness it seemed to attach itseM to an immense 
 black hill. One or two tiny lights flickered below it. 
 
 " Lourdes," said Helen. 
 
 I suppose we are very much in the position of 
 thousands of others whom the war has left some- 
 what scarred in matters of faith. To indulge in a 
 Credo would be somewhat irrelevant in these notes : 
 it would need so many exceptions and qualifications 
 that most of it can be put into the single phrase 
 that we are groping for an ordered creed while the 
 essence of religion is still within us. We do not 
 look for any particular church or " ism," but for a 
 creed that shall satisfy ourselves even if it satisfies 
 no one else. Is not religion the most intimately 
 personal and individual of all man's affairs ? 
 
 To us, therefore, as we walked towards Lourdes, 
 it seemed that the fiery cross was symbohcal 
 not of any particular faith or behef but of the 
 core of one's mind, which, whatever outward 
 semblance it may take, contains the essence of 
 religious vitality. It seemed that anyone, Quaker, 
 CathoUc, Buddhist, Jew or Agnostic, could, if he 
 once realised this, do reverence in his own way to 
 
94 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 the Cross in the sky. It represented not Chris- 
 tianity but any reconciliation of oneself to the rest 
 of the animate and inanimate, the spiritual and the 
 material world. 
 
 In another vein, it held out high hopes of Lourdes, 
 the Mecca of the Catholic sick. Its dominant posi- 
 tion, its illumination — albeit electric — ^the thought 
 which placed it, make the Fiery Cross a stroke of 
 genius. What if we should find all Lourdes like 
 that ?— if it should be really the City of Faith ? 
 
 For nearly a week we tried to discover this 
 Lourdes of piety and miracles. 
 
 We watched one English crippled girl, wheeled 
 to and fro in a bath-chair, who, before we left, 
 could walk, clumsily and painfully no doubt, but 
 still, walk. We saw hundreds of others in as des- 
 perate a pUght go sorrowfully away, unhealed for 
 all their earnest cries of " Seigneur Jesus, ayez 
 pitie de nousy In front of the Basilique, we saw 
 faith enough to make even it beautiful and flippancy 
 enough to damn it for ever. We saw men and 
 women kneeUng devoutly in the mud of the streets 
 — and others mounting the Sacred Steps on their 
 knees as if taking part in a race. And we saw 
 pilgrims, often from afar, behaving themselves after 
 the manner of trippers. 
 
 " After all," said Helen, " it's just the person 
 who counts." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " Can you imagine miracles happening to those 
 people ? " she retorted, pointing to a jovial crowd 
 of young men outside a cafe. 
 
 " Why not ? " I answered. " Would a miracle 
 be more likely to happen if they all looked melan- 
 choly ? Perhaps, indeed, a miracle has happened, 
 and that is why they behave as they do." 
 
 " I don't see anything of it." 
 
 " It isn't a miracle you're looking for," I replied, 
 
THE FIERY CROSS 95 
 
 " it's a peep-show. You want something that'll 
 make you open your eyes and say ' Oo ! ' But I 
 don't suppose you realise half the number of real 
 miracles that take place every day." 
 
 "Not here!" Helen was decided. "The 
 atmosphere's wrong." 
 
 It was difficult to reply to that. When a relig- 
 ious resort like Lourdes resembles the cheaper 
 tjrpe of EngHsh seaside town in its rows of shanties 
 containing tawdry wares ; when the various real and 
 alleged relations and connections of Bernadette, — 
 the girl to whom the Virgin of Lourdes first 
 appeared — advertise themselves at length and 
 expense in the hope of gaining thereby a better 
 livelihood; when even hotels are named in such a 
 fashion as to shock a quite ordinary person ; when 
 in short commercialism presumes upon devout- 
 ness, — miracles are indeed miracles. Lourdes 
 seems bent on making money out of the troubles 
 of its pilgrims ; too often it is simply a religious 
 shopping centre, such as could not possibly exist in 
 any Protestant country. Though it is equally 
 true that the incidentals of an English cathedral 
 town are strange commentaries, sometimes, on our 
 own national faith. 
 
 " I find it almost impossible to pray here," a 
 Catholic told me. 
 
 Yet there are others who apparently have no 
 difficulty. A blind Irishwoman was led every day 
 to the ceremony of Benediction, where the Host is 
 elevated and prayers offered before each sick person 
 for his cure. She used to sit on a shaded seat, her 
 eyes, sightless though they were, following every 
 movement of the holy procession. Her mouth, 
 each day, nervously twitched the same prayers 
 and her hands, moist with strain, clasped and un- 
 clapsed, folded and unfolded the pleats of her 
 skirt, never at rest, trembUng violently. As the 
 
96 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 prayers and the Host drew step by step nearer, the 
 tension to which her whole being was subject in- 
 creased : she was beyond the call of worldly things, 
 wrapped in the ecstatic contemplation of a God 
 Whom she conceived as All-Merciful to those in 
 pain and sickness. It was Him alone that her blind 
 eyes saw, to His Sacred Mother that she opened her 
 heart, the blaze of His glory that filled her soul 
 when the unseen Host was raised and the priests 
 added their prayers to hers for sight to be restored. 
 
 And every day the procession moved on, leaving 
 her to be led back to the Pilgrims' Hostel. What 
 agony must she have suffered ! — the agony of 
 believing herself too unworthy or her faith too 
 feeble for His notice ! To-morrow, perhaps, she 
 would pray more earnestly ; though who would say 
 that she had not to-day put all her soul into her 
 supplications ? The sweat of prayer with which 
 she was covered would have given the He to such 
 a suggestion. But to-morrow the miracle might 
 happen . . . to-morrow . . . to-morrow. 
 
 And she was led back, still blind, to her sad 
 lodging, the shop-keepers sold their tinsel and 
 tawdry, the Procession of Healing made its daily 
 round, pilgrims left despondent, pilgrims arrived 
 with hope in their hearts, men and women raced up 
 the Sacred Steps to the glory of what they imagined 
 was God, crutches were added amid thanksgiving 
 to those which surround the walls in the miraculous 
 
 grotto of Marsabeille. All this happened 
 
 to-morrow. 
 
 Perhaps Lourdes is, indeed, the City of Faith, but 
 not of one Faith. I remembered the Fiery Cross on 
 the Pic du Jer, with its elemental appeal to every 
 man and woman. Helen was right : it is the per- 
 son himself who counts. But there may be, as well, 
 a Presence which, for want of a better name, we 
 call God, who counts even more. 
 
x^ 
 
 
 MARCtrS 
 
 Anton Perbsc met us one day in the cattle market 
 at Lourdes. He ambled in our direction and touched 
 his peakless Basque cap to Helen. 
 
 " Do you want to buy a donkey ? " he said 
 abruptly. 
 
 The grey stubble on his chin and his introspective 
 eyes made him look horribly cunning when he 
 tried to smile. Had he been wise he would have 
 kept rigidly to his scowl, which (a choice of evils) 
 suited him far better. 
 
 He threw away the bitten end of his cigarette, 
 and refusing the one I offered him, rolled another 
 out of villainously black tobacco and stuck it in 
 his mouth. 
 
 " It's quite good," he jerked at us. 
 
 " You seem to enjoy it, though it would be too 
 strong for me," I remarked. 
 
 " The donkey, I mean." Anton had a temper 
 when he chose. " Do you want it ? " 
 
 I could not, out of sheer devilment, refrain from 
 asking, " What's wrong with it ? " 
 
 " Nothing," he snapped. " Do you suppose I 
 want to cheat you ? " 
 
 " What do you want to sell it for, then ? " I 
 asked. 
 
 He grunted and turned on his heel. 
 
98 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Not so fast, man vieux,^^ I expostulated. " Don't 
 forget we haven't refused it yet." 
 
 This brought him back at once, but his expres- 
 sion was sour. 
 
 " Do you want it, yes or no ?" he asked. 
 
 " First let us see the noble beast." 
 
 I don't think either Helen or I know much about 
 donkeys ; but we did our best, during the inspection, 
 to look as though we did. I fancy I was beginning 
 to impress Anton when I stooped down gingerly 
 to feel its legs ; but just then Helen made a fatal 
 mistake. 
 
 " What do you feed it on ? " she said innocently. 
 
 " Does the purchase include the saddle ? " I 
 asked quickly, to cover Helen's blunder. But it 
 was too late. 
 
 " You feed it on — anything will do," replied 
 Anton, with what appeared a faint gleam of amuse- 
 ment. " We might strike a bargain over the 
 saddle." 
 
 " What's its name ? " asked Helen. 
 
 " What you like." 
 
 " It's a dear old thing, isn't it ? " At the moment 
 I could cheerfully have kicked my wife. I had no 
 desire to be saddled with a donkey. 
 
 '' Let's have it, do." There was no drawing 
 back then. For the tone of supplication had gone 
 deeper than language, and Anton perceived that, 
 with Helen, it was as good as sold. 
 
 And why, after all, thought I, should we not 
 emulate Stevenson in the Cevennes ? 
 
 So we adjourned to a neighbouring cafe, and after 
 an hour's haggUng and wrrangHng, the donkey, plus 
 pack saddle, changed hands for a fairly reasonable 
 sum. 
 
 We must have made an amusing trio as we left 
 Lourdes next morning and struck into the heart 
 of the mountains. I led with the donkey on a 
 
MARCUS 99 
 
 short halter. Helen and a stick brought up the 
 rear of the procession. The donkey brayed vigor- 
 ously as we passed through the town and shied at 
 various imaginary objects. We proved an effective 
 counter-attraction to a passing wedding. Lourdes 
 once left behind, Helen cried a halt. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " I asked. 
 
 " I'm going to christen him," said Helen. The 
 donkey pricked up his ears and chewed wood from 
 the fence. 
 
 " Listen," Helen told him. " Henceforth you 
 shall be known as Marcus AureHus. Marcus was 
 a wise philosopher and I think you follow in his 
 footsteps. Now don't disappoint me, there's a 
 dear." 
 
 Marcus Aurelius went on chewing. 
 
 We marched ste?-dily forward the whole of that 
 day with the noisy torrent swirling past us and 
 beds of blood-red clover peacefully drifting between 
 the golden-green grass which carpeted the valley. 
 On either side the fir-covered mountains rose in- 
 creasingly threatening as we mounted higher. Dark 
 clouds hung on their summits and more vaporous 
 masses poured down their sides. The air grew 
 chilly. 
 
 " This is the proper way to see mountains," I 
 suggested. 
 
 " Um," replied Helen dubiously. " Why ? " 
 
 " Because mountains are hard, cruel, isolating 
 things. There's no kindness, no friendhness in 
 them," I answered. " Why should they be seen 
 in gracious weather ? Sunshine and blue skies 
 don't fit them : they ought to be in a perpetual 
 thunderstorm." 
 
 " But modern science " began Helen. 
 
 " ^has taught us to avoid them, not overcome 
 
 them," I continued. " Etienne was right when he 
 said that the only way to know what a mountain 
 
100 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 means is to climb up it in the worst of weathers. 
 You'll know all about it then." 
 
 " Well, then, you ought to be enjoying yourself," 
 said Helen. It was raining by this time, and the 
 road had become steeper. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius brayed ironically. 
 
 It was useless to point out to such companions 
 that mountains weren't intended to be enjoyed. 
 And a deluge of rain made conversation impossible. 
 
 There was difficulty over Marcus when we sought 
 shelter for the night. Between us, we picketed 
 him in a field — ^his docility was, in my opinion, his 
 best point — and retired into a friendly cottage. 
 In half an hour he was squeezing himself through 
 the open door. 
 
 This time we picketed him more firmly, and were 
 left undisturbed till the early hours, when Helen 
 began seriously to wonder whether he was not ill. 
 
 " I've never heard a donkey bray like that," 
 she exclaimed, anxiety in her tone. 
 
 " You'll get used to it in time," I answered. 
 But we were both beyond sleep. 
 
 "We'll make a long day of it," I said. *' All 
 France rises early : we'U do the same." 
 
 So we took to the road well before the sun had 
 topped the hills. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, however, after the light work 
 of the previous day, felt skittish. At first he 
 refused to budge from his meadow, and being at 
 last resigned to further journeying, insisted upon 
 walking on the wrong side of the road, where he 
 proved himseK an intolerable nuisance to patssing 
 carts and cycles. At one time he took an intense 
 disUke to a buUock waggon ; later, to his own 
 shadow ; again, to a bridge we had to cross. But 
 throughout these proceedings he preserved such 
 an air of injured innocence, of readiness to com- 
 promise, even of anxiety to do his best for all 
 
MARCUS/,; :;v ::; : AOl 
 
 parties, that Helen's stick lay unused in her hancL 
 She left it entirely to me to look after him and just 
 loved him more than ever. I worked out a theory 
 during the day of the psychological connection 
 between Marcus and 
 
 " Do look where you're going," exclaimed Helen. 
 I narrowly missed a passing cart. 
 
 It began to rain heavily once more in the after- 
 noon and increased to a deluge. No village was in 
 sight, and to go further was useless. We took 
 shelter in a barn. 
 
 " Rotten ! " said Helen gazing with melancholy 
 eyes at the grey landscape. 
 
 " We'd better stop here for the night,*' I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " What about Marcus ? " she asked. 
 
 " WeU ? " 
 
 " Have him with us ? " 
 
 I nodded. Marcus, intelHgent beast that he was, 
 snorted. 
 
 There were some remnants of old hay in the 
 bam, and these we gathered together into the least 
 draughty corner. Marcus we fastened to a post. 
 
 Some time during the night, Helen shook me 
 vigorously. 
 
 *' Wake up, can't you ! I beUeve you'd sleep 
 through the Flood," she rapped out. 
 
 I was awake in an instant. I am not used to 
 being rated in this way by the best wife in the 
 world. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 There was no need for Helen to continue. If I 
 was awake before, I was aroused now. ... 
 
 Outside in the night the rain was still falling 
 steadily, aided and abetted by a raw wind. In the 
 pitch-blackness of the bam I heard a trickle and 
 then a " plop " ; a silence, another trickle and a 
 louder " plop ! " Suddenly a bath of cold water. 
 
102 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 released from the roof we could not see how, 
 descended full upon me. I sprang to my feet, gasping. 
 
 " That's the second," said Helen stoically. 
 " We'd better move from here." 
 
 We groped our way into another corner. 
 
 Plop . . . plop . . . plop . . . souse ! 
 
 Our third bed was more difficult to choose. 
 There seemed not a dry spot in the barn. We 
 were wet, hungry and miserable. Marcus Aurelius, 
 too, shuffled uneasily : he had, at least, enjoyed an 
 evening meal. He was a greedy brute. 
 
 We decided upon our mackintoshes, but had, in 
 our pilgrimage, left our packs in some distant corner 
 of the barn — they might as well have been the 
 other side of France. Search as we would, they 
 eluded us ; only the " plops " followed unerringly 
 on our heels (and other parts.) We grew wetter, 
 colder, more and more dispirited. I hadn't even 
 a cigarette : Helen, too, was without solace. In- 
 stinctively we huddled close to Marcus for warmth 
 — and he seemed grateful. 
 
 As we sat in misery and hunger, the first grey 
 light of a drenched dawn broke, to increase our 
 sense of utter desolation. 
 
 We spent the remainder of our rest at the bam 
 door, braying in unison. 
 
 II 
 
 I don't know what freak of fancy made us pass 
 Luz and, cutting away from the main valley, turn 
 to the left towards Bareges. In its lower part 
 this side valley is pretty enough, stiffly uphill by 
 a winding road, and well covered with poplar and 
 other bright-coloured trees. Nearer Bareges it 
 becomes desolate. Enormous sweeps of shattered 
 rock descend from the mountainside. In one place 
 the road was blocked to traffic by a huge boulder 
 and in another by old snow which had frozen. 
 
MARCUS 103 
 
 Bareges itself has twice within recent years suffered 
 badly from avalanches, and now lies largely in 
 ruins. 
 
 " What is the use of rebuilding ? " ask the 
 inhabitants. " We rebuilt once, and a second 
 avalanche swept away our work. If we set to 
 again — ^who knows ? " So they sit looking at 
 it during the long summer and autumn evenings, 
 and in the winter and spring do their best to put the 
 memory of it out of their minds altogether. 
 
 We were just on the outskirts of the town when our 
 attention was attracted by an approaching figure. 
 A boy it was, apparently fourteen or fifteen years 
 of age, intended by nature for a giant but lank 
 and weedy and shambling in his gait. He seemed 
 to cling to the inner curve of the road as he walked. 
 
 " Be careful," I said softly to Helen as he 
 approached. " I believe he's blind." 
 
 Helen led Marcus to the middle of the road, but 
 the boy, sensing our approach, stopped alertly 
 until we had passed. Although they appeared 
 almost normal, his eyes were sightless. 
 
 We saw him next day, still edging near the inner 
 curve of the road. 
 
 " Young Bourtouloume ? " said our host. " Yes, 
 he's blind, right enough — blind from birth. He 
 was born a short time after the first avalanche, 
 I think ... let me see, in . . . 1907. It swept 
 away his parents' house and killed his father, a 
 worthy man if ever there was one ... a big loss 
 for the town also. . . . His mother died when he 
 was a few months old, poor little chap : she never 
 recovered from the double shock. . . . 
 
 " His aunt took him to live with her after that. 
 He did what he could at school, but that wasn't 
 much. You see, we have nothing special for such 
 cases in an out-of-the-way spot like this, and the 
 master at that time was not a good man — he 
 
104 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 became very much disliked in the village on 
 young Bourtouloume's account. We did our best 
 for the lad, of course, but he was always shy of our 
 kindness, and proud. . . . He is consumptive, I 
 ifhink. 
 
 " Then, in 1915, after the war started, his aunt's 
 house was destroyed by another avalanche . . . 
 it had been left by the first. His aunt went, too. 
 . . . The boy was at Lourdes, awaiting cure, and 
 returned to &id himseK so much alone ! " 
 
 " What on earth does the poor chap do now ? " 
 I asked. 
 
 " Oh, he's not poor,'' replied our host, misimder- 
 standing me. " He has always enough to Uve on, 
 and to spare. He is only about fifteen, but a man 
 already." 
 
 " He has had enough trouble to make him one," 
 commented Helen. 
 
 *' And to give him more than one grey hair." 
 
 We saw Bourtouloume daily, but he would never 
 enter into conversation with us. He used to sit 
 in a meadow lifting his head pathetically towards 
 the sun and the mountains. Sometimes he laughed 
 to himself an almost merry laugh; at others he 
 would appear fretful and restless. But, on the 
 whole, in a way which appeared almost miraculous, 
 happiness predominated : having lost so much, 
 he seemed doubly to dread missing one jot of exis- 
 tence. He tried, poor fellow, to live up to the hilt — 
 strained every nerve to catch the joy of Ufe as it 
 floated unseen past him. 
 
 One day our host ran to us with distressed face. 
 
 '' Have you heard ? " he asked. 
 
 " What ? " 
 
 "Young Bourtouloume . . . dead . . . fell over 
 the cliff into the stream. He could easily have 
 got ut if he had had his sight, but he must have 
 floundered away from the bank . . . the current 
 
MARCUS 105 
 
 struck his head against a rock. Drowned in half 
 a metre depth of water . . . ! '* 
 
 The hideous funeral, with its accumulations of 
 black, seemed an insult to him whose life had been 
 spent in unrelieved darkness. The golden yellow 
 of the sunlight he had missed should have been 
 strewn around him, but if anyone had the wit to 
 think of it, custom was too iron a band to be broken 
 by one man's thought. So he was buried with 
 black pomp on a day of gold and green, with a 
 dreamy wind rustling the trees, such as he used 
 to put his head up to and sniff like a terrier. All 
 the village attended, the endless service at last 
 sung itseK out, the body was lowered. . . . 
 
 " Let's go from this place of death," pleaded 
 Helen. 
 
 We prepared Marcus and set off down the valley 
 towards cheerful Luz. 
 
 in 
 
 The thermal station of Lusi — St. Sauveur, stradd- 
 ling across the valley which leads to the famous 
 Cirque de Gavarnie, is a go-ahead little place, with 
 enterprising ideas for further development. It has 
 its eye on more advanced resorts and hopes before 
 long to leave them far behind both in amenities 
 and trade. The valley is rich in minerals ; the torrent 
 from the Cirque, foaming in its narrow gorge, is 
 an inexhaustible source of power ; but the electric 
 installation of the town was, in its then condition, 
 unworthy support of the legendary derivation of the 
 name of Luz, the Place of Light. 
 
 When we arrived on the scene, a comprehensive 
 scheme was on foot to make in Luz such a blaze 
 as would shine from one end of the Pyrenees 
 to the other and in the valley to produce such a 
 voltage of power as would move them bodily across 
 France. Everybody was talking about it, from the 
 
106 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 shepherds in their little slate-built granges on 
 the mountain- side to the easy-going proprietor of 
 the hotel in which, for lack of homelier accommoda- 
 tion, we put up for a few days with Marcus. 
 
 " Luz is really coming to its own," said everybody. 
 
 " We shall all be waiters," added the shepherds. 
 
 " Our hotels will be bigger than ever," the pro- 
 prietors. 
 
 " We shall be rich," the shopkeepers. 
 
 " We shall be a power in the Pyrenees," the Town 
 Councillors. 
 
 The man in whose hand lay the open sesame to 
 all this fabulous wealth — a short fussy man, with 
 square white beard and wrinkled face — was also 
 stopping in our hotel. We were first brought into 
 personal contact with him when he complained of 
 Marcus' early morning behaviour. 
 
 " Such a beast is impossible," he declared, shrug- 
 ging his shoulders and spreading out his hands. 
 " I, who suffer already from insomnia ..." 
 
 " He is not used to motors," I explained. " And 
 the garage next door is very noisy in the early 
 morning. It disturbs him." 
 
 " He ought to be electrocuted ! " 
 
 " M'sieu could perhaps arrange . . . ? " 
 
 " With pleasure. Just run a wire . . . pouff ! 
 ... it is all over." 
 
 I dislike a man without a sense of irony, and the 
 cool, matter-of-fact, literal way in which he des- 
 cended into details of the operation maddened me. 
 However, I started on a different tack. 
 
 " M'sieu is perhaps connected with the elec- 
 tricity scheme ? " 
 
 He puffed out his chest and bulged his eyes. If 
 it had been possible for him to pat his own back, 
 he would have done so. 
 
 " I am the electricity scheme. ... It is entirely 
 in my hands." 
 
MARCUS 107 
 
 He took from his pocket an immense card, heavily 
 engraved, and handed it to me. On it I read 
 
 Napoleon Bax, 
 
 Bordeaux. 
 Ingdnieur Electricien.'" 
 
 With the exchange of cards, Marcus mercifully- 
 dropped from the conversation, and the Luz Elec- 
 tricity Scheme took his place. 
 
 Whatever may have been his shortcomings, M. 
 Bax was an enthusiast. He showered on me 
 every detail of the scheme, maps, plans, sections, 
 specifications, every paper in any way relating to 
 it. He trotted me on to an open space in front of 
 the hotel, and waving his arms over all the adjacent 
 hill-sides, pointed out where this was to be placed, 
 where that was going, where such and such wires 
 were to be run to such and such stations to be 
 installed. 
 
 The next day he insisted on taking me over the 
 ground. 
 
 " It is a wonderful scheme ! " he cried at least 
 a dozen times. " It will make Luz the finest 
 resort in the Pyrenees if only the Town Council 
 will live up to it. Minerals too — any quantity of 
 them — will run down the valley from the mines 
 above. ... A wonderful scheme 1| 
 
 " There was one map I omitted to show you 
 yesterday ... I will do so this evening." And 
 we careered down the hill- sides like a couple of 
 mad things, M. Bax's coat-tails catching unheeded 
 in bushes, his stick waved in front of him, a gleam 
 of triumph, which even his moist handkerchief 
 could not remove, lighting up his face. 
 
108 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " I must work now," he exclaimed as soon as 
 we reached the hotel. " In two hours I will show 
 you the map." 
 
 While waiting, I exercised Marcus by riding him 
 some distance into the hills — I had done enough 
 uphill walking for that day — and then leaving 
 him free to make the best of his way down. Dur- 
 ing the descent we lost each other and it was not 
 until I heard a melancholy bray coming from a 
 stream at some distance, and entirely in the wrong 
 direction, that I was able to put on his rope and 
 lead him into the village. The result was that I 
 was late for the interview with M. Bax, whom I 
 found in the garden of the hotel with maps and 
 papers spread around him. 
 
 " Ah," he said when he saw me, " this is the map 
 I wanted you to see — ^leave the donkey where he 
 is — it shows more clearly than any other the full 
 extent of the scheme. You can see here the chain 
 of stations We are proposing to build down the 
 valley with cables to each mine, to Gavarnie, to 
 Gfedre, to Luz, to St. Sauveur. These blue mark- 
 ings are the entrances to the mines. The black Hues 
 are light railways — a difficult and expensive job in 
 such a narrow valley. You saw this morning some 
 of the places where work is just beginning : now 
 come outside and I will explain to you more clearly 
 with the help of the map." 
 
 He seized the map in one hand, myself in the 
 other, and trotted us both out on to a point of 
 vantage. Here he repeated his antics of the pre- 
 vious evening in pointing out the various portions 
 of the work, but this time much more rapidly, 
 more fully — if possible, more enthusiastically. 
 
 Thoroughly exhausted, but with a sense of 
 having achieved something which mattered, he 
 returned to his table in the hotel garden. 
 
 It was bare. 
 
MARCUS 109 
 
 M. Bax seized his head with both hands and 
 ran to view the utter void. He fell on his knees 
 to inspect the surrounding ground, pushed his 
 face into the air to search for wind, exclaimed, 
 repeated, implored Heaven, and finally broke down 
 altogether. 
 
 ** Gone ! " he cried tragically. " Gone ! Every- 
 thing gone. Maps, plans, specification, contracts 
 even ! Stolen, perhaps ! Who knows ! Ah sacral 
 What to do, what to do ! ! " 
 
 He rose to his feet. 
 
 *' I will contain myself," he cried while the tears 
 still trickled down his cheeks ; " but gone ! All 
 my work for nothing ! What will become of the 
 scheme, I ask you ? " 
 
 " But have you not duplicate copies ? " I 
 enquired. 
 
 " Not here, not here," he wailed. " At Bor- 
 deaux, yes ; but not here." 
 
 He called out the entire staff of the hotel, and 
 between them every square inch of the garden was 
 searched. 
 
 At the same time I made two important dis- 
 coveries. 
 
 Marcus was missing. 
 
 A chewed corner of paper, which I slipped into 
 my pocket. 
 
 One by one the staff returned to report their 
 failure ; tragedy was written on their faces — tragedy 
 for their own advancement, as well as for that of Luz. 
 
 "Call in the police," cried M. Bax. "I will 
 offer a reward." 
 
 " Why not fetch the fresh plans from Bor- 
 deaux ? " I asked gently, wondering at the same 
 time what I ought to do. 
 
 " It would be more expensive," repUed M. Bax. 
 His emotion, evidently, had not conquered his 
 sense of economy. 
 
110 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " It doesn't look as if you'll get them back," I 
 said. 
 
 " One can but try," he answered with philosophic 
 resignation. 
 
 At this moment Marcus innocently wandered on 
 to the tragic stage. M. Bax for a moment eyed 
 him suspiciously. Then his face fell. 
 
 " It is not possible," he muttered to himself. 
 
 Close upon Marcus came the blue and silver 
 policeman to whom M. Bax announced a fifty-franc 
 reward to whomsoever should find the missing 
 papers. While the fateful sentences were being 
 uttered, all of us stood tensely by as if we expected 
 the policeman suddenly to produce the thief from 
 his pocket. Even Marcus appeared to take interest. 
 
 Suddenly, in the middle of his discourse, M. 
 Bax stopped and clapped his hand to his head. 
 
 " No," he cried, striking an attitude. " I offer 
 no reward. I will go to Bordeaux and return with 
 a strong box ! My bags, my bags." 
 
 The entire staff rushed into the hotel to prepare 
 his things for the journey — for it must not be 
 forgotten that M. Bax was a power in the land of 
 Luz — while he strode impatiently to and fro. 
 
 " A car," he ordered imperially ; and the awe- 
 struck boots, who up to this had been too dazed to 
 move, rushed to obey. In less than ten minutes 
 M. Bax's belongings were placed in the motor and 
 he himself was standing on the step. 
 
 " You will keep my room for me," he demanded 
 of the proprietor. That worthy bowed low. 
 
 " If the plans should be found, you will hand 
 them over to the poHce to take care of." 
 
 Another bow. 
 
 " En route, alors.'^ 
 
 A cough from the engine, a cloud of dust, and M. 
 Bax had started on his journey. 
 
 Marcus, that night, was distinctly off his feed. 
 
MARCUS 111 
 
 " I shall have to tell your mistress what I think 
 of you, you brute," I exclaimed. 
 
 If ever a donkey had a sense of humour, Marcus 
 had. I will swear he laughed in my face ! 
 
 IV 
 
 Before there was time for the estimable M. Bax 
 to return, we retreated from Luz. Our flight was 
 made all the more hasty by the fact that Marcus 
 ate a shawl from a shop stand — a meal which cost 
 us a cool fifty francs. 
 
 "I'm disappointed in him," said Helen. 
 
 " Can't say I am," I replied. " I never expected 
 much from such a lop-eared beast." 
 
 " I wish I hadn't called him Marcus Aurelius," 
 sighed Helen. 
 
 " Don't worry," I said, " it's only part of the 
 general foolishness of naming children before you 
 know them. You call a girl Daisy and she grows 
 like asparagus; or a boy Horatio Nelson and he 
 becomes a mild bank clerk. Children ought not 
 to be named until they're sixteen years old at 
 least." 
 
 " Couldn't we alter his name ? " 
 
 " I'd much prefer to alter his ownership." Thus I 
 began to push home the wedge. " He'U be landing 
 us both in the local police court if we aren't careful. 
 And neither of us has got the money to pay a fine : 
 Marcus has arranged that, confound him ! " 
 
 The fifty-franc meal had indeed brought our 
 resources almost to vanishing point, and not with- 
 standing the paper we used in calculations and plans, 
 we could not increase them. It became plainer 
 than ever that Marcus would have to go. 
 
 " It's no use selling him here," I told Helen. 
 " He's notorious already." 
 
 But we found an unsuspecting fellow in 
 Pierrefitte, at the end of the valley, who wanted a 
 
112 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 donkey and who was apparently deceived by our 
 efiEorts to spruce up the miscreant Marcus. He 
 inspected him closely. 
 
 " What do you want for him ? " he asked. 
 
 1 named a price ; and after forty-five minutes' 
 rapid and concentrated argument, was glad to 
 pocket two-thirds of it. Marcus — the action was 
 typical of him — brayed with unmistakable sarcasm 
 as the money was handed over. 
 
 We shouldered our packs and struck out for 
 Lourdes. 
 
 " Poor old Marcus ! " exclaimed Helen, after some 
 time. 
 
 " Don't like carrying a pack, eh ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Beast ! " was her only answer. She hates 
 having her sentimental bubbles pricked as much as 
 I sometimes enjoy pricking them. 
 
 The two days' leisurely tramp to Lourdes, how- 
 ever, was chiefly occupied in financial conversation. 
 The money which the dear departed had put into 
 our pockets would not carry us far. 
 
 " We'd better open shop," suggested Helen. 
 
 " Why not deal in donkeys," I answered rue- 
 fully. 
 
 *' I've an idea," resumed Helen suddenly, ** we 
 might open an English bureau in Lourdes." 
 
 " What for ? " 
 
 " Anything. There are lots of English pilgrims 
 and tourists. You could get enough material to- 
 gether in a day to make yourself useful to them." 
 
 " But that's done already," I objected. 
 
 " Then get your say in before the others," re- 
 plied Helen shortly. 
 
 " Besides, my precious pilgrims might ask for 
 too much information." 
 
 " Of course," replied Helen innocently. She is 
 an adept at avoiding compliments. 
 
 When we arrived at Lourdes I spent an exhaust- 
 
MARCUS iia 
 
 ing day at the Basilique, the hotels, the station, the 
 castle, and finished up in what seemed to me a 
 *' newsy " looking cafe. 
 
 Sure enough, I heard vaguely of the arrival, 
 the next afternoon, of a pilgrimage from England. 
 I waited outside the station. 
 
 *' Excuse my pestering you so soon," I began, 
 " but I represent the EngUsh Pilgrims' Informa- 
 tion Bureau and I should be pleased to help you 
 in any way I can." 
 
 The first of the party stared at me without speak- 
 ing ; and then, turning on his heel, walked away. 
 I repeated the formula to a second. 
 
 '' Any English beer to be had about this place ? " 
 he asked. 
 
 It was not at aU the opening I had expected, but 
 I seized it. 
 
 " Come with me," I said. 
 
 I left him an hour later, contented in my mind 
 that the scheme was a good one. 
 
 " Show me round to-morrow morning ? " he 
 asked. " I'll bring some friends with me." 
 
 I did well that day and made further appoint- 
 ments for the next. The English Pilgrims' In- 
 formation Bureau was booming. 
 
 For a fortnight it continued to boom. Every 
 day it dropped into further luck. In addition, 
 one or two trifling commercial speculations on 
 which I ventured promised to turn up trumps. 
 Helen, like the good needlewoman she is, was busy 
 to some effect. Money began to rattle again in our 
 pockets. 
 
 Then came the slump. No English pilgrims 
 arrived. I had one day with an American and 
 three with nobody. Helen alone brought grist to 
 the mill. 
 
 " By the time we've paid our rent," I said, " we 
 shan't have a fat lot left." 
 
114 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 "We shall think of something by then," she 
 answered cheerily. " Why don't you take to trans- 
 lation ? There must be lots of it to be done." 
 
 So, acting as my own traveller and keeping at 
 the same time a keen look out for further pilgrims, 
 I made once more the round of Lourdes and brought 
 back three days' work with me. Then just as it 
 seemed that nobody in England or any English- 
 speaking country was writing to anybody in 
 Lourdes, the note arrived from Paris. 
 
 Henry Bristol, its writer, having heard of me 
 from one of the returning EngHsh pilgrims, in- 
 quired whether I should be at liberty to show him 
 and his family around Lourdes and the surrounding 
 district from such and such a date onward. He 
 wanted the thing done properly, did Mr. Bristol, 
 and regardless of expense. 
 
 I wired him that I should be free on the day he 
 mentioned and then waited on half rations. 
 
 At the time stated he arrived — a tall sUm man 
 with colourless wife and three bouncing daughters. 
 I had thought myseK by this time fairly well versed 
 in local matters, but he taxed my historical powers 
 sadly ; and whenever my answers did not come 
 up to his expectations would look at me with an 
 unnerving mixture of shrewdness and sadness and 
 consult a guide-book. Unfortunately, he would 
 never let the guide-book out of his possession. 
 
 But in spite of his continual inquisition I took 
 to him exceedingly. He was a generous employer 
 and an acute-minded man with a vein of sly 
 humour it was prudent in general to avoid, since it 
 could, if necessary, cut like a lash. But I did not 
 hear him once bitter or cynical at other people's 
 expense as smaller-minded humourists often be- 
 come. 
 
 I took his party round every corner of Lourdes, 
 and judiciously avoiding Luz, to Gavarnie and 
 
MARCUS 115 
 
 Cauterets. He asked me to go with them to Pau 
 and I accepted. 
 
 On the night before his departure for England I 
 was chatting with him on the hotel balcony. 
 
 "I'd like to show this view to some of my friends," 
 he said musingly. 
 
 "It's magnificent," I answered. 
 
 " Know Liverpool ? " he asked suddenly, apropos 
 of nothing. 
 
 " Tolerably well." 
 
 " Indeed ? Know Dr. Birch ? " 
 
 Now it happened that Birch and I had been on 
 very good terms. I was able therefore to tell 
 Bristol a few new things about his medical 
 friend. 
 
 He listened quizzically for some time and then 
 shot a question. 
 
 " What about the Enghsh Pilgrims' Informa- 
 tion Bureau ? " he asked. 
 
 " I don't quite understand you." The ground 
 was becoming rather dangerous. 
 
 " All gammon, isn't it ? " 
 
 If you think that " I began. 
 
 Don't flare up. I mean what I said. What 
 are your qualifications for the job ? " 
 
 " As good as other people's." 
 
 " Just so. Nil, in other words." 
 
 " Very well, then " — ^I turned on my heel — " I'm 
 sorry to have intruded under false pretences." 
 
 " Bosh. You're hard up, aren't you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " I know better. I once did something of the 
 same myself. Come and have a drink — ^to 
 Birch." 
 
 Next morning he handed me an envelope. 
 
 " It contains some good advice," he said, " written 
 on many sheets of paper. Don't open it till we've 
 gone." 
 
 cc 
 
116 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 I obeyed instructions. 
 
 It contained double the money I had asked — and 
 that was a fairly stiff amount. 
 
 I wired to Helen : " Join me at Pau and 
 celebrate/' 
 
XI 
 
 THUNDERWATER 
 
 There is a superstition among folk of the Pyrenees 
 that thunderstorms can be heard approaching in 
 mountain torrents. 
 
 You are walking along a valley road on a hot, 
 still day, when the stream, which no longer merits 
 the name of gave, seems almost too exhausted 
 to move — and during the summer many of the 
 mountain brooks degenerate into a feeble trickle. 
 As the road takes a sudden bend, so as to bring 
 you out of the sound-shadow, the murmur deepens 
 momentarily into the semblance of a distant roar. 
 Then, say the Pyrenean peasants, you have heard 
 the thunderwater : a storm is approaching. 
 
 The torrent which runs past Pau is seldom, if 
 ever, quiet ; always a lively, often a tempestuous 
 stream, bearing the deepest snows from the moun- 
 tains into the broad Adour, faUing rapidly, twisting 
 convulsively over rocks, through narrow gorges, 
 and by pleasant pastures towards the ocean. 
 Throughout most of its course it is flecked with 
 foam and hurled hither and thither by rapid cur- 
 rents and insidious whirlpools, always tattered, 
 turgid, rebelHous, stubborn — and sometimes 
 thunderwater. 
 
 We sat by its banks one evening when great 
 indigo clouds obscured the fine panorama of moun- 
 tains to the south and illuminated, by comparison. 
 
118 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 the big white hotels on the terrace behind us. 
 Sultriness hung like a pall over everything : even 
 the gave was oppressed. A grasshopper started 
 his song, but after a few chirps abandoned it. 
 Neither Helen nor I spoke. 
 
 Without any warning the torrent suddenly broke 
 into a roar — it was a weird sound, like a great 
 animal in pain. Then it sank, as suddenly, to its 
 former oppressed murmur. 
 
 " Thunderwater," I said musingly. 
 
 Helen made no answer for some minutes and 
 then said quietly : 
 
 " Doesn't it call you ? " 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " To the big thunderwater — the sea ? " 
 
 " Aye. Do you remember the blues and greens 
 of the Mediterranean ? — the sort of colours you 
 see in dreams before you wake up to the dirty fact 
 of the Thames ? " 
 
 "But the Mediterranean is sunshine water," 
 said Helen. 
 
 " It's pretty bad thunderwater too, at times," 
 I added, " black thunder." 
 
 *' What about the Atlantic, though ? " she asked. 
 
 " The Atlantic may be thunderwater also, or 
 purring water, or green jealous water, but never 
 sunshine water." 
 
 " It's so strong," suggested Helen. 
 
 " It's cruel — ^like mountains," I said, " always 
 cruel. Most of nature is — fascinatingly so, with a 
 deep constructive motif beneath its cruelty." 
 
 " What motif ? " 
 
 " Haven't a notion. But it's there : otherwise 
 something would have come along before this to 
 change the course of things. The world can't live 
 on cruelty alone." 
 
 " No. This southern France proves that. Do 
 you know of any place more kindly ? " 
 
THUNDERWATER 119 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 *' Nowhere," I said. 
 
 " And yet," mused Helen—" the bull-fight." 
 
 " That's the blot on the 'scutcheon," I answered. 
 '' That and laziness." 
 
 Helen raised her eyebrows. 
 
 '' From you of all people ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " My dear girl," I retorted, " I may be awake to 
 other people's faults, surely ! " 
 
 " I believe you'd like to live in the Midi," she 
 opined sagely. 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " Then come with me to the Atlantic : it's better 
 for you." 
 
 *' Right, Queen of my Heart. I will follow 
 you to the ends of the earth." 
 
 " Let's get back to civilisation." 
 
 " Where's that ? " 
 
 " Biarritz, for instance." 
 
 Helen is a shrewd child. It flashed across me 
 that her talk about the Atlantic was only a pre- 
 amble : what she really wanted was a street of 
 fashionable shops. 
 
 '' What do you say ? " she asked. 
 
 '' Nothing. It merely struck me as being a 
 long way round." 
 
 " To Biarritz ? " 
 
 " To Biarritz," I echoed with meaning. 
 
 " But you agree ? " 
 
 " The ends of the earth are farther than Biarritz 
 — and just about as empty as it is at this time of 
 the year. Have I not promised to follow you even 
 to the ends of the earth ? " 
 
 *' Good old boy ! " Helen kissed me in full sight 
 of the town of Pau : and at that moment broke the 
 sound of distant thunder. 
 
 " It will always be thunder at Biarritz," mused 
 Helen, with a far-away look in her eyes. 
 
120 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Of the bargain counter ? " I asked tritely. 
 
 " Of the sea," she replied. *' I really did mean 
 that part of the conversation.*' 
 
 " Let's go," she added, " before the storm comes 
 on. 
 
 The storm, as it happened, hung all night to the 
 line of the Pyrenees : and as the early morning 
 train, which Helen forced me into taking, skirted 
 their bases, the roar of the wheels — it seemed a 
 sort of triangular roar — kept up its refrain of 
 " Biarritz, Biarritz, Biarritz." 
 
 " I know what it's saying to you," I remarked to 
 Helen. 
 
 " What ? " 
 " ' Shops again, shops again, shops again.' " 
 
 Helen turned up her nose in reply. But I knew 
 I was right. 
 
 Biarritz, in the dead season, proved more than 
 depressing ; the shops, after all, were disappointing ; 
 only the sea, with its pillows of old lace foam for 
 the incoming breakers to fall on, claimed our hearts. 
 
 " We go North by the side of the thunderwater," 
 commanded Helen, her hair streaming in the 
 Atlantic wind. 
 
 n 
 
 When I had written thus far, I took my manu- 
 script on to a beach where I could be quite alone. 
 I wanted to think : and to do that one must have no 
 living thing near by to offer itself for speculation. 
 Even Helen, dear girl, would have been in the way 
 at the moment. That is why I chose this beach in 
 Biscay : it was the most solitary spot I could find. 
 
 It was part of the Landes — of what might have 
 been a French Sahara, had not pines arrested the 
 encroachment of the sand. They were intensely 
 silent as I walked down the fragrant lane towards 
 the shore, pine needles forming a resilient bed for 
 
THUNDERWATER 121 
 
 the feet, the senses instinctively quickening as in 
 expectation. The trees themselves seemed alert 
 but so dignified as to avoid outward display of 
 emotion. To another they might have appeared 
 melancholy in their deeply mottled Ught and shade 
 — ^there was a monotonous regularity in their 
 forms, and in the rows of earthenware cups, shaped 
 like flowerpots, which caught the resin from their 
 scarred barks. I counted these cups as they lined 
 the road : fifty-six of them I could see, each half- 
 full, before the pine-needle path topped the hill, 
 changed to sand, and trickled down to the wide 
 seashore. 
 
 Just as the path reached the crest, light broke 
 through the pines — above, the Hght of a clear blue 
 sky intensified by the greenly curved mass of the 
 trees ; below, a pale silver mist through which it was 
 difficult to identify anything. Gradually the forest 
 melted away : a solitary wizened tree-stump 
 braved the rigours of the western wind, a few tufts 
 of coarse yellow-green grass, scattered hillocks of 
 sterile sand, the silver mist rising to meet us ; and 
 behind it, the long rolling breakers of the Altantic 
 on a calm day. 
 
 I had come out with the intention of slaughter- 
 ing most of what I had written : the rough, wood- 
 built hut, in which I had spent the night, seemed the 
 epitome of a life too rigorous and stern to exist 
 side by side with the fluent, full-blooded life of the 
 Midi. Had I made a mistake in writing as I had 
 done ? Was it not a chimera, a mirage, a foolishly 
 false hope, to suppose that men lived thus when 
 here, within a few miles of them, life was so drab, 
 so lacking in every richness they possessed ? I 
 had seen life where wine ran easily : but could 
 men even thus afford to be indolent and happy- 
 go-lucky for the morrow ? 
 
 I thought of Etienne, of Olga, of Mimi, of Anton 
 
 ■^- 
 
122 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Peresc, each as a type which differs from its proto- 
 type with us — the adventurer bolder, the victim 
 more pathetic, the young more innocent, the taci- 
 turn more brusque, the boor less suave even than 
 in England. Yet what vast tracks of their minds 
 were similar in all respects to ours ; what hopes 
 and fears were common to us both ; how many 
 experiences we could share and find points of 
 contact. 
 
 But, I considered, what Englishman would have 
 shown his emotion as did Napoleon Bax of Bor- 
 deaux when Marcus ate his papers ? Along all 
 this southern coast, emotion, mood, was the chief 
 event of life. . . . 
 
 True, but I was forgetting my geography. There 
 was yet a hope that the Midi, which had so capti- 
 vated our imagination, was the true France. Bor- 
 deaux, a third of the way up the western coast, 
 had confirmed it. 
 
 Yet again I wondered how to reconcile Bax with 
 these desolate Landes. The Midi was all exube- 
 rance, toned with indolence by the fierceness of the 
 sun : there was neither exuberance nor indolence here. 
 In the Bay of Biscay there was not room for both 
 lotus eating and the white toothed Atlantic. . . . 
 
 Slowly — very slowly — there rose out of the silver 
 mist a figure plodding its way along the shore, and 
 faintly — ^very faintly — a voice arose, mingled with 
 the slow pulsation of the sea. Figure and voice 
 appeared blurred by the two fierce elements ; and 
 then, as if after a struggle, dominated them — the 
 figure of an immensely stout man of jovial counten- 
 ance, a French Falstaff, clad in the dark blue of a 
 fisherman, trolling forth a song which seemed a 
 version of the song sung by the pines and the breakers 
 on stormy nights, full of sibilants and hisses and 
 long mournful vowels, rising in crescendos and fall- 
 ing again into an angry confused murmur. 
 
THUNDERWATER 123 
 
 As he approached me, he ceased to sing. Plac- 
 ing his arms akimbo, he stared at my full length 
 dusted over by yellow sand. 
 
 " Bonjour, M'sieu,'"' he cried heartily. 
 
 " It is a fine day," I answered by way of opening 
 conversation. 
 
 " A nice south wind," he replied deliberately, 
 " but it will change soon to the west." 
 
 " And that means ? " 
 
 " Storm, M'sieu. Or at least bad weather "— 
 and then, after a pause : "I go out to-night — out 
 there. But that doesn't matter." He jerked his 
 arm beyond the white breakers. 
 
 " And so you sing ? " I suggested. 
 
 " To think of other things. It is no use to 
 think about bad weather : not if you want to 
 enjoy life." 
 
 " And life is meant to be enjoyed ? " 
 
 " Sacre nom ! " He clapped his hands — " here 
 is a moralist ! " 
 
 " By no means," I answered. " Where I have 
 been, in the South, that is the orthodox creed." 
 
 " I should think so. But in the South they have 
 no Biscay to trouble them. Go back to them, 
 M'sieu, and take them what you find around you 
 to-night." 
 
 He doffed his cap, and resuming his song, struck 
 inland on the path by which I had reached the 
 shore. 
 
 " I sing to think of other things. ..." 
 
 "... they have no Biscay to trouble them." 
 
 The phrases kept repeating themselves. 
 
 Perhaps it was Nature that was responsible for 
 the enthusiastic, emotional, excitable tempera- 
 ment of Napoleon Bax — to make him think of 
 other things. They in the South had their charm- 
 ing indolence, their naivete, their rich humoiu", 
 their serene confidence that everything would go 
 
124 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 right somehow. In Nice there was the Angels' 
 Bay — not a Biscay to trouble them. 
 
 I returned with my manuscript untouched. You 
 must take these sketches as you find them. 
 
 m 
 
 In Dax, the little railway junction from which 
 southward bound trains branch to Spain on the 
 one hand and to the Pyrenean resorts on the 
 other — a town which the descriptive Frenchman 
 calls *' une ville coquette " — there was a couple who 
 fitted in with my mood. They laughed — ^to make 
 them think of other things. 
 
 The past had not been kind to Henri and Made- 
 leine Capdepuy. Only two months after their 
 marriage the father of Henri had died leaving his 
 invaUd mother dependent on him ; within a week 
 Madeleine's mother had died also. Before that, 
 her two brothers had been killed and Henri had 
 left the army battered but " whole '*' — as complete- 
 ness goes in these days. A few weeks ago Henri, 
 troubled by a persistent and, I fear, neglected cough, 
 reluctantly visited the doctor. " Consumption," 
 he feared. Even that was not the worst. 
 
 It would have been bearable if Henri and Madeleine 
 had decided to live out their lives alone. But soon 
 there would be three of them. . . . 
 
 " Jean will be a strong boy," Madeleine told 
 Helen one day — it will be observed that she had 
 already decided upon a son. " We shall not put 
 him to work in his father's boot shop : that is a 
 bad life for one so healthy as he will be. We shall 
 give him a good education — ^we shall have been able 
 to save money by that time — and then I hope he 
 will go in for motoring. It is more in the open air. 
 You see, I have thought it all out." 
 
THUNDERWATER 125 
 
 She laughed shyly, but already with a mother's 
 pride, as she said this; and then, Helen told me, 
 there came into her face a look so scared that her 
 whole body trembled. Abruptly she turned, ran 
 into the little room they rented behind the shop 
 and began feverishly sewing at a tiny garment 
 while she hummed a brave tune. 
 
 " Of course I do not trouble for myself," said 
 Henri with a shrug of his shoulders. " The doctor 
 says I may be cured soon. . . . But for Jean it is 
 a different matter, parhleu. Suppose he . . . well, 
 what will he think of us then ? " 
 
 ** Perhaps," I began 
 
 *' Yes, perhaps, I know. But just look what 
 
 these books say " and he reached down from the 
 
 shelf three or four well-thumbed medical manuals 
 from which he read long-winded extracts. How I 
 hated those books ! His faith, supporting that of 
 his wife, would have been worth all the science in 
 the world. But he was unwittingly leaving her 
 to make her fight alone. 
 
 " Henri reads a lot of silly books," she told Helen 
 on another occasion, " but I won't let him read 
 them to me. I won't believe them — I won't ! 
 They're wicked books. ..." 
 
 The Capdepuys shared a yard with us — then* 
 window looked into ours — and it was thus natural 
 that we should become friendly. It was natural, 
 too, that we should learn not only their routine 
 but some of the tremendous trivialities of their 
 daily lives which they intended to keep to them- 
 selves : with the best will in the world it was un- 
 avoidable. We could see Henri at night, when the 
 sun had sunk, and it was no longer possible, after 
 the closing of the shop, for him to hang about the 
 yard in his shirt-sleeves, poring over these medical 
 books, his hair ruffled and, once at least, with 
 tears on his cheeks. 
 
\ 
 
 126 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Then Madeleine entered the room unnoticed. 
 Quietly approaching, she put her arms over his 
 shoulders, her face very close to his. 
 
 " My dear," she seemed to say, '* don't read 
 that nonsense any more. What difference can it 
 make, when little Jean is going to be so healthy ? " 
 
 At any rate he smiled and tossed the books into 
 a corner. Together they sat holding hands, speak- 
 ing earnestly. . . . 
 
 At six o'clock every morning the long shutters 
 of their room would be flung open by Henri in 
 neglige ; and soon after, the shrill, though not un- 
 musical, voice of Madeleine would brighten the 
 bright morning. Then the shop, with its spick and 
 span boots, its dainty chairs and foot-rests, its 
 show cases, its polished pay-desk, its glass doorway 
 on which the name of Capdepuy was engraved in 
 big curved letters — all this would have to be dusted 
 and swept and poHshed before it was ready for 
 customers at eight. 
 
 Then Madeleine would rest, going leisurely about 
 her housework, or sit at the pay-desk for a time. 
 Dejeuner, a simple affair, was snatched when it 
 might be — Henri considered the midday closing, 
 prevalent all through the South of France, an in- 
 dolent habit — and during the afternoon Madeleine 
 lay down on the bed and learned English. 
 
 " I must be interested in something," she insisted. 
 " And besides, I want Jean to know English." 
 
 Then she would take charge of the shop for a 
 little time, while Henri ran to the cafe across the 
 road — his white apron made an alluring patch of 
 cool colour there — to have his glass of wine and 
 chat with his cronies. At seven or thereabouts, 
 the shop shut ; there was a huge banging of doors 
 and noisy setting to rights of the furniture, excited 
 balancing of books, gusty laughs from Henri and 
 trills and giggles from Madeleine. Then the yard 
 
THUI^DERWATER 127 
 
 in shirt-sleeves, while Madeleine sat by and sewed ; 
 soup ; and bed. 
 
 The persistent cough which accompanied Henri 
 appeared Madeleine's only anxiety. Sometimes 
 from the little room behind the shop, she would 
 stop her work and listen ; shrug her shoulders ; 
 continue with a hard little laugh that did not reach 
 her eyes. 
 
 In his spare moments Henri tended a tiny plot 
 of ground, not because he was an enthusiastic 
 gardener but because, as he explained ruefully, 
 " money becomes shorter as one's purse gets longer." 
 Yet he grew, in spite of himself, to be interested. 
 
 " Look at that fine cauliflower," he exclaimed to 
 us one day. " Such a trouble I had with it. You 
 see, when it was young I somehow took a fancy 
 to it, poor weakling that it was. We were both 
 interested in it, Madeleine and I. We reared it 
 ever so carefully — and look at it now." 
 
 A couple of children were Henri and Madeleine, 
 and child-hke, had put all their eggs in one basket. 
 Their entire capital was in the boot-shop and their 
 small earnings were kept locked in the till. One 
 morning the blow fell. 
 
 Henri's tousled head had opened the shutter for 
 his first breath of morning air, when some vagary 
 or other led him into the shop. For a second he 
 stood rooted to the ground. Then, deliberately, 
 he walked, clad as he was only in his night-gown, 
 over to our window. 
 
 " May I have a word with you ? " His voice 
 sounded curiously tremulous. 
 
 I jumped out of bed. 
 
 " We have been robbed," he said. '' How can I 
 tell Madeleine ? " 
 
 " Tell her as gently as you can," I suggested. 
 " My wife will see to the rest." 
 
 Helen spent most of the day with Madeleine 
 
128 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 while Henri and I, with the aid of useless police- 
 men, assessed the loss. It had been, it seemed, a 
 pretty complete haul ; not only money, but stock, 
 had been taken away through a hole made to lead 
 into a side passage. Henri went about in a repen- 
 tant mood as if he alone had been responsible. *' I 
 could not get insured," he apologised, " they want 
 such high premiums nowadays. Before the war I 
 might have afforded it, but then it did not seem 
 worth while." 
 
 In the evening we sat with them ; a gloomy party 
 at first. Then Madeleine said suddenly : 
 
 " We have a lot left, Henri," 
 
 He did not at first catch her meaning, but laughed 
 bitterly. 
 
 " I've been thinking. With care he will still be 
 able to go to the Lyc^e ; and there are lots of big 
 motor works who will be glad to have such a pro- 
 mising boy. Besides, I shall have taught him good 
 English . . ." 
 
 She laughed ; and it was the way in which she did 
 it that made the rest of the evening happy. 
 
XII 
 
 THE INNOCENCE OF ARCACHON 
 
 " Go to Arcachon if you like sea-bathing," Henri 
 told me. " In summer it is calm, with sand and 
 little boats " — he spread out one hand and rippled 
 the other over the air in vivid imitation. 
 
 Not being attracted by the mud-baths of Dax, I 
 had sighed for a further ghmpse of the sea. Leaving 
 Helen to look after Madeleine for a few days, I 
 shouldered my pack and set off northward along 
 the straight flat roads of the Landes. 
 
 A companionless tramp is, however, a most 
 depressing form of enjoyment. No one seemed to 
 be going my way. I could see my destination 
 almost before I started, and as the pine trees slowly 
 passed, I did the foolish thing and began to coimt 
 them. The long road seemed to close in about me 
 and over me and hundreds of mosquitoes swarmed 
 into my clothes. The villages in which I wanted to 
 spend the night had Httle or no accommodation — 
 I " rested," here on a table, there in an outhouse. 
 The joys of sea-bathing danced constantly in 
 front of me ; and on the third day I grew so miserable 
 at the slow progress I was making that I wired to 
 Helen to join me. She, I knew, would cheer me up. 
 I met her at the station, and very soon we were 
 alongside the big sand dunes that lead to Arcachon. 
 
 Immediately we arrived at the inland lake on 
 which Arcachon stands, I knew I had seen it before. 
 
130 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 That long expanse of flat shore, reedy near the 
 edges, those undulating hillocks in the distance, 
 grey under a grey sky, those high prowed boats 
 with squat sails and containing Httle dots of colour 
 I knew to be men, that peaceful, almost unrippHng 
 surface of lake — all were familiar. They were parts 
 of the Venetian lagoon as I had seen it one rainy 
 Easter, transported bodily into France. One ex- 
 pected to hear a Venetian boating song floating 
 dreamily from the grey ; it was a gramophone in a 
 motor yacht that brought me back to the reaUty of 
 a French watering-place. 
 
 Yet surely there was never such a watering-place 
 as Arcachon. Although it is to Bordeaux very 
 much what Southend is to London, it is the most 
 innocent place in the world. All the oyster fishermen 
 and some of the fisherwomen too — and there are 
 hundreds of each — ^laze about the town in crimson 
 trousers turned up to the knee, and in blue tunics, 
 the women in pleated black bonnets which project 
 on either side Hke blinkers — can you imagine this at 
 Southend ? More than half the bedrooms at Arca- 
 chon open directly on to the street by means of 
 French windows, which are always flung wide : yet 
 never a theft is committed. If you have not change 
 in Arcachon, the shopkeepers tell you to bring it at 
 your own convenience. The animals are, strangely 
 enough for France, friendly and unafraid, as if they 
 knew that cruelty could not Hve in that atmosphere ; 
 the swallows skim along the main street of the town 
 scarcely a foot above the ground, unmolested by the 
 small boy tribe. Because, perhaps, most of the 
 juvenile natives are already busy about their fathers' 
 business on the oyster beds and all the young 
 visitors are amusing themselves on the sands. 
 
 They enjoy themselves immensely, do the young- 
 sters, for Arcachon seems a place built for children 
 by children. The Uttle villas in the Ville d'Et6 are 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF ARCACHON 131 
 
 like dolls' houses, with their red roofs and brightly- 
 painted walls : those in the Ville d'Hiver, among 
 the pine trees, are Hke dolls' houses too, but more 
 expensive ones for rich sophisticated children to 
 play in. The hotels, with neat lawns in front of 
 them, are as prim and as wild as the children playing 
 in their brightly-coloured hoHday clothes, while fond 
 parents gaze from the shelter of bathing tents and 
 sew, read or sleep. I even saw two immaculate 
 Frenchmen building sand castles. . . . 
 
 The tide retreats a long way from the promenade, 
 leaving an immense stretch of sand, and, in its 
 narrow channel, a current that would try the powers 
 of an experienced swimmer. Both of us being 
 modest exponents of the art, we were forced into the 
 comparative peace of high tide. And it did not take 
 us long to discover that high tide on the day of our 
 arrival was at perfectly absurd hours of the evening 
 and morning. No bathing for a day or two. We 
 settled down resignedly to wait. 
 
 An Enghsh couple, young, athletic, and with the 
 severely business-Hke appearance which distinguishes 
 EngUshmen the world over, attracted our attention. 
 Helen was for opening conversation. 
 
 " No," I said. " Let's wait to see whether they 
 speak first." 
 
 We met them in the town, on the beach and among 
 the pines. We sat next to them at a cafe. That 
 they wanted to speak was obvious : they would 
 watch us even as we watched them — and yet they 
 remained silent. Once, on leaving the cafe, I bade 
 them a good-day. There was no response. 
 
 " You are a queer people, you English," said a 
 little Frenchman with whom I sat on the beach — he 
 was a silk merchant of Lyons, I believe — " at 
 home you are courteous, hospitable, everything 
 that is kind: abroad you are like cats about to 
 fight." 
 
182 AMONG FEENCH FOLK 
 
 " They say," I told him, " that it requires an 
 accident to bring English people together." 
 
 " An accident — or a cup of tea," he repUed. 
 
 Then I remembered that it was coffee we had 
 called for. 
 
 As soon as the tide had adjusted itself to our wish 
 for a midday bathe, the weather changed. For a 
 whole day the rain fell as though the heavens had 
 opened ; the next day was cold, the following 
 warmer, but dull and overcast. Very few people had 
 ventured previously into the water ; now there were 
 none. They looked disconsolately at the lapping 
 tide, with its fringe of seaweed and oyster shells ; 
 came bravely down from the hotels and villas, a 
 few of them, in resplendent bathing costumes 
 wrapped round in a towel-like dressing-gown ; and 
 having sufficiently exhibited themselves to the 
 admiring public, hurried back, to jump thankfully 
 into warm clothes. 
 
 But the bedroom windows of Arcachon still stood 
 open to the street, and the swallows skimmed along 
 the Boulevard^ de la Plage. And as for the sand 
 children — ^they were on the beach as though nothing 
 in the world could disturb them. 
 
 n 
 
 Our landlady, when first we sought rooms in a 
 little cafe near the centre of the town, had looked at 
 us queerly. She seemed to be measuring us. 
 
 " M'sieu est anglais ? " she asked. 
 
 " Bcmr 
 
 The bedroom she put at our disposal was on the 
 ground floor — typical of the innocence of Arcachon — 
 at the back of the cafe and opened on to a garden 
 shared with three other houses. The room was the 
 second of a row of four, faced by a trelHs of hops, 
 blocking out the direct sunlight but affording shade 
 and comfort diu-ing the heat of the day. A passage 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF ARCACHON 133 
 
 between the trellis and the house wall gave the only 
 access to all four rooms. 
 
 " You must let me know at once if you are not 
 comfortable," she said, with a faint trace of anxiety 
 in her voice. 
 
 Cleanliness, at least, was assured though cosiness 
 seemed but a remote possibility. The polished 
 woodwork of the fittings and the ungracious hard- 
 ness of the chairs made the room appear as steely 
 as a knife-blade. It looked cold in the midst of the 
 rich evening glow, virginal. 
 
 Being healthily tired, we went to bed early. I 
 was on the point of dropping ofE to sleep when Helen 
 shook my arm. 
 
 " There's a dog at the door," she said. 
 
 I " shoo'd " violently ; then got out of bed and 
 lit the lamp. There was nothing. 
 
 " Must have been next door ? " I grunted. 
 
 About half an hour later Helen exclaimed : 
 
 " There he is again. Inside the room, this time." 
 
 I repeated my performance, with the same result. 
 I partly closed the door by a chair. 
 
 For the third time Helen heard the dog. I heard 
 him myself — a big brute, he sounded, heavy and 
 dehberate of tread. He entered the door, snuffed 
 round the walls, shuffled against the furniture, 
 breathing heavily, and occasionally giving a tiny 
 whine as if in distress. 
 
 I jumped out of bed and struck the match I had 
 placed ready. 
 
 For the third time there was nothing. 
 
 So I shut the door, went to sleep and woke up 
 next morning with a headache. 
 
 We looked carefully during the day for any sign 
 of a dog about the place but there was none. That 
 night, too, though our windows were open to their 
 fullest, we were undisturbed. 
 
 On the third night, he came again — the same 
 
134 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 heavy tread, shuffling agamst the furniture, dis- 
 tressed whining. When I Ht the lamp the sound 
 ceased. 
 
 We left it aUght with the windows still open 
 and listened. It seemed as if our visitor had left 
 us. 
 
 Then, softly, we heard him coming along the 
 passage — distant at first, but gradually approaching. 
 He was crying to himself, poor devil, and panting 
 between the sobs. " He must be very old," I 
 thought, " to have so much difficulty in walking a 
 short distance. Or perhaps he has been keeping a 
 constant vigil all night." 
 
 The sound of his feet drew opposite our door but 
 no patient eyes and lolling tongue accompanied it. 
 It entered the room, and as it came near a chair . . . 
 the chair moved . . . ever so slightly . . . but 
 moved. . . . 
 
 Helen clutched my arm. 
 
 " Goodness gracious ! " she whispered convul- 
 sively. 
 
 I was not in the mood at the moment to make 
 any reply. 
 
 The sound scraped along the opposite wall, 
 bumped up against our knapsacks, and then turned 
 the corner. It was approaching the bed. . . . 
 
 I seized my stick — a heavy one, with an inch of 
 good steel at the end . . . but one cannot hit a 
 sound. 
 
 " Do you see anything ? " I whispered to Helen, 
 for her eyes were starting out of her head. 
 
 " No," she jerked back. 
 
 The sound continued to approach. It was very 
 near the bed. 
 
 " Do something ! " Helen was almost hysterical. 
 
 I had the alternatives of putting my head under 
 the clothes in one convulsive bolt, or flinging myself 
 out of bed. Fortunately, I did the latter. 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF AECACHON 136 
 
 The sound ceased immediately. 
 
 The next morning I had a frank talk with the 
 landlady. 
 
 " I am sorry," she said apologetically. " I 
 thought that, being Enghsh, you wouldn't mind." 
 
 "I'm sorry to lower your estimate of my country- 
 men," I replied, " but we do." 
 
 " You shall have another room," she said. . . . 
 
 " He belonged to my husband," she told us 
 during the day, " who had had him for years. His 
 name was Dique — as fine a dog as any man could 
 want — and knowing. . . . 
 
 " One time, we had a lodger whom my husband 
 didn't trust. I don't know why ; but men at times 
 have these feelings about one another. Dique didn't 
 trust him either. Dique would growl or sulk when- 
 ever this lodger came by. At night he would prowl 
 up and down outside his door. One night, when 
 the lodger had been here about a week, Dique went 
 into his room. The brute of a man shot him. Poor 
 Dique. I think he still looks everywhere for my 
 husband — ^just as my husband is always looking 
 for poor old Dique." 
 
 " And the room," I ventured. 
 
 " Was the one you slept in, M'sieu. However, 
 you will be comfortable enough to-night.'* 
 
 But that remained to be seen. 
 
 in 
 
 If you are a squeamish person, you will be well 
 advised to omit this story of why we left Arcachan 
 to look after itself and hurried to a hot bath to 
 Bordeaux. 
 
 From the very first night in the new room we 
 wished to be back in the old. The phantom dog 
 was preferable to the visitors who awaited us. 
 
 " Do you really think it was true ? " asked Helen, 
 alluding to Dique. 
 
136 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Don't know," I replied. " I only know that 
 this is," and I scratched violently. 
 
 It was They who pestered us with their attentions. 
 I have seen enlarged models of Them in museums, 
 but none gives an adequate idea of Their ferocity. 
 
 Our life became a perpetual hunt and Uttle moun- 
 tain ranges, not in Nature's original plan, appeared 
 on our bodies. 
 
 " We must do something about it," exclaimed 
 Helen. 
 
 So we bathed. They seemed to enjoy the salt 
 water. I scoured the village for a disinfectant and 
 we washed in it. They licked their chops and bit 
 the more merrily. 
 
 One day we searched the mattress — a tremen- 
 dously thorough search, which left nothing to be 
 discovered. We found no trace. 
 
 " It must be heat spots," I suggested. The 
 explanation was obviously ridiculous but served to 
 soothe our ruffled tempers. For a day it made us 
 almost amiable. 
 
 I suggested a bath to the landlady. She looked 
 surprised and brought us a small jug of tepid 
 water. 
 
 " Have you nothing larger ? " I asked. 
 
 " There is the sea," she repUed without sarcastic 
 intention. 
 
 I looked round the cafe buildings. 
 
 " Have you never had a bath here ? " I queried. 
 
 " Not since the EtabUssement des Bains was 
 built ; they took ours away." 
 
 I was reminded of a dialogue between a traveller 
 and a hotel servant in the Rhone Valley. 
 
 Traveller : I should like a bath, please. 
 
 Servant : When does M'sieu want it ? 
 
 T. : Now, to be sure. 
 
 S. : But M'sieu must give two days' notice, so 
 that we can fetch the bath. 
 
THE INNOCENCE OF ARCACHON 137 
 
 T. : Good Heavens ! And you call this the Hotel 
 des Bains ! Why, I wonder ? 
 
 S. : Because, M'sieu, it is built on the site of the 
 Roman baths. 
 
 We had to content ourselves with the perfectly 
 useless tepid water ; some fooUsh Enghsh reticence 
 prevented us from telUng our landlady that her room 
 was flea-ridden. We didn't want to appear faddy. 
 
 *' You see," remarked Helen reminiscently, " it 
 seems to be the rule out here." 
 
 " Except where the English have taught 'em 
 better," I answered. 
 
 Not even in the Army did I sigh more strongly for 
 home comforts. Helen's experiences in hospitals and 
 at munition factories paled before those at Arcachon. 
 
 Still They came. Processions of Them, which 
 refused to diminish. Had it been in a worthier 
 cause, such perseverance would have been exemplary. 
 
 " Let's move to another room," cried Helen 
 vehemently. 
 
 Then came the discussion as to what other room 
 we should go to. When we first entered this one it 
 had appeared so poUshed, so free from any sort of 
 dust, that to have thought of Them would have 
 seemed desecration. 
 
 Our faith in Arcachon was undermined. Might 
 not any room prove a similar hot-bed ? Might not 
 every person we met contaminate us further ? 
 What about the EngHsh couple ? Had a nervous 
 consciousness of their own state prevented them 
 from speaking ? Such endless possibiHties were 
 opened up . . . 
 
 " There is only one thing to do," said Helen. 
 
 " To clear out altogether." 
 
 " To Bordeaux ? " 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " To a big hotel with hot water in every room, 
 with baths you can drown yourself in and bath 
 
138 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 towels that smother you, with electric light and 
 electric fans and . . . and . . . everything that's 
 nice," concluded Helen lamely. 
 
 " A good idea," I agreed. " But you're going it 
 somewhat." 
 
 " Anything to be rid of them," exclaimed Helen. 
 " It is worth all the treasure of the Incas." 
 
 In a few hours we were on our way to Bordeaux ; 
 in a few more hours you might have heard splashes 
 and gurgles and sounds of subdued joy from two 
 bath-rooms on the second floor. 
 
 I told you this was an unpleasant story. But it 
 is perfectly true, as you may find for yourself if you 
 go to Arcachon ; and you will admit that it has a 
 happy ending. 
 
XIII 
 
 WINE WATER AND SAND 
 
 Bits of England seem to have crept into the Medoc — 
 the great triangular vineyard north of Bordeaux 
 bounded on the one side by the Gironde and on the 
 other by the sea. No one could mistake the flat, 
 yellow-red roofed villages with their immense 
 churches or the perfectly straight roads, like rockets 
 shooting to the far horizon, or the forests of fir and 
 the blue-sprayed vineyards, for anything but French. 
 They cry out to you in unmistakable language that 
 they are the Medoc, the country of Chateau Lafite, 
 and of other glowing wines. The curious double- 
 decked train, its upper compartments reached by 
 stairs like the top of an omnibus and often stuffy 
 with the heavy smoke of the engine, positively puffs 
 its nationahty. But in spite of it all there is a feeling 
 that the train and the villages and the firs and the 
 vineyards — even the roads — are not telling the 
 whole truth. There is something in addition — 
 something famiHar and rich and homely, usually 
 absent from the landscapes of France. 
 
 Not very far from Bordeaux, the French train 
 runs through an English forest — a forest of oak 
 and elm with spaces of quiet green meadows and 
 winding overgrown streams. Every now and then 
 a glade opens, and you see deep into the mottled 
 sunlight of the place — a bank of simple flowers, a 
 mossy hillock, a green pool. Or a giant elm, beneath 
 
140 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 which nestles a cottage, recalls the beauties of the 
 Southern Midlands, the park lands of Northampton 
 and North Bucks. To Helen it was a ghmpse of 
 home. 
 
 But here it is all on the flat, as if planted on a 
 billiard table ; vines, too, break the dream ; you 
 return to it only with the potato fields. Some 
 artist has said that the most beautiful sight one 
 could wish to see is a field of cabbages in the evening 
 sun ; fields of potatoes in France run it close. There 
 are acres upon acres of them in the Medoc, casually 
 interspersed with maize and other crops. They 
 make you feel homesick ; you conjure up a stoUd 
 EngHsh agricultural labourer working unhurryingly 
 in their midst. 
 
 "... well, sur, the guv' nor due expec' a fair 
 crop this yuur, so Oi've 'eered 'ee sai, but some 
 raien'ud due a foine lot twaerds it, Oi'm thinkin' . . ." 
 
 Or again, the cherry trees, Httle masses of crimson 
 against the green and brown. The guard on the 
 train enjoyed himself immensely with them. At 
 every station he ran along the line, gathered a 
 cap-full of the best and returned to the passengers 
 (female) who had been watching the operation. 
 
 " For Mad'm'selle," he would say gallantly, and 
 climbing up the footboard, tip the ripe load into 
 her hands. Then back went the cap on his head 
 and he into his van, and the little train snorted 
 once more to the next station, where the service 
 would be repeated. 
 
 " I wonder if he considers it part of his duty," 
 said Helen somewhat tartly. She was thirsty and 
 he had passed her by. 
 
 " Perhaps the tree was his," I suggested, watching 
 another cap-full being bestowed elsewhere. 
 
 " They can't all belong to him." 
 
 " To the railway company, then, for the benefit 
 of passengers ! " 
 
WINE WATER AND SAND 141 
 
 Helen sniffed. " I don't believe he's any right 
 to do it, any way," she said. 
 
 " Plenty of sour grapes about if you'd like some," 
 I remarked. 
 
 Helen lapsed into indignant silence. 
 
 Suddenly the landscape changes. The forests, 
 the vines, the potato fields, disappear as if they 
 had been part of a cinematograph film which had 
 come to the end of the reel. Wooded marshy 
 lands with cattle deep in the lush grass — ^like the 
 Essex or Rye marshes — ^take their place. And 
 then you see for the first time the pine-covered 
 sand dunes. 
 
 As a matter of fact, they have been following you 
 all the way up from Arcachon, even from Biarritz — 
 nearly two hundred miles of them, stern and heart- 
 less, supporting little life, irresistible as waves of 
 the sea. At Soulac here in front of us, they entirely 
 buried a church in the eighteenth century, and as 
 the wave of sand moved on, left it high and dry 
 again, its stone polished as though it had been 
 newly built. These encroachments have been 
 partially stopped by the pine forests ; but in the 
 spaces between the trees the sand is still imper- 
 ceptibly drifting. Perhaps, one day, it will bury 
 the forests ; for in parts the dunes are over two 
 hundred feet in height. 
 
 And beyond the sand, the sea, encroaching too ; 
 nothing seems permanent along this coast. It 
 has swallowed up the harbour of Soulac altogether, 
 and an old Roman town ; a lighthouse, which now 
 stands five or six miles out, was once on the mainland. 
 The sand makes way for the sea ; the sea makes 
 way for more sea ; the rivers contribute towards 
 the swelling of the sea and the deposits of further 
 sand. What a sterile circle Nature sometimes 
 provides for our entertainment. 
 
 Soulac, however, watches this entertainment with 
 
142 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 equanimity. The sand and the sea are its raison 
 d^Hre. A few small villas, a ramshackle hotel, a 
 few shops — that is all there is of Soulac ; but it 
 looks out on to the broad ocean with a smile. For 
 as long as the sand and sea remain, people will flock 
 to it. At Soulac the sands are golden — Shakespeare's 
 " yellow sands " — spacious and flat and cleanly ; the 
 sea, when it is calm, can scarcely work itself into a 
 ripple. It is only behind Soulac that the sands of 
 death accumulate ; those before it are the sands of 
 life, which, far from running out, as the morahsts 
 would have it, stick to the fingers in warm, sunlit 
 joy, and laugh and sparkle like the red wine of 
 M^doc when the sun goes down into the west. The 
 sterile circle, apparently, has its compensations. 
 
 If you watch carefully, you can see the shore 
 being cleared by Nature's scavenging department. 
 Millions of scavengers there are, all hopping before 
 the rising tide like a vast ballet, fastening upon 
 dead or unclean matter and devouring it — ^little 
 land shrimps, colourless as glass, Hving between 
 high and low water mark, whose duty in Hfe is to 
 keep fresh the beach for their mistress, the sea. A 
 chivalrous Hfe, one would think, Hke a Sir Walter 
 Raleigh, perpetually spreading his cloak for his 
 Queen to walk over ; inglorious yet finer, for they 
 are such very humble courtiers. And how meanly 
 are they repaid by the alHance of sea and sand, 
 sterile and cruel. Yet it is not theirs to question, 
 but to cleanse. They at sea and beetles in the sand, 
 born to serve greed and destruction. . . . 
 
 Has cleanliness, after all, anything to do with 
 Godliness ? 
 
 n 
 
 It was at Soulac that we ran against Napoleon Bax 
 again. He had a villa there, to which, he explained, 
 his wife would be coming later. He himself had 
 
* WINE WATER AND SAND 143 
 
 snatched a holiday when it offered, and for the 
 moment the Luz Electricity Scheme could wait. He 
 had only just arrived and was full of enthusiasm. 
 He walked with every muscle of his httle body, 
 his beard stuck out with prodigious energy, Ms 
 creased face was lighted by a boyish smile. He 
 trotted up to us and kissed us on both cheeks. 
 
 " My dear friends," he cried jubilantly, " my 
 very dear friends. This is indeed a joy ! " 
 
 He wrung our hands. 
 
 " Luz — Soulac," he cried. " Indeed the world 
 is small ! " 
 
 And then he unconsciously hit below the belt at 
 the solar plexus of our guilt. 
 
 " How's the donkey ? " he enquired amiably. 
 
 " Gone," repUed Helen, in a tone which impHed 
 the close of the conversation. 
 
 " Never ! " ejaculated Bax. " Gone — dead, you 
 mean ? " 
 
 " Sold. Monsieur, we have a confession to make. 
 It was Marcus who ate your plans." 
 
 M. Bax looked stupefied for some seconds, and 
 then said : 
 
 " Nom de nom, it is incredible ! Such a beast is 
 worth his weight in gold. What knowledge he 
 contains ! " 
 
 " I don't suppose we got even the value of the 
 paper for him," I remarked. 
 
 " That was a bad bargain, then," replied Bax 
 seriously. " We must try to strike a better one. 
 Come and dine with me this evening." 
 
 His villa contained only three small rooms, and 
 where he managed to store all his wine was a 
 mystery. 
 
 " You must look in the sand," he told us in jest ; 
 but I believe that, had we chosen to dig up his 
 enclosed patch of garden, we should have found the 
 jest to have been earnest. He was a connoisseur 
 
144 AMONG FEENCH FOLK 
 
 in wines and intimate with some of the most in- 
 fluential growers of the Medoc. A pronounced 
 strain of economy running through him, he would 
 surely have seen the value of cool, shaded sand (his 
 garden was closely surrounded by pine trees) as 
 an admirable wine cellar — as long, that is, as it 
 remained secret. 
 
 " You must bathe with me to-morrow," he 
 exclaimed as we sat later on the little verandah. 
 "It is early yet, of course, but I believe in vigour 
 and rigour for the body." 
 
 It was then at the end of June ! 
 
 We appeared from our lodgings at midday in 
 scanty bathing apparel, with towels thrown round 
 our shoulders, and found M. Bax fussily superin- 
 tending the erection of a beach tent. 
 
 " You will catch cold," he cried anxiously. 
 
 We repudiated the suggestion, saying that the 
 one thing we feared was sunstroke, but he insisted 
 on lending us warm wraps. Meanwhile, the tent 
 having been erected, Bax drew the curtains and 
 amid much puffing, blowing and snatches of song 
 proceeded to undress. He emerged some minutes 
 later in a resplendent claret-coloured costume with 
 the initials " N.B." blazoned in royal blue on the 
 chest. Around himself he had wrapped an enormous 
 towel. 
 
 " I am ready," he cried, letting the tent curtains 
 drop dramatically behind him. 
 
 Still wrapped in his towel, he made his way to the 
 water's edge ; let it fall as an Emperor might have 
 let fall his purple ; and, with a look of determination, 
 advanced towards the sea. 
 
 M. Bax was not a swimmer. He explained that 
 beyond the breakers — some of them quite eighteen 
 inches in height — ^there were strong currents. Also 
 there were jellyfish of monstrous proportions ; he 
 pointed out one or two dead ones already on the 
 
WINE WATER AND SAND 146 
 
 beach, and they were unpleasant to look upon. 
 Again, the Luz Electricity Scheme 
 
 M. Bax, therefore, was taking no risks. 
 
 He lay at nearly full length in just enough water 
 to cover him, and carefully removing his head and 
 beard from the sphere of operations, allowed the 
 incoming waves to fall on to his bulk. That this 
 pleased him was evident ; he smiled benignly on as 
 much of the world as he could see, nodded familiarly 
 to a passing acquaintance on the beach — one expected 
 him to light a cigarette and placidly inhale it. 
 
 For about five minutes he lay thus, and then, 
 solemnly rising, stalked to his towel and disappeared 
 into his tent. 
 
 When Helen and I had finished disporting our- 
 selves, we made our merry way towards our com- 
 panion. He met us with a glass of red wine for each. 
 
 " An excellent preventative against cold," he 
 remarked sagely, and forced us to drink it. 
 
 R-ed wine and sea water are not the best aperitif 
 to a healthy meal. 
 
 We lay recuperating in his tent most of the 
 afternoon, while Bax strolled about the beach, 
 collecting shells for his " museum." To the best of 
 my belief, he forgot them when the tent was struck 
 and they lie there to this day ; he had commenced 
 one of his interminable disquisitions on the Luz 
 Electricity Scheme. 
 
 With bathing, lying on the beach, talking 
 electricity, we passed several pleasant days. One 
 afternoon Bax approached me at a trot. I knew 
 something was " in the wind." 
 
 *' M. Chatillon is speaking here to-night," he 
 exclaimed excitedly. 
 
 " Indeed." 
 
 " Yes, you must hear him ! A most eloquent 
 speaker — vivid, humorous, pathetic, what you will. 
 He will make you cry and laugh in the same breath. 
 
146 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 The last time I heard him . . ." — and there followed 
 a description so dramatic that he required most of 
 the roadway to do it justice. 
 
 " But who is this M. Chatillon ? " I asked inno- 
 cently. 
 
 " Mon Dieuy he does not know Chatillon \ Cha- 
 tillon is a Depute — a most learned man, a wise 
 statesman, a cute poUtician, a man of affairs, a 
 thorn in the side of the Government, a " 
 
 I concluded that Bax and Chatillon were of the 
 same political colour. 
 
 m 
 
 It appeared that M. Chatillon had, on a recent 
 occasion, given a vote displeasing to his constituents. 
 They were roused to a high pitch of indignation at 
 what they considered a plain betrayal of their 
 interests, and with an eye to the next election, 
 M. Chatillon had to humble himself before them — 
 " explain his position," he called it — at a series of 
 public meetings in towns and villages. That at 
 Soulac promised to be good fun. 
 
 M. Bax, as a personage of some social standing, 
 was asked to support the member, while the Mayor, 
 an insignificant Uttle man whose name I forget, 
 took the chair with nervous impartiahty. The 
 village folk, enthusiastic pohticians from more out- 
 lying villages, a few visitors, and even some ladies, 
 crowded into the stifling cafe where the meeting 
 was held. M. Chatillon did not forget the ladies. 
 
 The meeting was timed to start at nine o'clock ; 
 and by half -past seven the first traps and cycles had 
 begun to arrive at the doors and disgorge their 
 owners into the cafe, where they whiled away the 
 time with many drinks and stronger discussions. 
 As the room grew more and more crowded, it became 
 plain that M. Chatillon was Hkely to enjoy an unkind 
 reception, his supporters being few and timid, while 
 
WINE WATER AND SAND 147 
 
 his opponents were rapidly warming to their work. 
 They were aheady flashing the fire of righteous 
 indignation, strong fists, furious eyes, high words, 
 into the inoffensive faces of the Chatillon-ites, 
 who had been driven into small parties in remote 
 corners of the room, while they remained a soHd 
 block in the centre. 
 
 Soon after the appointed time, the Mayor, 
 Chatillon and Bax — the last full of self-importance- 
 entered the room amidst an ominous silence. A 
 tentative cheer from the Chatillon-ites was quelled 
 by the moral force of the surrounding stillness. The 
 three took their places ; and immediately Chatillon 
 rose again. 
 
 " Mes amis,'' he said with a bland smile, " we 
 do not want formal discussions here. This is a 
 heart-to-heart talk between friends, and as such is 
 best over a glass of wine. Order what you wish, 
 messieurs, mesdames." 
 
 Hubbub reigned for a few minutes, over which 
 Chatillon cast the benign glance of a guardian 
 angel. He Ht a cigar, stroked his moustaches 
 thoughtfully, nodded to his semi-exiled supporters, 
 bowed to the wife of one of them, spoke cheerfully 
 to an opponent — did all those things, in short, 
 which it is tactful for a Member of the Chamber of 
 Deputies to do in such circumstances. 
 
 When quiet had been restored and the room 
 twinkled with the light of wine, the Mayor rose. 
 
 " Fellow citizens of Soulac," he commenced 
 nervously. " There is no need for me to recapitulate 
 the history of what has led to the calling of this 
 meeting ; it is well known by you all. Some of 
 you approve of what our worthy Depute has done ; 
 others do not. It is far from my wishes to take 
 the one part or the other. Those of you who are 
 eager for an explanation will doubtless be 
 enUghtened ; those of you who come to applaud 
 
148 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 our worthy Depute will not have come in vain. 
 It is not my intention to delay the meeting for more 
 than a few moments while I . . ." (here followed 
 the platitudinous twenty minutes in which a chair- 
 man indulges). 
 
 M. Chatillon rose affably ; and his supporters, 
 doubtless acting on a pre-arranged signal, broke 
 into a storm of applause. 
 
 " My friends," commenced the Member. " You 
 want to know the reasons for my vote. 1 will be 
 blunt with you — I will put my case so convincingly 
 that you cannot — even my bitterest opponents, 
 gentlemen — cannot but be pacified. You have come 
 to jibe ; you will remain to applaud. You ..." 
 
 " Gargon, encore un vin,''' came suddenly from 
 the centre of the room. 
 
 Chatillon beamed with positive approval at the 
 interrupter. 
 
 " You will, when you have heard my explanation, 
 feel that . . ." 
 
 " Apportez-moi un hock,^^ 
 
 " Feel with me that my vote was influenced only 
 and entirely by the best interests of the Medoc." 
 
 There was a titter at this, but Chatillon ignored it. 
 
 " You will remember . . ."he continued. 
 
 *' We remember much." 
 
 " But will you remember ? " The two " voices " 
 were both from the centre of the opposition. 
 
 " Ah, my good friends, Truchon and Lancret," 
 cried M. Chatillon, wagging a fleshy forefinger in 
 their direction, " it is you again, is it ? You would 
 do better to listen than to interrupt." (Derisive 
 laughter.) 
 
 " It is you who will be listening soon," cried 
 someone. 
 
 Step by step, Chatillon pluckily unfolded his 
 defence, the opposition growing bolder and bolder. 
 What he said was difiicult to f oUow, for every now 
 
WINE WATER AND SAND 149 
 
 and then he would launch into a torrent of invective, 
 or swing himself up to the skies on a wave of fervid 
 patriotism which interrupted the flow of his argu- 
 ment and gave the enemy ample cause to blaspheme 
 — an opportunity of which full advantage was taken. 
 " Ldche,'' " coquin,"' " escroc,'' flew about the room 
 like hornets. The Mayor appealed for order. 
 
 " Fellow citizens," he cried, vehemently waving 
 his hands, " words are being used which are not 
 for the ears of ladies. Mon Dieu, no. I appeal to 
 you for moderation." 
 
 " Let the women go out, then," advised a voice — 
 advice upon which most of the ladies present acted. 
 With the atmosphere thus cleared, the hornets 
 increased in activity and numbers. 
 
 Chatillon at last sat down amid applause from his 
 handful of supporters and terrific cheering — ^relief, 
 possibly — ^from his opponents. 
 
 The meeting, the Mayor announced, was thrown 
 open to other speakers. 
 
 Lancret and Truchon, who seemed prominent in 
 the anti-Chatillon camp, were on their feet in an 
 instant, each haranguing such of his followers as 
 could hear him. A Chatillon-ite dared to interrupt ; 
 his Hfe was spared owing to the personal inter- 
 vention of the Member. The Mayor tried to restore 
 order ; he was howled down. Questions innumerable 
 were pHed, some of which Chatillon noted on a piece 
 of paper. Songs were sung and their choruses 
 shouted by the anti-Chatillon-ites. One by one, 
 adherents of the Member disappeared for some 
 reason or another through the door. Bax grew 
 nervous, the Mayor distraught ; only Chatillon 
 appeared unmoved. 
 
 Presently the babel subsided somewhat, and 
 M. Chatillon rose to make his reply. More torrents 
 of invective, more patriotic outbursts, varied this 
 time by gigantic statistics, which he seemed only 
 
150 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 just to have recalled. Bax's eyes glowed in renewed 
 confidence as the anti-Chatillon-ites sat mute before 
 these astounding figures ; he made little ejaculations 
 of admiration as the Depute rolled them forth. At 
 one point I caught the single word " electriciU,^^ 
 and saw Bax clap his hands vociferously. M. Bax 
 was in the seventh heaven of delight. 
 
 At the close, even before the Mayor or the anti- 
 Chatillon-ites had had time to intervene, Bax was 
 on his feet. 
 
 " A vote of confidence ! " he shouted, swept 
 away by his own enthusiasm. " Cheers for our 
 Depute ! " 
 
 As one man the meeting rose and made for the 
 platform. There was a deafening noise ; someone 
 beside me said : " Good-bye, Chatillon ! " The light 
 went out. 
 
 I found myself in the fresh air with my watch 
 showing 1.15 a.m. 
 
 *' I wonder which part of the Medoc that meeting 
 belongs to," I asked the stars, " wine water or 
 sand ? " 
 
 IV 
 
 Four or five miles from Soulac, and on the Gironde 
 side of the Medoc, lies Le Verdon. For every ounce 
 of Soulac's vivacity Le Verdon has two of utter 
 remoteness. And by that curious irony of chance, 
 which is called progress, if Bordeaux really decides 
 to build the " avant-port^'^ it so badly needs, it 
 will probably choose Le Verdon for the site. The 
 little fishing village will be, at one stroke, transformed 
 into a busy harbour. But that is anticipating . . . 
 
 Though even now thrills of excitement run 
 occasionally down the spine of Le Verdon at the 
 thought of what the future may hold in store. The 
 change would be so complete — a metamorphosis, 
 compared with which that of the caterpillar and 
 
WINE WATER AND SAND 151 
 
 the butterfly dwindles. Le Verdon looks aghast 
 at the picture of its own greatness. 
 
 Imagine a village of one street, one cafe, one bar — 
 a village whose inhabitants are mostly so destitute 
 that at times they are scarcely able to buy the 
 necessities of life, whose recreation is gossip and 
 whose only means of liveUhood is the precarious 
 one of fishing — a village surrounded by marsh, 
 battered by the violent seas which are frequent at 
 the river mouth, scorched by sun in summer, flooded 
 by the high tides of autumn and spring, deluged by 
 rain in winter — imagine the prospect to such a 
 village of the prosperity which trading brings. 
 The Mayor, worthy citizen enough in other respects, 
 pulls every string at his command (few and feeble 
 though they be) to bustle the Bordeaux authorities 
 into action ; while they, doubtless, receive his 
 persistent communications, headed grandiosely with 
 the full title of " Ze Verdon-sur-Mer, arrondissement 
 Lesparre, canton Saint Vivien, ddpartement de la 
 Oironde,'^ and smile indulgently at his fussiness. 
 The Town Council swell themselves into imaginary 
 importance ; every member of the community throws 
 in his weight in support ... It is a great thing to 
 have a Future . . . 
 
 For the present, however, Le Verdon remains as 
 it has been for a century. A few wealthy folk 
 from the vineyards have discovered the charm of 
 its remoteness and have built villas near-by, but 
 these are rarely occupied, and of no account to the 
 villagers who continue to be born, Hve, love, quarrel, 
 and die just as they did before the villas were thought 
 of. If they do sometimes regard them, it is only with 
 a kind of angry contempt for people who can waste 
 so much space which others are sorely lacking. It 
 is not an easy job to rear a family in two rooms, in 
 which it is impossible to stand upright. So Le 
 Verdon goes its way, and lets the villas go theirs. 
 
152 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Le Verdon's way lies either across the marshes 
 to the river bay, in which the fishing boats are 
 moored, and thence by the uneasy Gironde to the 
 sea ; or else along the main street to the high-titled 
 Cafe de la Renaissance, where the fisherman's 
 favourite wine awaits him and his irritating tally 
 is chalked up on the doorpost. Here he may pass 
 the evening as he wishes, with but one restriction — 
 for woebetide him if he in any way tarnishes the 
 spotless cleanliness of the place. The Cafe de la 
 Renaissance is the cleanest hostelry in France — 
 the very tiles on the floor are poHshed daily — and 
 Madame Veuve Roget has an eagle eye for offenders. 
 Her patrons may get drunk with impunity and go 
 home to beat their wives — that is a domestic affair 
 with which she has no concern ; they may occasionally 
 forget to pay their score and be let off with a repri- 
 mand — but no man repeats the offence of dirtying 
 the floor or the chairs with boots or clothes. What- 
 ever their wives may say, Madame Roget holds 
 the whip hand with the men — the other bar is 
 villainous, and only to be visited when one is 
 inexorably determined on a bad head in the morning 
 — so that Madame usually gets her way, and the 
 Cafe de la Renaissance, at the end of the evening, is 
 far more unimpeachable than the period its title 
 commemorates. 
 
 The Cafe is the centre, physical and social, of 
 Le Verdon — ^the only place any sensible man can 
 visit. Sometimes, however, he brings his wife with 
 him — on Sunday evenings, when the room is crowded 
 with dancing couples jigging their heavy bodies 
 over the floor to the accompaniment of an accordian. 
 Madame Roget, as master — or mistress ? — of the 
 ceremonies, looks on benignly and dispenses refresh- 
 ments — her severity is relaxed on Sunday in view 
 of the general happiness — ^in view, also, of the fact 
 that the other bar, which at one time set up dances 
 
WINE WATER AND SAND 153 
 
 in competition, has been forced to abandon them 
 (on the last attempt not a single couple turned up). 
 She looks on as a conqueror and, I have heard, 
 secretly helps the rascally proprietor of the rival 
 bar occasionally to obtain some of the small luxuries 
 of existence. She is one of the few inhabitants of 
 Le Verdon who could afford such kindness. 
 
 She is, therefore, one of the least concerned with 
 Le Verdon' s future. I put it to her : " But it will 
 make a great difference to you ? " 
 
 " Yes," she agreed. " I shall go out of business. 
 I do not want a town hotel — ^it gets so dirty." 
 
 " Le Verdon will all be dirty then." 
 
 " Well, I shall leave Le Verdon. My poor 
 husband was lighthouse-keeper at the Pointe 
 yonder — ^I could always retire to a Uttle cottage 
 near-by." 
 
 " But the men of Le Verdon would miss you," 
 interposed Helen. 
 
 Madame regarded her scornfully. 
 
 " The men," she said, " don't talk to me about 
 a man missing anyone for more than a week ! 
 The first time they are tipsy they won't be slow to 
 tell how thankful they are that I and my clean 
 habits have gone. Besides, they will not be the 
 same men. These fellows think that Le Verdon's 
 prosperity will mean their prosperity too. I'm 
 not such a fool — these men will only be grovelHng 
 to new masters, or have been pushed out elsewhere, 
 or have died through having to do some real work." 
 
 " At least they would miss the Sunday evening 
 dances," I suggested. 
 
 " With a cinema here ? Never ! I know what 
 this place will be if it becomes rich — ^it'll be full of 
 mean men with no spirit." 
 
 " A curious development for fishermen," remarked 
 Helen. 
 
 *' These are not fishermen ; they only play at it. 
 
154 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 That is why they are poor, that is why they are 
 always looMng to someone else to make them rich. 
 Le Verdon might as well remain as it is." 
 
 As may be imagined from this, Madame was 
 more respected than loved in the ambitious village ; 
 the wine of the Medoc had not turned to water in 
 her veins. If she had had the power, she would 
 have made Le Verdon prosperous without waiting 
 for Bordeaux's assistance ; but so few men Hke work. 
 
 It was, as she had told me, at the Pointe de Grave, 
 the northern extremity of the great triangle where 
 the Gironde joins the sea, that Madame Roget's 
 husband had been keeper of the Ughthouse. A 
 position of some responsibihty, for the white-built 
 Nouveau Phare is an important landmark to navi- 
 gators — more important than the ancient Tour de 
 Cordouan, which we had already seen from 
 Soulac, standing several miles out. The manner 
 in which he met his death I heard from a pilot, 
 one of the few permanent inhabitants of the 
 windy point. 
 
 " A good man was Roget," he told me. " It 
 was a sad thing for us when he was killed — a sad 
 thing for France, too, if only she had known it. 
 
 " As lighthouse-keeper, he was naturally friendly 
 with ships, you know. 
 
 " Somewhere about May of '17, just after the 
 submarine warfare had been intensified, Roget went 
 one afternoon on board a steamer which had received 
 orders to stop at the mouth of the river . . . bad 
 tide, I believe. There was no question of his being 
 wanted at the lighthouse for a few hours — although 
 of course, it was never Hghted during the war — so 
 he rowed across to see his friends on board — ^he 
 had known Captain Bidon for years ; I am not 
 certain that the two weren't at school together 
 
WINE WATER AND SAND 165 
 
 . . . You see, I know the full story because I was 
 there at the time. 
 
 " We had a good afternoon with Bidon who was 
 a ready talker at all times and had had an exciting 
 trip from South America. Just as Roget said: 
 ' Well, I must be off now ; there may be some 
 messages,' a gun fired. 
 
 " We didn't take much notice of the first shot,, 
 because they were always practising at the fort 
 here. But after two or three shots a second gun 
 joined in. 
 
 " * Hope they don't mistake your launch for a 
 submarine,' laughed Bidon, as we came on deck. 
 
 " Roget smiled back, and then the smile faded . . . 
 like the sun going behind a cloud. He pointed 
 with his finger. 
 
 " The guns were firing like mad now . . . and at 
 something real. No submarine had ever come so 
 close to shore. . . . 
 
 " Suddenly, a row of bubbles appeared on the 
 water, near the ship. 
 
 " Bidon threw up his hands and shouted a warn- 
 ing. Roget seemed fascinated by them — stood 
 staring as they came nearer and nearer. Bidon 
 pulled him away, but it was too late. 
 
 " A terrific explosion . . . the ship heeled over 
 . . . and when the water subsided Roget was lying 
 on the deck, trying to rise. 
 
 " ' I can't get up,' he moaned. ' I must go to 
 the Hghthouse. The man I left there . . .' 
 
 " Then he fainted. It was evident that the ship 
 was sinking . . . his launch had been blown to 
 atoms. ... So we lowered a boat and tried to put 
 him into it. It was difficult, because the crew was 
 excited and Bidon, too, was injured. 
 
 " Roget' s legs had been blown off • . . haK-way 
 to land he opened his eyes. 
 
 " ' Let's come for a walk,' he said, ' we've just 
 
156 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 got a quarter of an hour before soup. I feel like 
 a quiet stroll.' 
 
 '• Mon Dieu, you should have seen us ! — ^we were 
 crying with fright already, and Roget's words 
 made us worse. . . . 
 
 " ' What is the matter ? ' he asked gently. 
 * Don't you want to come ? If not, we will sit in 
 the cafe here, and have a glass. Only decide, 
 because the soup will be ready soon.' 
 
 " We rowed hard, and Roget fell into a kind of 
 stupor. Then he leant up on his elbow and com- 
 menced to shout ' Let go of my legs ! ' and swore 
 that we were trying to drag him down to the bottom 
 of the river. He would not be soothed : but when 
 Bidon showed him his injured arm, Roget grew 
 quiet again ... I think it was a mistake to show 
 him. . . . 
 
 " ' I remember now,' said Roget. ' I was a fool 
 to talk of going for a walk.' 
 
 " He squirmed himself into a more or less com- 
 fortable position, and lay groaning. 
 
 " ' Wm you tell her ? ' he said. 
 
 " A boat which had put out to meet us came 
 alongside. Roget took no notice, although it was 
 a friend who brought it. We were towed for the 
 rest of the distance. 
 
 " A few metres from the shore Roget broke into 
 a laugh. ' To think I wanted to walk ! ' Then he 
 was quiet. 
 
 " When we came into the harbour some prepara- 
 tions had been made for our comfort. Bidon bent 
 over Roget. ' Come, old friend,' he said, ' we are 
 going to make you comfortable.' 
 
 " Roget stared at him, but did not answer. 
 
 " ' Just rouse yourself a minute,' said Bidon. 
 
 " A military doctor bustled up. ' What is the 
 use of talking to him ? ' he said brusquely to Bidon, 
 and covered Roget's face with a handkerchief. 
 
WINE WATER AND SAND 157 
 
 " He was a good man was Roget, but the Pointe 
 de Grave is small and France is very big. Perhaps 
 people never even heard of him ... a good 
 man. . . ." 
 
 VI 
 
 The Pointe de Grave has, however, seen history 
 of which France, big as she is, has heard and 
 applauded. A hundred and fifty years ago, in 1777, 
 it was from here that Lafayette, the chivalrous 
 young nobleman who was willing to risk his all for 
 Liberty, looked the last on his native country 
 before setting sail for the American War of Indepen- 
 dence, and here that he landed again when the 
 French Revolution claimed his courage some years 
 later. Almost as if to return the compliment, it 
 was at the Pointe that the first American troops 
 set foot in Europe in 1916, and a monument to their 
 solemn memory is now in course of erection. 
 
 The unfinished breakwaters which jut in many 
 directions from the tree-clothed nose of the Pointe 
 have seen, too, their share of tragedy. At all times, 
 owing to the configuration of the land, the mouth 
 of the Gironde is turbulent, and often the enormous 
 breakers of Biscay make confusion worse con- 
 founded so that those who work on the breakwaters 
 do so in peril of their lives. The last of an appalling 
 series of disasters to these unsung heroes was in 
 1914, when a party of French soldiers engaged in 
 constructing another rampe were, everyone of 
 them, hurled to death by the seas. Since then the 
 breakwater has remained deserted : but it is crowded 
 with the evidence of their devotion and courage. 
 
XIV 
 
 THE FASHION OF ROYAN 
 
 ROYAN, on the northern bank of the Gironde opposite 
 the Pointe de Grave, is one of the most fashionable 
 watering places in France, a summer resort of 
 Riviera shopkeepers. The season was not yet in 
 full swing when we crossed to it in a ramshackle 
 motor boat, but the town was rapidly filHng with 
 men just a little too spick and span in their open 
 shirts to be really comfortable and women a trifle 
 too Tuiderclad to be entirely wholesome. 
 
 Tents were springing up on the beach and for 
 entertainment we watched fashionable bathing — M. 
 Bax's performance at Soulac paled in comparison. 
 It was so very mincing and refined and deUcate — 
 so very lacking in zest and heartiness and earnest- 
 ness and all that makes anything worth doing. 
 But it is the fashion and must be followed. 
 
 " Rather sad when one comes to that," I said to 
 Helen, pointing out a fragrant flower of young man- 
 hood dehcately clad in perfectly fitting costume, 
 and languidly advancing over the sand. 
 
 Helen nodded. " Fool," she answered tersely. 
 
 " But I suppose he has his uses." 
 
 '' Such as ? " 
 
 " A warning to others." 
 
 " Is he worth even that ? " 
 
 " ' Depend upon it, sir, God thinks twice before 
 damning a man of that quality.' Possibly he has 
 his good points." 
 
THE FASHION OF ROYAN 159 
 
 *' Well covered from the elements though," re- 
 torted Helen. " If they met a breeze they might 
 blow away." 
 
 He was the sort of young man very popular at 
 Royan. His face expressed little beyond amiable 
 boredom, his conversation (for later we were com- 
 pelled to overhear it) nothing beyond platitudes. 
 One felt about him that 
 
 " His coat was brushed, his face was washed, 
 His shoes were clean and neat ; 
 And this was odd, because, you know. 
 He hadn't any feet." 
 
 He hadn't any feet that were of use to him : no 
 solid base to stand upon. He was a pre-war " knut," 
 defying English imitation : his species still survives 
 in France, and, of course, congregates in such places 
 as Royan. It is eloquent of the tolerance of French- 
 men that this type is still uncomplainingly suffered, 
 though you must remember, at the same time, that, 
 for all his individualism, a type is what the French- 
 man loves best. 
 
 Compare the effects of the war on this bathing 
 knut and on Olga of Aries, whom we still held dear. 
 He had probably fought and suffered : she too had 
 suffered — as greatly and with less reason than he. 
 But whereas he, with his grown-up freedom, had 
 recovered so completely as to bear no sign of what 
 he had gone through, she was condemned to a life 
 that might well convert her to the theory of eternal 
 punishment. He was rich, could forget war's hurt 
 (and was probably busily doing so at this moment) ; 
 she, pennfless, had to make the best of a bad busi- 
 ness inside four stone walls. And perhaps he had 
 not even suffered. . . . 
 
 We dismissed the knut from our minds and sent 
 a little remembrance to Olga. At the back of our 
 
160 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 thoughts, perhaps, was a wish to make a peace 
 offering to all children, whose accusations, were 
 not the cases so readily settled out of coiu*t, might 
 prove damning to our self-respect. 
 
 You know the kind of man whose voice, even 
 when it is not raised above normal pitch, dominates 
 a room so that no one else can carry on a coherent 
 conversation : that is the man Royan needs. It is 
 oppressively subdued in its respectability, toned 
 to a pitch at which scandal is the only conversation 
 audible. 
 
 " But you know," said one tent on the beach to 
 her neighbour, " you know what was said of her 
 last season ? " 
 
 " No ? " — ^The second tent quite perceptibly 
 pricked her ears. 
 
 " Well, of course, one can never be certain what's 
 true and what isn't, but several people have told me 
 that she . . ." 
 
 The loud voiced man would blow all this sort of 
 nauseous rubbish away. It couldn't exist when he 
 was in Royan. I wish he would go there. 
 
 " These socks of mine were perfectly ridicuously 
 cheap, you know." The pale youth wafted the 
 amber cigarette holder from his mouth, and dis- 
 played a length of sky-blue sock. " My hosier 
 tells me that next season they will be wearing ..." 
 
 Where is that loud-voiced man ? Perhaps he 
 has gone back to the sea from which he roars in the 
 winter. His voice then is dominating enough ! — 
 but the Httle dragon-flies opening and closing their 
 pretty coloured wings and the big bluebottles 
 crawling over the garbage are all hibernating in 
 their warm holes out of his reach. That is the 
 curse of being rich — ^you can always escape the man 
 with the loud voice. 
 
 Royan did not receive us with open arms : we 
 were so obviously out of place. If we sat down on a 
 
THE FASHION OF ROYAN 161 
 
 seat its other occupants " moved up one," if we 
 walked we were given a wide berth, everywhere 
 we were looked at askance. 
 
 We were rather proud of it. 
 
 We went to the station to put our packs into the 
 cloak-room while we looked for a lodging in which 
 to spend the night. 
 
 A wasp-waisted man in a tight-fitting ochre and 
 black uniform and peaked cap — so immaculate 
 that he might just have stepped out of a bandbox — 
 approached suavely. 
 
 " You are looking for a hotel, sir," he said in 
 English. " The Hotel de la Plage is the best in 
 Royan — next to the beach — terrace overlooking 
 the sea — every comfort — all " 
 
 " No," I said, " I am not looking for a hotel." 
 
 " Perhaps you would like to lunch there, sir. 
 Excellent lunch — table d'hote, — a la carte — best 
 wines. . . ." 
 
 " No thanks," I replied, turning my back on him, 
 
 " This, sir, is a view of the hotel — terrace over 
 the sea — next to the " 
 
 " Look here," I asked exasperated. *' Do I look 
 as if I should live in the best hotel in Royan ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders and smiled idiotically. 
 I noticed he was wearing side-whiskers and that 
 annoyed me still further. 
 
 " M'sieu is American." 
 
 " And you think every American a millionaire ? " 
 
 He shrugged again. "It is the best hotel — " 
 he re-commenced. " M'sieu would perhaps see " 
 
 My pride was pricked. He thought us worthy 
 of gracing " the best hotel in Roy an." Then I 
 grew furious. 
 
 *' I am not American and I wish you would go 
 away," I exclaimed. 
 
 " You would perhaps like the picture of the " 
 
 *' No. Go away ! " 
 
162 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " The bus is at the station for your luggage." 
 
 Words failed me. I gave him a sou. He faded 
 rapidly. 
 
 Cheerlessly I looked at Helen. We saw a porter 
 lounging against a wall. 
 
 " Tell me," I asked him, " where does the next 
 train go to ? " 
 
 He appeared a little startled. I repeated the 
 question. 
 
 " Farceur ! " he exclaimed. 
 
 " But I am serious — ^perfectly serious. We want 
 to go there." 
 
 " Where ? " 
 
 " Don't you understand, man ? Wherever the 
 next train goes to." 
 
 " Pons ? " 
 
 We left him. The booking-office had just opened 
 with a click. 
 
XV 
 
 NIGHT-BIEDS 
 
 From yellow sand to ripening corn. Beyond Royan 
 the sands disappear in a ripple of wheat over the 
 rich landscape. Before we had time to appreciate 
 the change, the Dungeon Tower and steep ramparts 
 of Pons were abreast of us. 
 
 How is it that no one has celebrated Pons ? 
 It is as quiet and undisturbed as if there were no 
 feverish world of tourists all round. A few visitors 
 from Royan drop in casually during the season, 
 look at the river until the next train is ready to take 
 them back, and leave without knowing the surprises 
 the town has to offer. For surprises are sprung 
 on you at every turn — but the biggest of all is 
 that a town so rich in picturesqueness of every 
 kind can remain unhonoured and unsung. It is a 
 revelation in the way of the world. 
 
 At Pons you may talk intimately with every 
 century from the twelfth to the present — most 
 intimately of all, perhaps, with the eighteenth in 
 the formal gardens of box hedges and quaintly cut 
 yews which face the Hotel de Ville. This is the 
 former chiteau built on arches over the rock, 
 and you may easily block out the jarring official 
 posters with greenery. Tall lines of poplars hide 
 the railway station below the walls at your side : 
 there is no sound or sunlight beneath the heavy 
 curtain of trees above you : there is everything to 
 
164 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 seduce you into a long day-dream. You may 
 walk a few yards to the ramparts and look over the 
 smiling golden valley and the neat market gardens 
 below ; you may turn away from the chateau 
 towards the Place de la Republique and see a 
 shallow pond with two white swans ; you may look 
 again between the giant yew trees down the path 
 and past four moss-covered stone seats, to the foun- 
 tain out of which bubbles a thin jet of water which 
 runs from its basin past a Romanesque chapel to 
 the walls — and wherever you look there is nothing 
 that will seem to you an anachronism, nothing that 
 does not intensify the eighteenth century atmos- 
 phere. 
 
 "I feel as if I ought to be wearing a white wig and 
 picture hat and little silver buckled shoes with red 
 heels," exclaimed Helen. 
 
 Like a Watteau shepherdess," I replied. " Do 
 I happen to be the gallant or the sheep ? " 
 
 " The goat," said Helen. 
 
 Walk along the streets of Pons and the century 
 changes. You are in the coaching days with a 
 French Pickwick prominent in the scene, a Pick- 
 wick who is not of the West at all but of the exu- 
 berant Rhone Valley. 
 
 That is it — ^Pons is a mild return to the Midi. 
 What it is that makes it so — whether it is the cool 
 heavily-treed squares, or the red and green pin- 
 nacles of the roofs like the spike on a Pickelhaube, 
 or the sundials on the white painted chimneys — 
 whether, in short, it is the assumption of the in- 
 habitants that life will be a hot sunny affair, to be 
 got through as much in the shade as possible, I 
 do not Imow. Madame Mayou and her buxom 
 daughters were too occupied to tell me. 
 
 liese kept a Httle hotel, patronised chiefly by 
 commercial travellers — ^though it might puzzle one 
 to know what trade was carried on in this place 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 165 
 
 which is half town and half village. They were 
 travellers chiefly in such commodities as are neces- 
 sary to every household, and are sold in minute 
 quantities, and they seemed to despise Pons as a 
 town of no account. 
 
 " One comes, one goes, one comes again," said 
 the most talkative among them. " Only le bon 
 Dieu and the managers know why. One never 
 does any business — fifty francs worth, perhaps, 
 but, nom de nom, that won't keep one fat for long, 
 hein ? " 
 
 Fifty francs worth, certainly, would not have 
 maintained his present girth for a week-end. 
 
 " What is your line ? " I asked him. 
 
 " Metal polish," he rephed. " It's my belief 
 that it all finds its way into this hotel in the end." 
 
 Very probably he was right. The copper pots 
 in the kitchen were mirrors of induistry, the candle- 
 sticks shone with their own lustre — one was afraid 
 of touching the brass door handles for fear of leav- 
 ing a mark, so one always left the door ajar and 
 opened and closed it with one's foot. 
 
 It was Jeanne who was responsible — Jeanne 
 with the muscles of a horse and the face of a dumpy 
 squat angel, who, on finding herself locked out one 
 night (she ought not to have been away from home 
 so late) broke a garden seat in front of the hotel, 
 and extricating a piece of iron from its wreckage, 
 burst the lock of the side door and finally rated her 
 mother for going to sleep in the kitchen. 
 
 " What else to do ? " she asked laughingly after- 
 wards. " You would not have had me sleep in 
 the stables. Besides, I had to clean the boots. 
 No, it was mother's fault entirely. . . ." 
 
 No work was too hard for Jeanne. First up in 
 the morning, she pumped water for half an hour, 
 then washed the hall and cleaned out the dining- 
 room. By that time those " commercials " who 
 
166 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 were leaving by the early train were clamouring 
 for breakfast ; she took it to each of them with a 
 quiet smile and a cheerful greeting and then 
 attended to her mother, whom age was beginning 
 to weaken. The morning was occupied in cleaning 
 rooms, while her sister. Marguerite, prepared the 
 lunch. During the afternoon both of them sewed 
 — ^it was wonderful, they said, how much needed 
 darning — then while Marguerite prepared the dinner, 
 Jeanne poUshed, drew water, set out the rooms for 
 the night, dressed and in due course waited at table. 
 When the crockery had been washed up, Jeanne 
 tossed her dark hair and was free for the remainder 
 of the day ! 
 
 " Don't you ever get tired of it ? " asked Helen 
 astounded. 
 
 " What is the use ? " parried Jeanne, " the work 
 has still to be done." 
 
 " But in the summer for instance ? " 
 
 " It is hot, yes ! One sweats " — ^with an ex- 
 pressive downward movement of the hands — " but 
 then in the winter it keeps one warm." 
 
 " You wouldn't get English girls to do it," re- 
 flected Helen. 
 
 " EngHsh girls are not French peasants," said 
 Jeanne. "We are peasants, you know, Madame, 
 and have to work or we starve. We are not bom 
 rich like EngUsh girls." 
 
 " But suppose you fell ill ? " I asked. She 
 shrugged. 
 
 " There is the hospital." 
 
 " And after that ? " 
 
 " Ce qu^on veuV What a world of contrast 
 between the fataHsm of that " ce qu^on veut " of 
 Jeanne's and Shakespeare's careless " What you 
 will!" 
 
 " One has no time to think," she continued, 
 " there are always les voyageurs to look after. Listen. 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 167 
 
 There is one calling now," and she bounced up- 
 stairs as though she were fresh from a long night's 
 sleep. 
 
 We strolled out into the moonlight, Helen and I 
 — a clear yellow light, with heavy stars and a fresh 
 breeze after the stifling heat of the day. At the 
 lower end of the town a fete was in progress round 
 an old Romanesque church : the faint sounds of a 
 band drifted up to us, and every now and then a 
 firework tried feebly to drown the moon. For the 
 rest, the houses were a-twinkle with domestic 
 lights : Pons was absorbed in its own enjoyment : 
 the outside world — well, is there really such a thing ? 
 
 n 
 
 " This is the time for walking," exclaimed Helen. 
 She is addicted to these sudden inspirations. 
 
 To the intense surprise of the Mayou household 
 and the gathered concourse of commercial travel- 
 lers, we packed our traps and set off. Their only 
 explanation of our conduct was that we were in- 
 tensely dissatisfied with something — but with what 
 they could not, for the Hfe of them, discover. And 
 as for us — how could we explain to rational beings 
 one of Helen's " ideas " ? 
 
 We came out on to the road opposite the hotel. 
 
 " Right or left ? " I asked, 
 
 " Right." 
 
 " You want to go back to Royan ? " 
 
 " Left, I meant." 
 
 So to the left we went, and soon the quiet town of 
 Pons was behind us. A rocket from the fair bade 
 us adieu, and almost the last human sound we heard 
 was the animated discussion of the Mayou family 
 and their guests, of which we doubtless formed the 
 subject. Then the night swallowed us up. 
 
 The long yellow road, slowly rising to the crest 
 of a hill, seemed to be swept by gusts of darkness 
 
168 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 where the shadows of the trees fell across it. The 
 whole landscape was a mist of gold and blue where 
 corn and tree mingled, and a sighing wind, so sHght 
 as to make scarcely a movement in the boughs, rose 
 and fell like the distant chords of an organ in Nature's 
 cathedral, interrupted occasionally by the harsh 
 croak of a bull frog or the eerie hoot of an owl. 
 Soft buzzy things floated across the night, brushing 
 lightly against one's face or rushing up in swarms 
 for an inspection of one's clothing. Never did 
 they make any attempt at attack, for creatures of 
 the night are gentle and friendly, seeking company 
 in their wanderings. 
 
 We had walked about two kilometres on the 
 road to Saintes when we first saw the scarecrow 
 of a man in front of us. His tatters fluttering gaily 
 in the breeze, he was pushing a dilapidated mail- 
 cart loaded with the oddest assortment of clothing 
 and household utensils imaginable — ^rags picked up 
 by the roadside, old pots, bits of metal, wood, a 
 broken casserole, two lady's hats and " under- 
 clothing ditto," some scraps of fur, the battered 
 frameworks of several umbrellas, and a doll's 
 head. His own remnants of boots were hanging 
 round his neck and he was walking barefoot. 
 
 " A fine night," I exclaimed as we drew level 
 with him. 
 
 " For those that have nothing to carry," he 
 replied. " Here, push this a bit." 
 
 Nothing loth, I took the greasy handle from him, 
 and pushed the unsavoury collection. The tramp, 
 meanwhile, went to the side of the road and sluiced 
 his face and hands in a stagnant pool. Later he 
 rejoined us. 
 
 " Heavy ? " he queried. 
 
 " Not a bit." 
 
 " Suppose you'll want something for it," he 
 grumbled. 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 169 
 
 " I don't understand you." 
 
 " Well, it's plain enough, isn't it ? Nobody but 
 a fool does work for nothing. And pushing that's 
 work." 
 
 " I'm afraid I must be a fool then," I replied 
 innocently. 
 
 " Thought so," he muttered, and strode on in 
 silence. 
 
 " Who are you ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " Out of work," I replied shortly, dropping into 
 his style of conversation. " Suppose you tell me 
 who you are ? " 
 
 " Thought you'd want to know. Foreigner, 
 aren't you ? " 
 
 "Yes, English." 
 
 He grunted again and relapsed into silence. 
 Helen laid a trembling hand in mine. 
 
 " Aren't you going to tell me who you are ? " I 
 said, after another kilometre. 
 
 " What do you want to know for ? " 
 
 " Companionship." 
 
 He laughed at the idea of it, and did not reply. 
 
 " Here, take hold of this contraption," I ex- 
 claimed, releasing my grasp of the mailcart. 
 
 " What for ? " 
 
 " Your beastly surliness." 
 
 " You're impertinent for your age," he answered 
 menacingly. 
 
 " I've fallen in such pleasant company," I re- 
 torted. 
 
 Luckily the mailcart threatened to run away 
 down a slope and needed all his attention for the 
 moment : he was a bad-tempered devil. 
 
 " Look here, don't be a fool," I said. " We're 
 going all in the same direction and might as well 
 travel together." 
 
 I felt instinctively the sort of reply that was form- 
 ing in his loutish mind. 
 
170 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Please don't forget Madame," I said. 
 
 In a minute his demeanour changed. He pulled 
 of! his ragged cap. 
 
 " Madame will pardon me ? " he asked. 
 
 What followed makes me doubt whether it is 
 justifiable to leave any one, however idle or criminal 
 his mind, to follow merely his own devices without 
 an attempt at reaching the essential " human " 
 part of his character. From the moment I drew 
 attention to the presence of Helen, the tramp 
 might have been a different man as far as his 
 manners were concerned. In his topics of conver- 
 sation, admittedly, he was deplorable, but there was 
 a feeling of uneasy shame about him which was all 
 to his credit. He grew affable. 
 
 The talk ran largely on petty theft, with digres- 
 sions into burglary, rick-firing, blackmail, and 
 sabotage on railways — a rather aristocratic form 
 of HveHhood this last, at which our friend professed 
 himself an adept. It required at least two accom- 
 plices, he told us, but with luck the booty was 
 sometimes enormous. Of course, he explained 
 shamefacedly, it was only in extremities that one 
 resorted to such measures. 
 
 " Suppose you get caught ? " I asked. 
 
 " One goes to jail," he answered. " Hard labour 
 is unpleasant but it does not last for ever." 
 
 " Is it worth it ? " Helen was well to the fore in 
 this conversation. 
 
 " The big jobs ? No. The smaU ones pay better, 
 taking into account the risks." 
 
 The moon was sinking, and in the East was that 
 faint relieving of the indigo sky which precedes 
 dawn. The tramp took us into a field where he 
 camouflaged his mailcart and its load with brush 
 wood. 
 
 " Look here," he said, drawing us together con- 
 fidentially, " you're both young and inexperienced 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 171 
 
 but I can see you're keen to learn. Take a tip or 
 two from me. Keep your knife sharp — spend your 
 time on it till it's like a razor ; a blunt knife never 
 cuts anything. Keep your hands supple — ^practise 
 sometimes on each other. Never sell your stuff 
 less than twenty kilometres from where you got it. 
 Always have a revolver to scare old women with, 
 but never load it — that's a fool's trick. There's 
 a lot more you'll pick up yourselves, but those 
 things I've told you are useful. I'm lying low to- 
 day. Au revoir." 
 
 He gripped our hands ; and as the first flush of day 
 tinted the tree tops he dropped into a ditch to sleep. 
 
 Helen and I looked at each other. 
 
 " Did you take in everything he said ? " I asked. 
 
 " Everything," she replied, " in case we are 
 unemployed again." 
 
 " We need never be that. Here's aU Saintes 
 opening its pockets to us." 
 
 " I would rather it opened a bedroom door," 
 yawned Helen. 
 
 in 
 
 Saintes is a town which, proud of its Roman 
 remains, tries to take itself seriously, forgetful of 
 the fact that nearly every street ends in a meadow. 
 With a quiet and thriving life of its own, it seems 
 ambitious to become a tourist centre — it is as if 
 Pons suddenly awoke to the fact that it had attrac- 
 tions to offer and began to " push " them. The 
 result is disappointing : as yet, at least, the 
 mechanism of the push is rather too apparent, and 
 Saintes, which is really a jolly, unfinished little place, is 
 making efforts which will only undermine its 
 attractive personality. 
 
 Stick to the marketing streets of the town if you 
 wish to find out what Saintes really is — the streets 
 where you can buy cherries and cheese and soap and 
 
172 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 live ducks and take them all home in a big wicker 
 basket to the kitchen. As these streets are not 
 far from the river, they are comparatively airy to 
 stroll in, in spite of the grilling heat of the town — 
 in fact, the male section of the inhabitants seems to 
 spend most of its time, pipe in mouth, on the ad- 
 jacent doorsteps looking at the frantic endeavours 
 of the fowls and ducks to escape from their narrow 
 cages. 
 
 This July morning, when the heat prevented us 
 from sleeping so that we had wandered irritably 
 into the market quarter, the birds were making 
 strenuous efforts after liberty. It was exceptionally 
 hot, and the men on the doorsteps watched with lazy 
 interest their ruffled feathers and loud-voiced 
 protests while the vendors took advantage of a 
 temporary patch of shade to temper business with 
 comfort. Then the old lady, who is primarily respon- 
 sible for the events of this story, hove in sight. 
 
 At a guess you would have put her age at about 
 seventy, but from the evident weight of her house- 
 hold basket, brimming over with shining purple 
 cherries, she must have been younger. She briskly 
 negotiated for a duck, too — a fine white bird which 
 appeared to take quite an intelligent interest in 
 the proceedings. The bargaining being concluded, 
 she tied its feet together and hobbled away with her 
 new purchase swinging head downwards from her 
 formerly free hand. 
 
 The intelUgence of the duck was now devoted to 
 another object — ^how to recover its upright position. 
 It struggled with wings and feet — ^but that was not 
 the first time the old woman had carried a bird 
 home. It craned an anxious neck to take stock of 
 things — but the flounces of her black skirt flapped 
 into its eyes and drove it downwards again. It 
 opened its mouth, first in silence and then to emit a 
 plaintive quack — but the two ribbons from her 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 173 
 
 white lace cap — it was flat and square, like a " mor- 
 tarboard " — ^were blown round her ears by a slight 
 breeze, so that they deafened her to the duck's 
 complaint. The old woman had it every way. 
 
 But that very cap — the pride of its owner and a 
 marvel of workmanship — was her undoing. As she 
 turned the corner on to the riverside quay, a little 
 whirlwind lifted it perpendicularly from her head. 
 A gasp, a windmill of arms and skirts, a purple 
 shower of cherries, a flutter of feathers — it was all 
 over in a second. The cap sailed upwards like a 
 white yacht, the duck lay on the ground, cherries 
 rolled over the cobbles into the gutter, the old woman 
 stood confounded in the midst of the wreckage not 
 knowing which way to turn first. 
 
 " Quick, mother, or you'll lose it," cried a passing 
 youth, pointing to the cap and keeping his eyes on 
 the cherries. 
 
 " What to do now ? " wailed the old woman. 
 
 " Run after it," cried the youth. 
 
 The men on the doorsteps chuckled to each other 
 and kept silence. 
 
 The wind had now dropped the cap some few 
 yards away. The old woman darted after it, while 
 Helen, who had just come on the scene, drove the 
 disappointed youth up the street and collected 
 the cherries. For myself, I sided with the men on 
 the doorsteps. 
 
 Thanks and the adjustment of the cap occupied 
 some minutes. The old woman took up her basket, 
 stooped to catch hold of the 
 
 It was not there. 
 
 Only the piece of dirty cord which had secured its 
 feet marked the spot on which the duck had lain. 
 
 With a cry the old woman seized the string. 
 • " Which of you has got it ? " she screamed. 
 *' Lazy vagabonds that you are, which of you 
 has robbed me ? " 
 
174 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " None of us, mother," replied one of the men. 
 "It's only a duck, anyway." 
 
 " Yes, and a duck's a duck, you thieves." 
 
 The men laughed. " Come and search us," said 
 another, good-humouredly. 
 
 " I wouldn't put my hands on you," retorted 
 the old woman. 
 
 " There it is," yelled a small boy, pointing to 
 the gutter some distance up the road. " We'll 
 catch him, mother." 
 
 Two of the men rose in pursuit, but the old woman 
 was in front of them both. 
 
 The duck, however, must have got wind of im- 
 pending events. Hitherto it had been peacefully 
 recovering its lost dignity : now it set off with a 
 great waddling and an extended neck down the 
 street. 
 
 The hunt grew : another man joined in the chase. 
 
 The duck encountered a dog, flew at him and 
 routed him. The field yelled vain encouragements 
 to the dog. 
 
 A pedestrian, coming from the opposite direction, 
 tried to head the duck off. It dodged skiKully : 
 he, too, swelled the hunt. 
 
 The duck, becoming scared, made for an open 
 shop door : the chase, seven or eight by this time, 
 felt sure now of their quarry ; but the foolish shop- 
 keeper drove it out again into the roadway. 
 
 A well-meaning woman in a first floor window 
 threw a bucket of water over it ; this had the effect 
 of thoroughly frightening it, so that it flew on to the 
 wall next the river. At this same moment the 
 crowd drew level, but it was obviously not an 
 occasion to attempt any haphazard snatching. 
 They formed a wary semi-circle with the duck in 
 the centre : one of them tried to coax it. 
 
 Step by step the semi-circle closed : the crowd 
 behind it became dense and speechless with excite- 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 175 
 
 ment. The duck's attempt at liberty was nearly 
 ended, though the manner in which it shifted its 
 anxious little eyes suggested that it, at least, was 
 ignorant of the fact. 
 
 The youth who had been baulked of his cherries 
 had his revenge. Quickly approaching through 
 the crowd, he pushed the man who was nearest the 
 duck. There was a roar of anger, a loud quacking, 
 a fury of feathers, and a row of disappointed heads 
 on the parapet watched the duck aUght in the water 
 below. 
 
 " A boat ! " cried someone. 
 
 There was a rush for a small boat moored to 
 some steps near-by ; but the duck was swimming 
 with the current and had made good progress by the 
 time a boat put off. 
 
 Meanwhile, the old woman, thoroughly exhausted 
 and despondent, sat on the kerb to regain her 
 breath and to listen to the latest bulletins from the 
 scene of the race. 
 
 " They're going well, mother. You'U have your 
 duck back soon. ..." 
 
 " Mon DieUy but they are hot. ..." 
 " Watch them, they're gaining. ..." 
 " But see, what's happened . . . ? " 
 " They've got their oar in the weeds. . . ." 
 " They've stopped . . . they can't get it 
 out. . . ." 
 
 " That's better. They're off again. . . ." 
 
 " Where's the duck ? . . ." 
 
 " There he is . . . right down there. . . ." 
 
 " What, near the bend of the river . . . ? " 
 
 " Yes, just reaching it. . . ." 
 
 " I say, they're a long time behind. . . ." 
 
 " But they won't be long now. ..." 
 
 " There he goes . . . round the bend. . . ." 
 
 " I don't see him." 
 
 " He's gone . . . they're just reaching it. . . ." 
 
178 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " There they go. . . ." 
 
 The old woman waited and waited. 
 
 There is no conclusion to this story. And I had 
 intended to write something really informative 
 about Saintes. 
 
 IV 
 
 As we sat in an indifferent little cafe in the Cours 
 Reverseaux, on the outskirts of the town, a figure 
 edged up behind us. 
 
 " I am moving on to-night," it said. 
 " Coming ? " 
 
 Our surly night companion needed no persuasion 
 to have a glass with us : he had been already lick- 
 ing his chops when he first spied us, and foresaw an 
 assuaging of thirst in his very invitation. 
 
 " Where are you going this time ? " I asked. 
 
 "Rochefort." 
 
 *' Why do you want us to come with you ? " 
 
 He shrugged. " Perhaps the road does not seem 
 so long," he repUed. 
 
 " I expect not — ^when you can find some fool 
 or other to push your confounded mailcart for you." 
 
 He grinned sheepishly, then winked. " I haven't 
 got it any more." 
 
 " So that it's just us three ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And how long do you propose to take over the 
 journey ? " 
 
 " Three nights, perhaps." 
 
 I looked at Helen and dropped into English. 
 " Well ? " I asked. 
 
 " Might as well be that as nothing," she answered. 
 Helen had not been favourably impressed by our 
 former experience of his company. 
 
 " We'll come with you to Rochefort but there's 
 one thing I want to explain first. We're putting 
 ourselves in a deUcate position. . . ." 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 177 
 
 The tramp's face lighted up. " So you've pro- 
 fited by my advice ? " 
 
 " Be quiet. I want you to understand we're 
 not thieves — ^we've never been able to get up 
 sufficient pluck even to pick a pocket." 
 
 *' Perhaps the right occasion has never come," 
 he interposed. 
 
 " So that you see if you should happen to be 
 caught while you're with us, we should find our- 
 selves in a very awkward pickle." 
 
 The tramp laid a finger cutely on his nose. " Never 
 fear," said he, " I don't give away pals — ^if they 
 don't give me away." 
 
 " It's a bargain ? " 
 
 *' Done. Let's drink to it." 
 
 He ordered more wine, drank jovially and left 
 me to pay for it. 
 
 We met Marcel — ^we discovered that to be the 
 most frequently adopted of his several names — on 
 the outskirts of the town at midnight and took 
 once more to the open road. Etienne, Rene, 
 Marcus — our various companions of the past few 
 months, were very close to me as we definitely added 
 Marcel to their number. But perhaps none of 
 them would have approved the strange " no-split- 
 ting " contract that had been made between us — 
 and I myself wondered exactly what I should do 
 if confronted by a pert gendarme with levelled 
 revolver. You may sometimes joke about a 
 sword, especially if it is big and heavy, but a 
 revolver is an uncomfortably humourless sort of 
 weapon. 
 
 Marcel was in high spirits and opened conversa- 
 tion by apologising for not paying for the after- 
 noon's drinks. 
 
 *'I ought to have done it," he said, "but the 
 fact of the matter was, I had buried my money- 
 box in a field and didn't want the whole world 
 
178 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 to know the whereabouts of my coffre-fort. One 
 has to use discretion." 
 
 " I suppose you left it there till your next visit 
 to Saintes ? " said Helen. 
 
 He grinned and slapped his ragged pocket. 
 " Would either or both of you like to get it from 
 me ? " he repHed. " I seldom go to the same 
 town twice. There are plenty places up and down 
 France, and I know them all — ^but it's a tiring life, 
 and I've had ten years of it." 
 
 " What made you take to it at first ? " I asked. 
 
 " A woman. Like the rest of them, she couldn't 
 take a joke." 
 
 " Oh ? " cried Helen, eager for the defence of 
 her sex. 
 
 " You might as well try to play with a hyena." 
 
 " What did she do, anyhow ? " I pursued. 
 
 " Laid in the gutter and screamed — ^it was all 
 she could do," continued Marcel. " I gave them a 
 run for their money, though, before they caught me 
 . . . that's what started me on this life. One soon 
 accumulates experience." 
 
 We were resting at the moment in a dense oak 
 wood, through whose trees the moon shone in tiny 
 rustUng patches. Suddenly an owl hooted. We all 
 three jumped to our feet. 
 
 " — and nerves," exclaimed Marcel irritably. 
 " What made you set me thinking ? " 
 
 " I'm going to stop outside Tailleburg," he said 
 when we resumed our walk, " there's something I 
 want to find out about that place. I may be there 
 for a day or two but I will let you know when and 
 where to meet me." 
 
 " But you said you were proposing to take only 
 three days to Rochefort ? " 
 
 " You may leave me if you want to," he repUed. 
 " But don't forget our bond stands. If not, you 
 know, there are plenty of people with Joiives." 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 179 
 
 " Which they may keep to themselves," said 
 Helen hmriedly. " We'll wait for you all right." 
 
 Marcel grunted. " Don't want to see either of 
 you in the town. What I want to do is . . . dity 
 done, what's that ? " 
 
 A gHmmer of light behind us showed our sil- 
 houettes unpleasantly plainly on the road. Marcel 
 motioned us to keep still, then cautiously looked 
 round. 
 
 " A motor," he said softly. " Into the hedge 
 with you." 
 
 We all three jumped down the bank and lay 
 low. The motor passed quickly along the road, its 
 headlights jerking beams of haphazard day into the 
 forest. When it was out of sight Marcel rose. 
 
 " It is always well to be careful," he remarked. 
 " We may go on now. Tailleburg is only two kilo- 
 metres away : in a short while I shall leave you. 
 Don't be fools in the time we are here, and keep your 
 stuff packed ready to move. I ask you both again 
 — don't be fools." 
 
 He was so earnest in his entreaty that his voice 
 still sounded in our ears when we had entered the 
 little town and were settling for a few hours' sleep. 
 
 On the second day at Tailleburg, the scene of an 
 English defeat by the French in 1242, we wandered 
 over the corn-covered district, through close Uttle 
 woods and over great fields of waist-high wheat, and 
 went to bed thoroughly tired. Our room was the best 
 the little country hotel had to offer — ^low-ceiling'd 
 and with small windows, stuffy at the best of times 
 and rendered more suffocating in this grilHng sum- 
 mer by being filled almost to bursting point with 
 faded rickety upholstered furniture. It was dis- 
 tinctly a room to have avoided, but hospitable as 
 were the village folk, they had no other to offer us. 
 
180 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 And I could not persuade Helen to sleep in the 
 fields. She said she felt thunder in the air. She 
 is a wise wife. We should have been drenched to 
 the skin. 
 
 We saw nothing of Marcel, but talked almost 
 incessantly of him. Helen enlarged on our risks 
 in being in his company at all ; I pointed out that 
 we should, in case of necessity, be able to give a 
 reasonable explanation — one that would satisfy 
 even a French gendarme — and that Marcel's bark 
 was, I suspected, a good deal worse than his bite. 
 I knew something of the EngUsh tramping frater- 
 nity, had found many of them distinctly companion- 
 able chaps beneath their unwashed hide, and was 
 able to place Marcel, with fair accuracy, as one 
 to whom petty theft and an occasional burglary 
 was the normal limit of crime. A criminal of 
 desperate character does not boast of his accom- 
 plishments — he is usually too much of an artist 
 for that. 
 
 With the approach of fatigue conversation 
 dropped, and it was a very weary couple who 
 betook themselves to the hideous room. Helen 
 threw wide the window — as narrowly wide as it 
 would go — and hurled most of the clothes from the 
 bed. Going to the door, she swung it violently 
 backwards and forwards, leaving it ajar. 
 
 " Now I feel I can breathe," she exclaimed. 
 
 We blew out the candle and lay for some time 
 as in an oven. 
 
 " Asleep ? " murmured Helen. 
 
 " I should have been if you hadn't spoken," 
 I retorted. 
 
 " Sorry," she replied and turned over. 
 
 Soon after, the persistent singing of a mosquito 
 round my head drove me to fury. 
 
 *' Damn the little beast," I snorted, making 
 violent grabs at the darkness. 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 181 
 
 " Do be quiet," exclaimed Helen. " You woke 
 me up." 
 
 " You're lucky to have been asleep at all," I 
 said savagely. 
 
 We lit the candle, caught the mosquito and re- 
 freshed ourselves with a breath of torpid air from 
 the window. Then, luckily, we both dropped off 
 to sleep. 
 
 It must have been a couple of hours later — ^the 
 moon had just risen — ^when Helen shook me. 
 
 " I think there's someone about," she whispered. 
 " Listen." 
 
 The creeper below our window rustled. The 
 " someone," whoever he might be, was evidently 
 counting on a houseful of heavy sleepers. 
 
 After a few minutes' silence there came the soft 
 opening of a door and a muffled footfall. Through 
 our door, which we had left ajar, we heard a deep 
 creak on the stairs. A long quiet followed. 
 
 Very slowly, above the stair tops, appeared a 
 crouched head. Something about the head made 
 me laugh to myself. 
 
 " What's the matter ? " whispered Helen 
 anxiously, as if she thought I had gone into hysterics. 
 
 " Marcel," I chuckled. " Keep quiet for Heaven's 
 sake, or you'll spoil the joke." 
 
 The man had reached the top of the stairs now, 
 and was cautiously looking round him. As I 
 suspected, he caught sight of the open window 
 through our door, and thinking it an easy " click," 
 made for us. We closed our eyes as if asleep until 
 he was inside the room. Helen pretended to grunt 
 uneasily. 
 
 Marcel turned as if he had been shot, and " froze." 
 In a few minutes he began to move again. 
 
 " Oh, go away," I murmured, as if talking in my 
 sleep. 
 
 Of course I could not see what happened, but there 
 
182 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 was a noise as of a chair falling. I " woke up " 
 and sat bolt upright in bed. I saw nothing — except 
 Marcel's foot sticking clumsily beyond the lower 
 comer of the bedpost. The foot looked painfully 
 nervous. 
 
 I pretended to hum and ha about having heard a 
 noise, then turned over on the side where I could 
 see the foot, and " went to sleep " again. It must 
 have been a quarter of an hour before Marcel moved 
 — ^I never imagined him other than cautious, but 
 this patience in a cramped position surprised me. 
 At last the foot was carefully withdrawn and his 
 ragged body slowly appeared at the end of the 
 bed. He looked at us narrowly but detected 
 nothing. When, however, he made for our knap- 
 sacks, knowing his particular theories of meum and 
 tuum, I thought it wise to open conversation. 
 
 " Good evening. Marcel," I said cheerfully. " Or 
 should it be good morning ? " 
 
 Marcel " froze " again : but I was " asleep." 
 Helen spoiled the game with a chuckle. 
 
 " Silence or I fire," he whispered savagely, wheel- 
 ing round and pointing a revolver at us. 
 
 " Do you think we are old women," I whispered 
 back. " Marcel, you silly fool, put that toy away." 
 
 " Who are you ? " he asked ; he was trembling. 
 
 " Two night-birds," replied Helen. 
 
 " Are you looking for some more stuff for us to 
 push ? " I enquired. 
 
 " You ! " he exclaimed. " Nom de Dieu, you gave 
 me a fright." 
 
 " Sorry I can't return the compliment," I re- 
 torted. " But, look here, this alters matters very 
 materially, you know. Perhaps you have not 
 heard of the English sajnng that there's honour 
 among thieves. If you try to burgle a friend it's 
 only tit-for-tat that the friend should tell what he 
 knows about you, eh ? " 
 
NIGHT-BIRDS 183 
 
 " You dare not," he answered in a voice in which 
 fear was uppermost. 
 
 " Men with knives, you mean ? " I asked jocularly. 
 
 " They are real," he said. 
 
 " As real as your revolver, with knives as sharp 
 as your wits." 
 
 " Besides, you don't know anything about me." 
 
 " Not much, perhaps, but enough to make a 
 very pretty story of rick-firing, blackmail and sabot- 
 age on railways — ^to say nothing of burglary and 
 pocket-picking. ' ' 
 
 '' Then there is only one way. ..." He took 
 a step towards the bed. 
 
 " You want me to raise the house ? " 
 
 Marcel stopped still and scratched his head. 
 " I've never been in such a mess," he ejaculated 
 ruefully. 
 
 " And you may thank your lucky stars you won't 
 be taken advantage of," I repHed. " We've got 
 the whip hand, and we'll show you how friends 
 ought to behave to one another." 
 
 " I swear it was a mistake," he said. 
 
 *' I don't believe even you would have been such 
 a fool on purpose," I continued. " Now, get out 
 of that window — quick — and I won't say anything 
 to anybody in Tailleburg." 
 
 " Where then ? " he asked anxiously. 
 
 " In England," I said. 
 
 He gave a sigh of relief, and cocked his leg over 
 the window sill. 
 
 *' We don't want to see you again." 
 
 " You won't," he replied, and scrambled down 
 into the night. 
 
 VI 
 
 Two mornings afterwards we entered Rochefort. 
 The first sight that greeted us was Marcel between 
 
184 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 a couple of gendarmes. His wink as we passed was 
 scarcely perceptible. 
 
 A friendly car gave us a lift as we passed the 
 Arsenal ; we were hot and tired and must have 
 moved pity even in the steel of a gun. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " asked the motorist. 
 
 " Anywhere,'* we answered. 
 
 " La RocheUe ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He drove like the fiend over the flat intervening 
 country and in an hour we were within the gates of 
 France's Dream City. 
 
XVT 
 
 JEAN-FRAN901S 
 
 The heart of La Rochelle is the harbour, and en- 
 closed within its towered entrance is a very riot 
 of colour and rich life. The rest of the town is 
 merely an amplification and an explanation of 
 the harbour — ^when you know what it has to show 
 you, you know La Rochelle — the town of dan- 
 gerous dreaming. Throughout its chequered history 
 it has dreamed dangerously either of religion or 
 of the sea, and though its harbour is now of small 
 importance, La Rochelle has not lived in vain. 
 Liberty owes much to its sons — and their strain 
 has not yet died out. 
 
 You see it every day round the harbour when the 
 moth-like fishing-boats, their coloured sails aglow 
 in the morning sun, come back from their nights 
 at sea. Stem, rough men and women — ^folk with 
 whom an impatient word means a blow, but who 
 will smile like children if only you will humour 
 them — disembark with their silver loads of fish and 
 spend the day lounging on the quay-side or clean- 
 ing their boats, silent usually, or indulging in rough 
 horseplay, never carelessly Hght-hearted, always 
 with the distant horizon before their eyes. 
 
 Or if on some voyages the women are left at home, 
 in the morning mother and baby come down to 
 meet daddy as he passes the two old towers guard- 
 ing the harbour mouth, and putting his helm hard 
 
186 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 to port, swings into the quay and makes fast. 
 There is no time lost then ; baby, Hght as a feather, 
 is swung into his arms, and mother is released for 
 an hour or two from her responsibility — ^for the 
 uncouth fishernum is the merriest, kindest, tenderest 
 daddy in the world for baby, who as an embryo 
 fisher must early become accustomed to the smell 
 of ships and the sea. Nearly every day daddy 
 plays with the child where that smell is strongest : 
 until one day Biscay flicks its tail, and one more 
 ship is casually posted as " not returned from 
 sea." 
 
 This had happened to httle Jean-Fran9ois only 
 a short time before he came into our lives. 
 
 *' Daddy says . . ." he commenced, and then he 
 stopped. It was so strange, as yet, to think of 
 Daddy in the past tense. Then he would toddle 
 from the Debit de Vin, held by his aunt, the good 
 widow Bobinec, across the wide street to the har- 
 bour and sit intently watching the varied tasks of 
 the fishermen. Perhaps he was wondering why, 
 when all these boats had come back. Daddy's 
 had not. 
 
 That was a question puzzling alike to sailors and 
 divines. Gustave Esperendieu, as his name tells 
 you, was of sturdy Huguenot descent — " You see ? " 
 murmur the CathoHcs — though his father had lapsed 
 from the Reformed Faith and had brought up his 
 son in the Catholic Church — " Just the reason," 
 sigh the Protestants. He was an excellent master 
 of his vessel, fearless and trustworthy — ^so fisher- 
 folk remain silent, having no concern with his soul, 
 conscious only that they have lost a staunch com- 
 rade. Perhaps theirs is the biggest loss of all. 
 
 Jean-Fran9ois, at least, can imagine no bigger. 
 Mother having already faded from his short memory. 
 Daddy occupied it all. Aunt Bobinec, though she 
 occasionally spoiled him, had, at other times, a 
 
JEAN-FRANgOIS 187 
 
 short way with naughty children — she was em- 
 phatically a person whose mental barometer must 
 be carefully watched. She wore, too, a spotless 
 white cap, full of elaborate lace, with two white 
 ribbons hanging down almost to her waist — ^these 
 ribbons were a source of endless temptation to 
 Jean-Frangois, but woebetide him if he as much as 
 approached them for sound punishment from her 
 strong arm — ^which made him howl again — ^was the 
 invariable reward. She was a nasty stuck-up beast 
 at such times, was Aunt Bobinec, but that mattered 
 little when Jean-Fran9ois could run away to sym- 
 pathetic Daddy. There was no Daddy now. . . . 
 
 Jean-Fran9ois Esperendieu, six though he was, 
 and proud of his age, could not sometimes restrain 
 a tear at his own loneliness. Why had Daddy 
 gone out that night . . . ? 
 
 *' What's the matter with you, my little man ? " 
 I asked, finding him lachrymose on the quay. 
 
 Two big liquid eyes looked up into mine ; but 
 there was no answer. 
 
 " Sais pas,^^ he murmured at last. 
 
 " That's a fine answer ! " I sat down on a seat 
 and took him on my knee, but the grubby little 
 urchin wriggled off and sat at my side. Then he 
 wiped his nose on his sleeve. 
 
 " Come, you feel better now," I exclaimed cheer- 
 fully. He looked at me with eyes full of reproach, 
 as if he did not appreciate this spirit of flippancy. 
 
 " I think I know what he'd like," said Helen. 
 Jean-Frangois turned to her in expectation. 
 
 " What's that ? " I asked. Jean-Fran9ois' eye- 
 brows began to rise and the suspicion of a smile 
 to appear in his wan little face. 
 
 " Ah ! " replied Helen mysteriously. There was 
 no holding him back. The lady meant to give 
 him something good, but what could it be ? Jean- 
 Fran9ois was itching to know. 
 
188 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Can't you guess ? " continued Helen. But he 
 could not. 
 
 " An ice." His eyes were sparkling now, and 
 as Helen returned from an ice-cream stall with a 
 big wafer in her hand the past was completely 
 driven out of Jean-Fran9ois' mind. Look what 
 the lady was going to give him ! — he had never 
 had such a big one before. 
 
 He gloated over it for some seconds, spilling a 
 portion on his smock and Hcking it off again, 
 regarding the enormous wafer in his hands with 
 incredulous amazement. Then he attacked it, 
 smearing it over his face, coughing with its cold, 
 enjoying himself immensely. 
 
 " Qu'aS'tu U 9 " asked a passing fisherman who 
 knew the child. 
 
 But Jean-Frangois just gurgled out an incom- 
 prehensible reply and continued to lick. 
 
 The wafer was nearly finished when a flutter of 
 dress, ribbons and white lace cap behind startled 
 him out of Paradise. 
 
 " ^/i, mem Dieu, que mange-t-il ? " 
 
 Jean-Frangois crammed the remainder of the 
 wafer into his mouth and sUd from the seat. 
 
 " I'm ready. Auntie," he said meekly. 
 
 " Where did you get it ? " asked Aunt Bobinec, 
 her worn face expressing a mock seriousness. 
 
 Jean-Frangois pointed to Helen. 
 
 Aunt Bobinec clucked her astonishment, winked 
 at Helen and then turned to the child. 
 
 " Thank the lady," she demanded. 
 
 Jean-Frangois remained still for a second, then 
 put his smeary face up to be kissed. " Merci, 
 M'damey'' he whispered. 
 
 " When will you come and see me again ? " 
 asked Helen. 
 
 He considered her seriously. 
 
JEAN-FRANgOIS 189 
 
 ** When you will buy me another ice," he replied, 
 his face full of memories. 
 
 But Aunt Bobinec had carried him away before 
 we could arrange a meeting. 
 
 II 
 
 Nevertheless, it was not difficult to meet Jean- 
 Fran9ois. You hung about the harbour, watch- 
 ing the blue, red, brown, yellow, green — all the 
 colours, in short— of the sails crowded in it, and 
 sooner or later he would trot serenely over from the 
 Debit and put his hand into yours. You knew it 
 at once from the fact that it was an unusually 
 sticky little hand for all Aunt Bobinec's attention. 
 " Ah well," she used to say, " perhaps getting 
 dirty is the greatest pleasure left to him, poor 
 mite." And then she would sigh for her lost 
 brother Gustave and wonder what would be best 
 for le pHit. Having no children of her own — 
 both had died — Jean-Fran9ois held her motherly 
 old heart with peculiar fierceness. Her entire Ufe, 
 emptied first of her children, then of her husband, 
 lastly of her brother, twined itself, gnarled and 
 sharp-edged as experience had made it, round the 
 Uttle bit of puzzling and puzzled humanity that was 
 her nephew. Yet so rapidly did her moods and 
 his chase each other across their respective tem- 
 peraments that there seemed scant hope of their 
 becoming the firm friends Widow Bobinec so 
 ardently desired. If Jean-Fran9ois were in playful 
 mood, his aunt would find herself preoccupied ; 
 if, on the other hand, she were disposed to make 
 much of him, he, mistaking it for teasing, would 
 retire into his shell, sulk, and bewail his loneliness. 
 It was a miniature tragedy into which we strayed 
 when Aunt Bobinec, thinking it would please Jean- 
 Fran9ois (and for once she was right), invited us to 
 lodge in the tiny bedroom above the Debit de Vins. 
 
190 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Madame can enter by the side door," she ex- 
 plained, " but I have known my customers all my 
 life — ^have grown up with them. Madame may find 
 them rough, but they take no advantages, and I 
 turn them out when they have had sufficient." 
 
 From our window we looked beyond the harbour 
 to the open sea, and when, one night, there was a 
 violent storm and Biscay seemed spHt by immense 
 sheets of incessant mauve lightning, Veuve Bobinec 
 came to us in depression after the Debit had closed 
 its doors. 
 
 " You will pardon my intruding ? " she'^inquired. 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " You see, it was on a night like this that Gustave 
 left port. Jean-Fran9ois knows it and is terrified 
 of storms " — ^the child slept in the next room — " I 
 like to be near him at such times in case he calls." 
 
 " He has been quiet enough so far," said Helen. 
 " If you are tired I will look after him." 
 
 The widow's eyes filled with tears. " It would 
 be kind of Madame," she said. " I wish I had 
 Madame's way with Jean-Fran9ois. She can make 
 him do anything she likes." 
 
 Helen comforted the poor soul and then led her 
 to her bedroom. Scarcely had she returned when 
 a little wail floated in from the next room. 
 
 " Daddy ! Where are you, daddy ? " it cried. 
 
 Helen went to console the kiddy. She found him 
 sitting bolt upright in bed, clutching the blanket 
 with both hands, and whimpering softly to himself. 
 As she opened the door he gave a little cry. 
 
 " Daddy ! " 
 
 Helen could not bring herself to reply, but clasped 
 him in her arms, walking him thus about the 
 room. 
 
 " I'm so frightened." 
 
 " Nothing will harm you, mon pHit,^ soothed 
 Helen. She sat on the bed with him as he snuggled 
 
JEAN-FRANgOIS 191 
 
 down. Just as she thought him asleep he started 
 up, nearly throwing himself out of her arms. 
 
 " Where's my daddy ? " he exclaimed. 
 
 Then the frightened look she had seen before 
 crept into his eyes. 
 
 " Aimtie says I shan't see him any more. Is 
 that right ? " 
 
 Helen brought him into our room, where, by 
 candle-Hght, we kept him in some fashion amused till 
 the storm abated. 
 
 Then she put him into his own bed. " I love you," 
 he said, kissing her ; and was asleep at once. 
 
 The next morning Aunt Bobinec seemed per- 
 plexed. 
 
 " What am I to do ? " she said. " Some cousins 
 of his in Nantes want Jean-Frangois to stay with 
 them for a time. I should Hke the child to go, but 
 don't see how I can possibly take him. C^est 
 emh^tant, rCest-ce pas ? " 
 
 " Does the boy know anything about it ? " 
 
 " Not yet. I am loth to disappoint him, but I 
 can't leave the Debit. Business is not done like that." 
 
 " I'm afraid I can't offer to look after it for you," 
 I said. 
 
 " No, but we might take him," suggested Helen. 
 
 But Aimt Bobinec would have none of it. ' ' Some 
 friends may soon be going to Nantes," she said, 
 " and they will take him for me." 
 
 " You know of someone, then ? " 
 
 " Not at the moment. But I can keep my ears 
 open." 
 
 " Look here," I said. " Let Jean-Frangois him- 
 seM decide whether he shall come with us or stay 
 with you until a friend goes to Nantes." 
 
 The widow acquiesced reluctantly. But not 
 until I saw him put his arm round Helen's neck, 
 and a sigh almost of jealousy escape from Aunt 
 Bobinec did I reaUse that I had been cruel. 
 
192 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 III 
 
 A FEW days later, some three-quarters of an hour 
 before the train for Nantes was due to leave, we 
 stood, a happy party, upon the platform of the 
 station. The merry harbour flashed its bright 
 colours through the broken panes of railway glass 
 while a sizzling heat rose from the metal and as- 
 phalt within the dome. We perspired profusely 
 — ^Aunt Bobinec's cap, donned specially for the 
 leave-taking, threatened to become limp, and Jean- 
 Fran9ois' collar, very neat beneath his black smock, 
 was already beginning to wilt. It was much too 
 hot to talk and only irrepressible youth showed 
 the slightest sign of liveliness. As the minutes 
 dragged on, even he quietened and at last slunk 
 into a deserted corner. 
 
 We had gazed at each other from beneath moist 
 brows until it seemed as if the train would never 
 arrive, when we were startled by a distant whimper. 
 At first we Hstened with indifferent curiosity until 
 Aunt Bobinec suddenly exclaimed : " Where's Jean- 
 Fran9ois ? " 
 
 We looked round in vain : the whimper grew into 
 a roar of agony. Jean-Fran9ois, posted as missing, 
 danced vehemently round a fat man with a curly 
 beard, holding something big and brown in his hand. 
 Aunt Bobinec bore down on him majestically. 
 
 " Where did you get that ? " Aunt Bobinec's 
 sight was occasionally at fault. 
 
 " Didn't get it," howled Jean-Fran9ois. 
 
 " Don't tell lies, little nephew. How did you 
 come by it ? " 
 
 '' It^it grabbed me." 
 
 Aunt Bobinec opened her eyes wide at this. 
 *' What in the world has the child got ? " she ex- 
 claimed. 
 
JEAN-FRANgOIS 193 
 
 *' Let me rid him of it," said the fat man in an 
 oily voice. He bent down to the child and began 
 vigorous manipulations with bony fingers. In a 
 minute he was puffing like a grampus : then, rising, 
 curled his beard fiercely. 
 
 " Mon DieUy but it is a tenacious beast." 
 
 By this time Jean-Fran9ois' howls were resound- 
 ing through the dome of the station Hke forty 
 engines all screaming together. 
 
 " I only put my finger in the basket," he yelled. 
 
 A kindly porter tried his hand at removing the 
 crab ; then the fat man had another bout with it. 
 A third man came up, and taking Jean-Pran^ois 
 on his knee, tried by some mysterious method 
 to remove it with his teeth: it was quite easy, 
 he explained, if only you got the right grip. 
 
 Suddenly, just as all three men were arguing 
 vociferously with Aunt Bobinec as to how it should 
 be removed, the little crowd was scattered by the 
 owner of the intruder — a buxom woman who 
 dexterously twisted it from Jean-Frangois' finger, 
 leaving him to suck the injured part vigorously. 
 
 " You ought to keep the Hd shut," remonstrated 
 Aunt Bobinec. 
 
 " If you looked after your child properly there'd 
 be no need to," retorted the woman. "The crab 
 didn't run after him, I suppose ? " 
 
 Further discussion was mercifully cut short by 
 the arrival of the train. The leave-takings were 
 conducted with due ceremony. We left stern Aunt 
 Bobinec wiping her eyes, settled Jean-Francois, 
 who had been somewhat rueful since his adven- 
 ture, into a corner and prepared for a tolerable 
 journey. Jean-Fran9ois, however, beneath his rue- 
 fulness had decided otherwise. 
 
 We had scarcely left La Rochelle when he became 
 irritatingly attracted by the flies in the compart- 
 ment. Had this been empty, chasing them might 
 
IW AMONG FRENCH POLK 
 
 have been looked upon as a comparatively harmless 
 amusement, but with every seat occupied — and on 
 a hot day travellers' tempers are short — unfriendly 
 giiances were soon cast at us. 
 
 " Be quiet, dear," remonstrated Helen. 
 
 Jean-Frangois apparently mistook this for some 
 aubtle form of joke, for he gurgled his appreciation 
 and redoubled his efforts. Half a dozen dead flies 
 soon littered the floor. 
 
 " If you don't stop I shan't give you any 
 
 There was no joke about a remark like that. 
 Jean-Fran9ois subsided into a corner. 
 
 Helen had just remarked to me, some time later, 
 that he was really a very well-behaved child, when 
 a window-bUnd in the next compartment to ours 
 flapping outside the train attracted his attention. 
 In a trice he was standing on the seat, leaning as 
 far out of the open window as he could. A motherly 
 cfld soul next to him grabbed his legs and pulled 
 him down again. 
 
 " What did she want to do that f or ? " said Jean- 
 Pran9ois. 
 
 " To stop you from falUng out," Helen told him 
 severely. " You mustn't do that again." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Because I say so." 
 
 " Does she say so too ? " — vindicating the motherly 
 old soul. 
 
 She nodded. 
 
 " Then I shall " — Jean Frangois, however, was 
 not quick enough : both Helen and the M.O.S. had 
 him fast. He commenced to kick. 
 
 " You're a nasty fat woman," he exclaimed 
 to the M.O.S. 
 
 Although Helen, in her calmer moments, argues 
 against corporal punishment, Jean-Frangois will not 
 soon forget the slap he received. 
 
JEAN-FRANgOIS 195 
 
 " A nasty " he repeated, but got no further. 
 
 He began to howl. 
 
 A pleasant-looking soldier in the opposite corner, 
 who having, as he informed us, three of his own 
 under six, knew all about children, pacified Jean- 
 Fran9ois with strange head-gears made out of an 
 old newspaper ; and after a time food reduced 
 him to absolute docility. He sat, a bloated little 
 figure, gazing abstractedly out of the window. 
 While, as far as could be seen, in the same position, 
 he commenced to giggle. 
 
 " Look at that man's eyebrows," he exclaimed. 
 
 We looked in vain in the direction in which he 
 pointed. 
 
 " Oh, do look how he moves them up and 
 down ! " 
 
 Still we could see nothing. Jean-Fran9ois became 
 convulsed. 
 
 " What a funny man ! " he shrieked. 
 
 The motherly old soul began to giggle too, and 
 then, severely repressing it, tickled Jean-Fran9ois' 
 bare knee to distract his attention. The only 
 effect of this was to make him turn towards the 
 compartment, and pointing a chubby finger at the 
 peissenger next to me, to peal again with merri- 
 ment. The passenger, a nervous, middle-aged man 
 with rapidly moving eyebrows, rose abruptly and 
 went into the corridor. 
 
 " You're a very naughty boy," I said sternly. 
 
 " But wasn't he funny I " 
 
 Then curiosity got the better of me. " How could 
 you see ? " I asked. 
 
 " In the window." 
 
 I was left to reflect on reflections. 
 
 There followed, after this, another interval of 
 blessed peace, broken by the boy turning to Helen 
 and remarking : 
 
 " Are you really married ? " 
 
196 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Of course," said Helen. 
 
 " Aunt Bobinec didn't think so." 
 
 " Oh ? " 
 
 " No. I heard her telling Pierre one day." 
 
 " Well, you shouldn't repeat things you hear." 
 
 " But she said . . ." 
 
 " I don't want to know what she said, Jean- 
 Fran9ois." This was heroic on Helen's part. 
 
 " How was she to know you were married ? " 
 
 " This is my wedding-ring." Jean-Fran9ois 
 examined it minutely. 
 
 " Anyone could wear that," he repHed with ill 
 disguised contempt. 
 
 " Oh no, they can't." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 Rather than be led into a long moral argument 
 which would have left Jean-Frangois still un- 
 convinced, Helen told him to look out of the window. 
 When he had again grown tired of kiUing flies, he 
 resumed : 
 
 " I say, when you're married, do you have 
 babies ? " 
 
 Helen nodded. 
 
 " Have you got any ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Oh, lots and lots of reasons." 
 
 " But could you have babies if you wanted them ? " 
 
 " Of course." 
 
 " Then why don't you ? " 
 
 *' Look out of the window, there's a good boy." 
 
 But Jean-Fran9ois was not satisfied. 
 
 " Are you going to . . . ? " 
 
 *' I don't know. Now be good." 
 
 " But can't you tell . . . ? " 
 
 " Here are some pictures in the paper. Look 
 at this one. It is . . ." 
 
 But can't you tell . . . ? " 
 
 cc 
 
JEAN-FRANQOIS 197 
 
 It was an actual relief when Jean-Fran9ois sud- 
 denly turned a tragic face to Helen. 
 
 " I do feel bad," he said. 
 
 " Go into the corridor for a while," I suggested. 
 " I'll come with you." A contemptuous grunt 
 was my only answer. 
 
 *' Lie down on the seat then," said Helen. 
 
 " Don't want to." 
 
 The soldier came nobly to the rescue. 
 
 " Here's a hat you haven't seen yet." 
 
 " Silly ! " 
 
 The motherly old soul added her quota. 
 
 " Lean up against me, mon enfanV^ 
 
 There was a positive snort of disgust from 
 Jean-Fran9ois. For the second time he stood up 
 on the seat, with his head out of the window ; then 
 sat down again, green but relieved. 
 
 " How ill the child makes me feel," groaned a 
 young woman, putting her handkerchief to her 
 mouth and fanning herself with the other hand. 
 " You ought to look after him." 
 
 " I'm sorry," said Helen. " Is there anything 
 I can do ? " 
 
 " Don't talk," replied the young woman faintly, 
 and leant against the soldier. 
 
 Soon there was a gentle snoring. She and Jean- 
 Frangois had both fallen asleep. 
 
 I looked at Helen and mopped my brow. 
 
 " It's worth it, all the same," she said. 
 
 I knew what she meant. 
 
 IV 
 
 Jban-Fran90Is' cousins had promised to meet us 
 at the station ; but though we hunted high and low 
 we remained hke unclaimed luggage in the big 
 central hall. The recognition would, of course, 
 have to be on their side, as Jean-Frangois remem- 
 bered them but little ; so I hoisted him up on to my 
 
198 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 shoulder to render him as conspicuous as possible. 
 His only idea was that I was giving him a " joy 
 ride." 
 
 " Now let's go back again," he jerked out, as I 
 walked him the entire length of the platform — and 
 Nantes is a fairly long station. 
 
 For reasons of my own, I compUed. 
 
 " Just once more," he pleaded. 
 
 " But you're a heavy boy," I expostulated. He 
 grunted incredulously. 
 
 " I'm going to carry you back to the central hall, 
 and if we don't meet your cousins there, we shall 
 have to hold a council of war." 
 
 " What's that ? " 
 
 " Well, we shall have to talk matters over.'* 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " To find out what to do next. Do you know 
 where your cousins Uve ? " 
 
 Jean-Fran9ois shook his head cheerfully. " Give 
 me another ride," he commanded. 
 
 I took him back into the hall, where Helen was 
 waiting with the luggage, deposited him on top of 
 our packs and began to discuss the situation. 
 
 " We none of us know where they hve," I said, 
 " and Nantes is a pretty big town to begin a house- 
 to-house search in." 
 
 "Why not look in a directory?" suggested the 
 practical Helen. 
 
 " Good for you," I replied in mock seriousness. 
 "We'U look for one." 
 
 " What are you talking about ? " interrupted 
 Jean-Frangois. 
 
 " Seeing where we can find your cousins." 
 
 " Don't much want to find them," he answered 
 casually. He was enjoying himseK immensely 
 with my stick. 
 
 " So you don't want anywhere to sleep to-night ? " 
 I asked. 
 
JEAN-FRANgOIS 199 
 
 This aspect of the question hadn't struck him, 
 but after a short consideration he grinned. " I 
 shall have to stop with you," he said jubilantly. 
 
 " But we haven't got anywhere to sleep either." 
 
 He looked at us in amazement. 
 
 *' Dii donCy^ he exclaimed, and began to chew over 
 to himself this remarkable fact. 
 
 Helen, who had consulted a directory in a cafe 
 opposite the station, came back wiping her mouth. 
 
 " There's no Dousseaux in the book at all " 
 
 she began. 
 
 " Nice little cafe, wasn't it ? " I interposed 
 jealously. She nodded. 
 
 *' We haven't got time to talk about that,'* she 
 answered, giving her mouth a final dab, " we've 
 got to look after the child. Just go up to a police- 
 man and ask whether he knows anybody of the 
 name of Dousseaux." 
 
 " It's a hundred to one he doesn't," I grumbled. 
 But I went, all the same. The policeman stared at 
 me as if I had asked something improper, shifted 
 his revolver, scratched his leg, wiped his forehead 
 with his sleeve, took out a note-book and eyed me 
 suspiciously. 
 
 " Who is it you want ? " he inquired. 
 
 *' Dousseaux." 
 
 «« Of ? " 
 
 *' That's exactly what I want to find out." 
 
 *' Then I'm afraid I can't tell you. Ask higher 
 up." 
 
 I was just returning to the station when he shouted 
 after me : " Not that way. Higher up, I said." 
 
 " But I was just going . . ." 
 
 " The other way." 
 
 "... back to the station. . . ." 
 
 " You're going in the wrong direction." 
 
 It was of no use continuing the conversation. 
 I took off my hat, and saw him out of the corner 
 
200 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 of my eye shrug his shoulders as if to say that all 
 the English he'd ever met were fools. 
 
 He looked more astonished than ever, and not a 
 little suspicious also, when the two of us, laden 
 with knapsacks and Jean-Fran9ois, emerged from 
 the station. It was my impression that he pulled 
 out his note-book again, or some sort of manual of 
 instructions, and began to write laboriously and at 
 length. We left him still writing. 
 
 We inquired of three more poUcemen after that 
 with as useful results. Jean-Fran9ois was getting 
 tired, my own temper was shortening. Only Helen 
 remained serene. 
 
 " I'll ask in this grocer's," she said. 
 
 " It's like looking for a couple of needles in a 
 haystack," I rephed. " I'll give those cousins 
 a piece of my mind when we do find them." 
 
 Helen, however, had entered the shop and had left 
 me standing impatiently on the crowded pavement. 
 
 I was gazing abstractedly at some chimney-pots 
 in the distance and thinking how finely their smoky 
 redness blended with the blue-greys of the Cathe- 
 dral near to them, when a young woman came to 
 a standstill opposite me and stared disconcertingly 
 in my direction. I became suddenly aware that 
 Jean-Francois was missing. 
 
 " Jean-Francois," I called. 
 
 To my utter horror, the young woman broke into 
 a joyful smile. " At last I have found you," she 
 exclaimed, and seized both my hands. 
 
 The whole of my past rose at a single leap before 
 me : I sorted it out hurriedly but found no corner 
 into which the buxom wench could possibly fit. 
 
 " I think M'selle has made a mistake." 
 
 " But no." She wouldn't leave go of my hands, 
 confound her. One or two men stared as they 
 passed, and Helen might come out of the shop at 
 any moment. 
 
JEAN-FRANgOIS 201 
 
 " May I ask then . . . ? " 
 
 " I am Suzanne Dousseaux, Jean-Fran9ois' 
 cousin." 
 
 If Helen had remained inside a little longer I 
 should have kissed Madame Dousseaux out of 
 sheer gratitude. But she emerged. 
 
 " I think I have got on the tracks of " 
 
 "Too late. This is the lady." 
 
 Jean-Fran9ois was looking shyly on at all this. 
 Now he hlurted out : 
 
 " Shan't I come with you any more ? " 
 
 " We'll take you to your cousin's if she'll let us," 
 said Helen. 
 
 " With pleasure," said Madame Dousseaux cor- 
 dially. " Though Madame must not expect to 
 find much in our manage. You see," she added, 
 blushing, " Emile and I have only been married 
 about a month." 
 
 We found the Dousseaux Hving in the second storey 
 of the roof of a six-storey house in a narrow roadway 
 leading from the Place Graslin. Their two rooms 
 were barely furnished — a bed, a table, a wash- 
 basin, and a looking-glass were the only pieces in 
 the bedroom beside a large shallow box on two 
 chairs made up with straw mattress and bed- 
 clothes — " for Jean-Fran9ois," Suzanne explained. 
 Emile, who had just come home after a long day's 
 work at the State tobacco factory, was tired and in 
 little mood for conversation. He could only let 
 his eyes follow the movements of his wife. 
 
 " Were you ever in Paris ? " asked Helen suddenly. 
 
 " We are both Parisian," Emile answered. " But 
 one must go where work calls. There is little enough 
 at the moment." 
 
 Helen glanced over to me. " Do you remember ? " 
 she asked. I shook my head. Helen went to a 
 tiny black-cat charm hanging from the mantel- 
 piece. 
 
202 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " Why do you keep this ? " she asked innocently. 
 
 Emile laughed lightly, and modestly recounted — 
 our Parisian love scene ! 
 
 " You've got a jolly good memory," I congratu- 
 lated Helen. 
 
 " Because my heart's bigger than my head," she 
 replied. 
 
 We shared the Dousseaux' evening soup : Jean 
 Pran9ois had been put to bed. 
 
 Then Helen glanced over to me with a troubled 
 countenance. 
 
 "It's time we left," she said. 
 
 When we were again in the roadway she clutched 
 my arm. 
 
 " My dear," she sobbed, " the place is alive. 
 They're all over me. And I was so happy having 
 tumbled back into romance." 
 
 " I wonder whether all romance is as flea-bitten 
 as the west coast of France," I repUed. " What 
 shall we do now ? " 
 
 " We can't stop in this town the night. I should 
 feel creepy all over for ever." 
 
 So, without as much as a good-bye to Jean- 
 Frangois, we fled from Nantes. But Jean-Fran9ois 
 still receives post-cards from us, and only the other 
 day we had one from him in childish hand : " «/€ 
 vous aimey Madame,^ ^ 
 
XVII 
 
 ONIONS 
 
 You wiU have gathered by this time something of 
 our opinion of the West Coast of France : these 
 sketches form a rough sort of diary written while 
 impressions were still vivid. If you find large 
 blanks in the narrative or consider the subjects 
 trivial you may be able to deduce it the more 
 accurately. It is as I described it to Helen on 
 the last page. But when the train steamed north- 
 ward out of Nantes station our hearts lifted once 
 more. 
 
 The very name of Brittany has magic in it. Her 
 menfolk at Verdun forced from the Germans the 
 reluctant admission " What could we do ? The 
 Bretons barred our way." The finest sailors of 
 the French fleet and the sturdiest fishers of her 
 coasts are Bretons. Breton women are the back- 
 bone of her agriculture, splendid wives and mothers, 
 filled with the natural refinement of the sea and 
 the fields, and simple enough not to know it. Thun- 
 derwater, which had so far proved as arid as the 
 sands it fell upon, was now coming to its own. 
 
 II 
 
 The smell of onions will always recall to my mind 
 the picture of a wizened, watery-eyed man (how 
 could he be other than watery-eyed in such an 
 atmosphere ?) sitting for hours at a stretch in a 
 
204 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 subterranean shop in Vannes. String upon string 
 of onions hang from the roof, and still the old man 
 makes up fresh strings by some process best known 
 to himself, diving his left hand deep into a barrel at 
 his side and working his right convulsively while 
 the lengthening string drops from it to the floor, 
 then coils round itself, looking like a snake that 
 has eaten tennis-balls. When it has reached the 
 required length, he hobbles to a chair placed 
 perilously in the centre of the shop, mounts it 
 with many groans and hangs the new string from 
 the beam. Then he returns to his seat in the 
 corner and commences afresh. 
 
 Nobody would have taken Melan le Rousic for 
 a fairly well-to-do man or for the father of a re- 
 markably handsome daughter. Yet he was both ; 
 but the loss of a fortune in his middle age had 
 accentuated a certain capriciousness of tempera- 
 ment and now in his decline, his mind had become 
 feeble. Onions were his passion : he asked for 
 nothing more than to be allowed to string them per- 
 petually and to serve such indulgent customers 
 as came in for small purchases of dried vegetables. 
 He was well known to the fishermen who use Vannes 
 as a provisioning centre and to the farmers of the 
 surrounding district, and since he, or his daughter 
 rather, opened the shop nearly twenty years ago, 
 economical management had more than put them on 
 their feet again. The shop could have been shut 
 to-morrow; but where else could Melan le Rousic 
 have lived so peacefully in the midst of his beloved 
 onions ? 
 
 So to obtain society and companionship — ^for she 
 could not often leave her father — ^Marie-Therese 
 le Rousic began to take in lodgers. For practical 
 purposes the shop was safe in her father's hands — 
 all, of course, except the balancing of books and the 
 ordering of fresh stock — and when she had tidied 
 
ONIONS 205 
 
 the house till it looked perpetually as though it 
 had just emerged from a spring cleaning, she found 
 time pass slowly. To interfere with her father's 
 little foibles was more than she dared do ; being 
 reserved with strangers, she made few new friends ; 
 none of her kind read (that was waste of time) ; but 
 she felt that lodgers might pleasantly fill up the 
 hours between the sewing and the house-work. 
 
 " Do you want onions ? " growled Melan, when we 
 first entered the dingy little shop. 
 
 " No," I said. 
 
 He grunted. " What is it then ? " 
 
 " We want a room, if you have one to spare." 
 
 " Haven't one. Take some onions instead. They 
 are the best — and cheap. Look at this string, 
 only " 
 
 Marie-Therese entered the shop, filling it com- 
 pletely with her white lace cap, full sleeves, and 
 elaborate apron. 
 
 " Sit down, father," she commanded. 
 
 " But they want onions," whined the old man. 
 
 " No they don't." 
 
 " I thought they did " — and he fell once more to 
 forging another link in his endless onion-chain. 
 
 Marie-Th^rtee led us upstairs to the spotless room 
 before she said : 
 
 " You mustn't mind my father. Let him talk 
 to you if he wishes — it'll only be about onions and 
 he soon tires." 
 
 It was the next day when Melan, having become 
 more or less accustomed to us in his house, un- 
 bosomed himself. He clutched my sleeve con- 
 vulsively and gibbered with such dehght that his 
 watery eyes overflowed down his cheeks as he led 
 me into the shop. 
 
 " Look, look, look," he chattered excitedly, " two 
 metres of onions, all for Pezannec who ordered 
 them from me. Two metres ! You don't know 
 
206 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 P^zannec, do you ? A fine fellow who owns his 
 own boat and who always comes to me for his 
 onions. He says I give him best value for money. 
 He is a great friend of mine, is Pezannec, one of my 
 best customers, very fond of onions." 
 
 He motioned me to the chair in the centre of the 
 shop. 
 
 " P6zannec says," he continued, " that one of 
 these days I shall have to plait him some sails of 
 onions for his boat. I told you he was a fine fellow, 
 didn't I ? Well, you mustn't tell anybody, but 
 I've begun. Look in that corner over there — the 
 one behind you. You think they're only a heap of 
 onions, don't you ? Now feel of them." 
 
 The apparent heap was, in truth, an enormous 
 web, as closely woven as the onions would allow, 
 and tremendously heavy. I must have involuntarily 
 expressed some pathetic amusement, for Melan 
 doubled himself up with senile laughter. 
 
 " It's a good joke, isn't it ? " he chuckled. " But 
 you mustn't tell Pezannec on any account. He 
 will be so pleased when he comes to order the sails 
 and finds they're already done for him — all of 
 
 onions. I shall hand them to him like this " 
 
 and he struck a pompous attitude ; then wagged 
 an admonishing finger at me. " You won't tell 
 him ? Now promise me." 
 
 The name of Pezannec entered so much into this 
 and subsequent conversations with Melan that I 
 was moved to ask Marie-Therese who he was. Her 
 eyes filled with tears. 
 
 " The best fellow in the world," she replied. 
 
 It seemed that when Melan, before the loss of 
 his money in a fraudulent company, had owned 
 several boats and was on the way to being the 
 master of a large fleet, Pezannec, then a youth, 
 had occupied a junior position in his smallest vessel. 
 After the crash, the boats were sold and the crews 
 
ONIONS 207 
 
 scattered : many families left the town to try their 
 fortunes in other ports, and among them young 
 Pezannec. It was not until five years ago that he 
 returned and in his own boat. 
 
 " He came into the shop one day," said Marie- 
 Th^rese, " and saw my father at his onions. 
 
 " 'You may not remember me, Monsieur,' he 
 began, but my father interrupted him : 
 
 " ' Do you want any onions ? ' 
 
 " A queer expression came into Pezannec's eyes. 
 He looked round the shop, then, seizing two great 
 armfuls, he said : ' Yes, I'll have these.' 
 
 " My father almost cried for joy, for it was the 
 biggest sale he had ever made — ^two large armfuls 
 all at once. And when, a few days later, Pezannec 
 came again into the shop, I found my father on his 
 knees thanking him and telUng him that he had 
 made life worth living for a broken old man. Since 
 then, Pezannec has never ceased to make regular 
 purchases and he and my father are, as you have 
 heard, on the best of terms. But my father does 
 not know who Pezannec is, and I cannot, for the life 
 of me, imagine what Pezannec does with all the 
 onions he buys." 
 
 I had only one glimpse of " the best fellow in the 
 world." He was standing over Melan, examining 
 the two-metre string. 
 
 " A fine piece of work," I heard him say. " You 
 ought to be proud of it." 
 
 " But it is for you," argued Melan. " You ordered 
 it, you know." 
 
 " Dame, oui, I had forgotten." Pezannec went on 
 scratching his head, however, as if his memory were 
 still playing him false. 
 
 At that moment Melan caught sight of us as we 
 passed through the shop. 
 
 " Good friends should know one another," he cried. 
 " Let us introduce over the health-giving onions." 
 
208 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Pezannec smiled, and entered into easy conversa- 
 tion which Melan followed with little hoots, chuckles, 
 sighs and clapping of hands. 
 
 " But perhaps I ought to explain myself," said 
 Pezannec suddenly. 
 
 " There is no need," I replied. " Your light has 
 not been under a bushel as far as we are concerned." 
 
 " He was the best employer imaginable," — ^with a 
 nod at Melan. "It is sad, such an ending. One 
 is able to help sometimes in odd ways." 
 
 He laughed nervously, and then, as if he were 
 making a tremendous confession : 
 
 " Do you know that since I have taken to eating 
 quantities of onions I have been twice as healthy." 
 
 As we aU laughed Marie-Therese passed through 
 the shop into the house. Pezannec's eyes lingered 
 after the door was closed. 
 
 " There goes a fine woman," he exclaimed. 
 " What a wife, what a mother ! " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, and with a smile and 
 a bow went to the door. 
 
 " But you have forgotten the onions," cried Melan 
 wildly. 
 
 " Mon Dieu, my memory is a sieve." Pezannec 
 looped the long onion chain over his arm. As he 
 reached the door Marie- Therese's voice was heard 
 singing to herseK. 
 
 " She is very happy, thank God," said Pezannec, 
 and wiped away a certain moisture which had 
 accumulated in his eye. 
 
 " Don't look so tragic," he cried to Helen as he 
 closed the door. "It's only these accursed onions ! 
 
 m 
 
 Marie-Therese de Rousic was an ardent upholder 
 of Breton tradition : it was her pride that her 
 costume was among the finest in Vannes. But she 
 was by no means gratified when some English or 
 
ONIONS 209 
 
 American tourist, scenting photographic prey, would 
 turn his camera on her : as often as not she would 
 wheel in the opposite direction, or holding her nose 
 high in the air, brush past him as one brushes past 
 a pariah dog. She had refused time and again to 
 sit to artists — her portrait might have been in some 
 of the big galleries of Europe. A solitary photo- 
 graph over the living-room mantelpiece com- 
 memorated her beauty. That photograph was a 
 thing to marvel at. 
 
 For while the face of Breton women in youth and 
 middle-age tends to excessive simplicity, that of 
 Marie-Th^rese showed finely tempered strength. 
 Here, one felt, was a woman who, from experience, 
 knew something of the meaning of life, yet, from 
 lack of introspection, was herself unconscious of the 
 knowledge. She had the habit of taking things 
 happily as they came, neither forcing events nor 
 being forced by them, superior to the surface cur- 
 rents of life, hardly aware of its ground swell, 
 shaping her own course almost intuitively through 
 both towards some spot as yet beyond the horizon. 
 Her daily duties and her daily pleasures filled her 
 mind, leaving little space for vanities — always 
 excepting her Breton costume. 
 
 That was a passion with her. To keep it sans 
 reproche occupied most of her leisure during the 
 week : every Sunday it appeared, if possible, more 
 resplendent than on the last, for in the week some- 
 thing would have been done to renovate or wash or 
 iron the already dazzHng apparel. From the bot- 
 tom of her heavily embroidered apron to the top- 
 most pinnacle of her lace cap, she was a sight to 
 make a Breton thrill with national pride. Her 
 heavy velvet skirt clasped so wasp-Uke a waist, her 
 sleeves were so very full, her cap was so remark- 
 able an example of the needlewoman's art, that mere 
 man could not tell you half her glories — unless he 
 
210 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 were in love with her. Even Pezannec, whose love 
 was hampered only by a feeling of the difference in 
 their social status — for had not her father been his 
 employer ? — could but roll up his eyes and emit a 
 long, low whistle when I asked him to describe her 
 dress to me as it should be fittingly described. To 
 Helen, however, Marie-Th^r^e herself was more 
 communicative. 
 
 " As for girls who give up wearing their dresses," 
 she told Helen, " I look upon them as traitors. I 
 know we are all French now, and I am proud of 
 that, but the Breton blood runs even deeper. We 
 are Bretons first. We have kept our native tongue 
 but that, as well as the dress, is becoming out of 
 date. Both are thought old-fashioned, and girls 
 wear the foolish Parisian modes which change every 
 few months and which don't suit them, bien entendu. 
 This dress, I know, cost fifteen hundred francs 
 and that is a lot of money. But the young girls 
 will spend even more if they try to keep up with 
 Paris. And they will not be Bretons — ^that, 
 Madame, is the pity." 
 
 It was an unusual concession on Marie-Thertee's 
 part to allow Helen to put on her costume : Helen 
 was more pleased with the experience than with the 
 comfort of the dress. 
 
 " It was simply unbearably hot," she said to me 
 afterwards. " I had to hold my breath as hard as 
 I could while it was being adjusted, and it was quite 
 difficult to push the skirt in front of me when I 
 walked. The neck was tight and close and I was 
 always in terror of the cap. No, my dear, the 
 Breton costume may be suitable for the Bretons, 
 but give me reasonable fashions, even if they do 
 cost more money." 
 
 Pezannec, too, indulged in Breton dress on Sun- 
 days and feast-days — his broad-brimmed hat with 
 two velvet streamers and velvet facings to his 
 
ONIONS 211 
 
 short jacket had become, however, a trifle the worse 
 for wear. He wore them rather sheepishly. 
 
 " I'm not certain that they're quite right nowa- 
 days," he replied to a question of mine, " except for 
 peasants. I'm a sailor, you see, and one wears a 
 sweater and a close-fitting cap with greater comfort. 
 Besides, we're French, after all, so what's the object 
 in trying to pretend we're something different ? " 
 
 " Marie-Therese would call that heresy," I sug- 
 gested. He shrugged. 
 
 " I know it. But Marie-Therese, you see — she's 
 missed so much one can forgive her foibles. She's 
 her own little world and rejects everjrfching that 
 doesn't fit in with it. I don't suppose she's 
 been outside Brittany in her life. But these fancy 
 dresses have got to go : they're hindering us in the 
 world as it is to-day. We can't afford to live on 
 tourists." 
 
 " That is the last thing Marie-Therese would 
 have you do," I rephed. 
 
 " Then, with all due respect to her. Monsieur, she 
 had best leave off her present costume. It is beauti- 
 ful, oh yes, enchanting, ravishing — but it is not 
 practical." 
 
 I could not help wondering which, after all, was 
 better worth preserving : the world of charm and 
 beauty and tradition of Marie-Therese or the practi- 
 cal one of Pezannec. And, being EngUsh, I won- 
 dered further whether, after all, there mightn't be 
 a compromise. 
 
XVIII 
 
 HOLLYHOCK-LAND 
 
 If you know Baptiste Coriton you know the whole 
 country between Vannes and Lorient. 
 
 Baptiste lives in a little whitewashed cottage in 
 Plouharnel, by the side of which the long finger 
 of land stretches down to Quiberon. It looks out 
 over the sheltered sea and beyond the peninsula 
 to the stormy Atlantic : behind it the long megalithic 
 lines of Carnac stand isolated both in situation and 
 in time ; but you cannot see them from his garden 
 because of the intervening wall of hollyhocks. 
 Hollyhocks line a narrow path from the roadway 
 to the green-painted front door and they are 
 planted in ragged masses round his well. 
 
 " They are so easily reared," is his excuse. 
 
 Where there are not hollyhocks, tall and straight 
 and unbending, there are chubby, fluffy masses of 
 pink and mauve hydrangeas. The two flowers 
 form, between them, so concise a picture of Coriton 
 and his wife that from the first comparison is irresis- 
 tible. 
 
 ". . . The wedding was celebrated yesterday of 
 Hydrangea Ce-qu'on-veut of Plouharnel, Morbihan, 
 and Hollyhock Coriton, warrant of^cer in the Fleet 
 of the French Republic, of the same village. The 
 bride, departing from the usual custom of orange 
 blossom and white, was becomingly attired in pink, 
 over which was draped a delicate mauve veil touched 
 
HOLLYHOCK-LAND 213 
 
 with green. The bridegroom's red epaulettes and 
 cap . . ." 
 
 That must have been long ago, however, if, in- 
 deed, the reporter's imagination has not been 
 running away with itself. For under a glass case in 
 the bedroom is still preserved the elaborate orange- 
 blossom bridal crown of Madame, and a Uttle con- 
 temporary painting of Baptiste, very resplendent 
 in his uniform, finally disposes of any chance of 
 his having worn red either in whole or in part. 
 As much blue and silver as you Hke — but these are 
 not the colours of hollyhocks, so that the resemblance 
 can only have been in form, not in colour. 
 
 Yet not completely. Baptiste's face, or as much 
 as can be seen beyond his pointed black beard and 
 fiercely curled moustaches, is crimson. So is his 
 neck and chest which his open shirt-front expose 
 constantly to the sun. One might be tempted 
 to wonder whether he is not crimson all over Hke 
 a newly boiled lobster, for all that can be seen is 
 hollyhock colour. So that, after all, the reporter 
 may have been right in the very words in which he 
 seemed to blunder. 
 
 You never see a hollyhock bent with age. 
 Baptiste will die with a back like a poker. When 
 he sits down it is plainly an effort to induce the 
 necessary curves, when he tends his garden (which 
 has become lately his chief interest in life) he stoops 
 as a telegraph-pole might to look at a daisy. He 
 must at all times be straightening out creases, try- 
 ing even now to make his six feet a little taller, 
 his hairy chest a little broader, his voice a httle 
 deeper, his moustaches a little more ferocious. 
 If he were to take off his hat you might see the 
 bald patch in the very centre of his head — so he 
 keeps himself covered as long as possible. 
 
 There is only one occasion on which he crumples. 
 
 " They said I was too old," he cries " — ^I who 
 
214 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 could have navigated any ship they had chosen 
 to give me — ^I who have fought in China, who have 
 won all these medals, who have retired honourably 
 on a pension and am still fit — ^they said I was too old. 
 So I sent my sons — ^poor tools, both of them, com- 
 pared with their father ! And what was the result ? 
 Pouf I I could have foreseen it. Had I been in 
 charge of the ship, it would not have happened, 
 they would both be here now. The navigator was 
 a fool, or worse — and what did he know of war ? 
 But my boys were in his hands. I said they were 
 poor tools — ^but they were fine lads, all the same. 
 I could have made something of them if only I had 
 been allowed. What else was there for me to do ? " 
 
 At such times, his daughter is Uttle comfort to 
 him : she even adds to his perplexities. 
 
 " Look at the great hulking louts who were saved 
 from the same ship," he cries. " One of them wiU 
 come soon and want to marry Agnes — and as likely 
 as not she will accept him. I see them walking about 
 the village together even now, and my heart cries 
 out against it, ' Would it had been you who had been 
 drowned in place of my boys ! ' It is wrong, I 
 know, but when a father is distracted he cannot 
 always keep pace with his thoughts, God forgive 
 him. And if Agnes accepts, can I refuse to bring 
 this ghastly memory into my own house to live 
 with me ? . . . I think, M'sieu, I will go and water 
 the cabbages." 
 
 The cabbages are frequently watered, I fear : 
 they are such healthy plants. 
 
 But do not imagine that Baptiste lives in his 
 gloomy memories. The hollyhocks and hydrangeas 
 bring smiles which poke forward his beard and 
 bristle his moustaches, and a merry glitter to his 
 eye. Next year he is going to have an even braver 
 show : and there are to be jucier vegetables and 
 more tempting fruit in his half hectare of garden. 
 
HOLLYHOCK-LAND 215 
 
 During the winter he is to repaint his boat and — 
 but if I tell you the secret, you must keep it strictly 
 to yourself. 
 
 Baptiste is to have a new pair of trousers. 
 
 The ones he wears now are so plentifully sprinkled 
 with blue patches that Uttle of the original material 
 is left : and Madame is constrained, when visitors 
 are present, to force him to the table where all 
 below his waist is hidden. His Sunday pair, blue 
 and white check, hang neatly creased from a peg 
 in the hall, together with his double-breasted coat 
 and blue waistcoat. But it takes little examination 
 to perceive spots in which the check is almost worn 
 off and others in which the stuff has become 
 inconveniently shiny ; and the Coritons, having 
 lived in Plouharnel for generations, are people of 
 some standing who have to keep up appearances. 
 The small box in the corner into which, sometimes, 
 Madame sUps a franc might be labelled " Appear- 
 ances Fund." 
 
 " And what about you ? " asked Helen one day, 
 when she surprised her in the act. 
 
 " Oh well," laughed Madame timidly, " as for 
 me, black is an excellent wearing colour, n^est pas^ 
 Madame ? " 
 
 n 
 
 When I said that to know Baptiste was to know 
 the whole Morbihan district, I ought to have quali- 
 fied the statement : to know him is to know it at its 
 best. For as many different kinds of folk are 
 settled here as there are rocks and islands at low 
 tide — ^penurious or hard-working, rooted to the soil 
 or sullenly independent, but all of them, even the 
 few rich, meagre in their ways of Hving, Bread, 
 home-grown vegetables, cider, sometimes, on high 
 days and holidays, a little meat comprise their 
 ordinary diet. And on this one grows neither fat 
 
216 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 nor intelligent. In hot weather especially, cider, 
 weak though it is, tells its tale. 
 
 Baptiste makes occasional visits to the local 
 Debit de Boissons — one must, he says, see how the 
 village is going on. He rules there by triple right — 
 by superior personality, by having held a position 
 in the Navy, by being a Coriton. His big voice 
 reverberates round the low, dark taproom and con- 
 trasts strangely with the quavering voices of the 
 peasants. They themselves feel the difference, and 
 there are times when this jealousy creeps out un- 
 awares. 
 
 " Ah, it's all very fine for you to talk like that," 
 grumbled one of them to a rebuke of Baptist e's, 
 
 but we can't all be sailors." 
 
 " No," snapped Coriton, " but you can try to be 
 men, instead of chaff." 
 
 " Why should we ? Peasants we are and 
 peasants we shall always remain : you know that 
 well enough. We shall never have your money nor 
 your opportunities, however much we are men, as 
 you call it. Now if we were Coritons ..." 
 
 " You'd be promptly turned out of the family, 
 my friend." There was a glitter in Baptiste's 
 eye. " What's that you've got there ? " 
 
 " Only a glass of cider, morhleu ! " 
 
 " Your first ? " 
 
 " What do you think ? " 
 
 " That ! " — Baptiste strode over to the peasant, 
 and seizing the glass, threw the cider out of the 
 window. " You're fuddled : that's what's the 
 matter with you. You know perfectly well you 
 can't work in a sunny field with your belly full of 
 that muck. Now, M'selle " — ^turning to the as- 
 tonished woman behind the counter, " how much 
 was that ? I'm going to pay for it." 
 
 The peasant, rising to his feet, was spluttering 
 angrily. 
 
HOLLYHOCK-LAND 217 
 
 " Get outside while you can," said Baptiste to 
 him. " You'll live to thank me, you fool." 
 
 " I believe he's drunk himself," put in another 
 peasant. 
 
 " Who said that ? " asked Coriton. But there 
 was no answer. One by one the peasants slunk out. 
 
 Then Baptiste approached the counter. " I 
 want you to understand that I'm not trying to ruin 
 your trade," he said. " I'm only trying to save 
 these men from themselves." 
 
 " I suppose you may think that a sailor shouldn't 
 talk about agriculture," he said to me afterwards, 
 " but though you are a stranger here, you must 
 have seen things for yourself. These men on the 
 farms work long hours but that is largely their own 
 fault. Your agricultural labourer in England — ^I 
 have met him — is a very different fellow — more 
 intelligent, more resourceful than these men. He, 
 therefore, does not need to spend his whole life in the 
 fields. If you were to give these fools here a 
 machine to do the work for them, they would run 
 to the priest about it or else smash it in their 
 terror. Cider and a full stomach is their idea of 
 Paradise." 
 
 " But your Breton soldiers," 1 contradicted. 
 Baptiste laughed. 
 
 " Oh, they're pig-headed too, though the towns- 
 people are better stuff, and, luckily, they were well 
 led. But the finest men are the fishermen." 
 
 " Though in matters of the sea, I suppose you 
 claim to be unprejudiced ? " I interrupted. 
 
 " I try to be," replied Baptiste. " But you 
 may judge for yourself." 
 
 We were walking down the village street during 
 this conversation, and reached Baptiste' s cottage. 
 Imagine my surprise when, with an expression of 
 unprintable profanity, Baptiste suddenly leapt his 
 own gate and set off at a smart pace down his 
 
218 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 garden path. Looking from the road, I could not 
 see his objective but presently he returned, drag- 
 ging by the collar a dirty urclun smeared with tears 
 and fruit-juice. 
 
 " I will teach you to steal my plums," he ex- 
 claimed. 
 
 " Don't be hard on me, M'sieu," snivelled the boy. 
 
 "Not as hard as a stick," replied Baptiste, 
 " here's a nice soft switch." 
 
 Holding him at arm's length, Baptiste adminis- 
 tered elementary justice till the boy let out a pierc- 
 ing yell. Then he stopped. 
 
 " Now tell me," he said, " why did you do it ? " 
 
 The boy's hands were occupied with his eyes, 
 and the seat of his trousers respectively. ^ His 
 answer was incoherent. 
 
 " Don't you want to grow up a man ? " pursued 
 Baptiste. The boy nodded. 
 
 " And do men steal fruit ? " The boy shook his 
 head, but dubiously. 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 The boy looked puzzled. 
 
 " You haven't told me all." • 
 
 " Only that I was hungry, M'sieu." 
 
 " Where is your father ? " 
 
 " In the fields, M'sieu." 
 
 " And you have eaten to-day ? " 
 
 " A piece of bread." 
 
 " And ? " 
 
 " Nothing else, M'sieu." 
 
 " That does not excuse your stealing fruit, my 
 young friend. But it does excuse your being 
 hungry. Follow me." 
 
 The youngster looked as if he would bolt, but 
 Baptiste's hand was firmly on his collar. 
 
 " Mother," he called out as they approached 
 the house, " have you any soup ? " 
 
 " Only enough for ourselves, Baptiste," replied 
 
HOLLYHOCK-LAND 219 
 
 Madame from the interior of the kitchen. " Have 
 you brought a visitor ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 He entered with the boy, and sat him down to 
 the table. 
 
 " My soup, please. Mother," he said and handed 
 it on to the urchin, watching him with a smile 
 while it was wolfed down his throat. 
 
 " Now," he said when it was finished, " don't 
 go steaKng fruit. Those plums weren't ripe, and 
 you will probably suffer again for it — ^which will 
 teach you not to join the army of fools. Come 
 back to-morrow night and I'll give you some more 
 soup, on condition that you'll tell your father when 
 you get home that you've been thrashed for stealing." 
 
 " Poor Uttle devil," he exclaimed, as the boy ran 
 up the road. And then he burst into a loud laugh. 
 " Fancy my jumping that gate. And they said I 
 wasn't fit ! " 
 
 m 
 
 Fbom Plouhamel a dusty road leads through Camac 
 and La Trinite to Locmariaquer, and what is 
 curious about this road is that it joins two un- 
 sophisticated villages by means of two " resorts." 
 Camac and La Trinite have largely lost their pictur- 
 esque interest in endeavours after financial pros- 
 perity. At Camac are big hotels, at La Trinite two 
 rather more modest estabHshments, but it is not 
 these only that deprive their town of the Breton 
 characteristics. No national tradition is safe 
 against contamination by the " big world." 
 
 We arrived at La Trinite hot, dusty and empty, 
 and, as temptation would have it, the first shop we 
 saw was a Httle one-roomed cottage, a tiny patisserie 
 — ^the kind of shop Miss Matty must have kept in 
 Cranford — with a hedge of wild rose trees, and two 
 real Miss Mattys inside, who served us with tiny 
 
220 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 cakes carefully extracted out of tin boxes. They 
 held up horror-stricken hands over the quantities 
 of dust Helen managed to shake out of her clothing, 
 and quite plainly looked upon me as a monster for 
 making the poor girl walk so far. 
 
 " But Madame is tired," they exclaimed com- 
 passionately. 
 
 " A Httle," confessed Helen. 
 
 " Madame should not carry that load. Oh, it is 
 heavy." 
 
 " It's the dust that makes one tired," laughed 
 Helen " — and being hungry." 
 
 Cakes were immediately forthcoming in quite 
 alarming quantities. 
 
 " Madame is not English ? " asked one of them 
 puzzled. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 The two glanced at each other. 
 
 " But you do not dress like the English," said 
 the one who had first put the question. 
 
 " Well, you see, we haven't a national costume 
 like you Bretons." 
 
 " No, but I thought all English women carried 
 gloves and a sunshade. They do here, at any rate." 
 
 " They're probably rich people who spend the 
 summer here, then." 
 
 The old soul shrugged. " But isn't every English 
 person rich ? " 
 
 We all laughed at this. " I know a good many 
 who aren't but who would give a lot for your 
 riches," replied Helen. This made the couple arch 
 their eyebrows in surprise. It was as if both of 
 them suddenly had made the tremendous discovery 
 that their goods — ^poor though they had thought 
 them — ^were coveted by someone else — a very 
 natural, if un-Christian, source of gratification. 
 
 " That bed, for instance," went on Helen, " we'd 
 give anything for it in our country. And all your 
 
HOLLYHOCK-LAND 221 
 
 old china and carved furniture. If you sold that 
 in England, you'd make your fortune." ^^^ 
 
 " Ah, but such furniture isn't made nowadays, 
 even in Brittany, Madame. That is real Breton 
 oak. But then all our old customs are going, and 
 we shall soon be just like the rest of France. That 
 was why I thought Madame couldn't be English — 
 because she dressed differently from her country- 
 women." 
 
 This gradual crumbling of national tradition was 
 brought home to us again on the following day when 
 La Trinite held its fete. There was dancing on the 
 Quay to the music of the biniou — ^the Breton bag- 
 pipes — ^when the old Breton dances were revived. 
 Yes, though I wrote the word inadvertently, it is 
 the right one. Out of the crowd of three hundred 
 inhabitants who gathered round, less than fifty 
 took part diu*ing the whole evening — and these were 
 the oldsters. I doubt whether a single man or 
 woman under the middle thirties joined in. The 
 Mayor, who acted as Master of Ceremonies, was 
 inclined to be despondent. 
 
 *' You can have no idea what changes the war has 
 brought with it," he told me, as we sipped cider 
 together during a well-merited interval. " The 
 people even don't seem the same. I'm all for the 
 old customs, I am — that's why I'm fostering these 
 dances so carefully — ^but the folk here are smitten 
 with the Parisian craze — ' modern ' dresses, you 
 know ; and look at those huzzies covered in paint 
 and powder. They're the new school, who won't 
 dress their children in the Breton costume — ^the 
 school I'm fighting." 
 
 " With what success ? " I asked. 
 
 He merely laughed cynically. " Listen," he said. 
 
 A table or two away a heated discussion was in 
 progress between an old man and a young. 
 
 " I've led nearly every dance to-day," grumbled 
 
222 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 the old man, " and nobody comes in with me. I'm 
 tired of it." 
 
 " Never mind, father," — ^this flippantly from the 
 young one. 
 
 " Never mind, you say, eh ? " — ^the old man's 
 voice rose as another glass of cider descended. 
 " Why don't you help too, young man ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know these dances." 
 
 "What! Don't know them?" the old man's 
 voice had risen almost to a wail. 
 
 " Well, you know what I mean. We dance 
 in a different style nowadays." 
 
 The old man snorted indignantly and went off 
 to lead the next dance. The young man joined 
 in the gavotte, dancing a waltz. 
 
 " You see," nodded the Mayor to me from the 
 other side of the crowd. 
 
 I wonder how long it will be before Brittany ceases 
 to be Brittany at all. Nationality is not to be the 
 one good custom to corrupt the world. 
 
 rv 
 
 This story seems to have strayed a long way from 
 its title. But not as far as you might imagine, for 
 the district around the west side of the Morbihan 
 is scattered with Coritons, and they are all holly- 
 hocks in stature, as well as in horticultural tastes. 
 Cousin Eugenie Gloannec,who lived at Locmariaquer, 
 in a little house dated 1649, which opened directly 
 on to the road, was able by encroaching on the 
 pubUc highway to find space for two bunches one 
 on each side of the door. She was, moreover, a 
 Coriton greatly to be feared, for she was the wealthy 
 member of the family and from her secret box 
 could dispense or withhold as she chose. Nor was 
 she in the least afraid of expressing her opinion — 
 her arms akimbo, her neck poked forward, the 
 " visor " of her irreproachable cap fluttering excitedly 
 
HOLLYHOCK-LAND 223 
 
 with every nod or shake of her head, she would 
 tell anyone in the village what she thought of him 
 in a voice tuned rather to the hurricane than to 
 the church bells below which her cottage stood. 
 Indeed, so loudly did she talk that it was frequently 
 difficult to understand what she was saying. 
 
 But Cousin Gloannec was not all sound and fury. 
 Li her tempestuous way she could be kind. When 
 a beggar knocked, one day, at her door, she gave him 
 half a loaf (if the rest of the Coriton family hadn't 
 been idiots enough to waste money, she declared, 
 she might have given him a whole loaf, but one's 
 own family was always a pack of fools and thieves) : 
 when, scenting further gifts, the same beggar paid 
 a second visit, she emptied a bucket of fish-heads 
 over him from the first-floor window, and told him 
 to call on her nephew at La Trinite — he might have 
 some money to spare if he hadn't spent it all on 
 cider. She confided to Helen afterwards that she 
 thought the fish-head method the surest one of 
 making the beggar wash in hot weather, which 
 would be a blessing both to himself and other 
 people. 
 
 Cousin Gloannec must have had, too, a soft 
 spot in her heart for Baptiste : though she never 
 spoke of him with affection his recommendation 
 succeeded several times in allowing her the privilege 
 of changing her mind. We were an instance in 
 point. 
 
 " M(m Dieu, what do you imagine ! Do you 
 think me a common lodging-house keeper, par 
 exemple F The children want me to let them a 
 room ! Nom de nom, I have never heard the hke " 
 — ^and she regarded us with an outraged counten- 
 ance. 
 
 " It was M. Coriton of Plouhamel who sent us," 
 I said. 
 
 " Indeed, M. Coriton of Plouhamel, was it ? And 
 
224 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 what right has he, I should like to know, to send 
 chits of children to his cousin to beg for lodgings ? " 
 
 " He must have known your good-nature," re- 
 torted Helen, who was tired and somewhat irritable. 
 
 " I should think he must," replied Cousin Gloan- 
 nec fiercely. " It's a pity he didn't know it suffi- 
 ciently to put up Uttle spit-fires Hke you himself." 
 
 " We have stayed with him for several days 
 already." 
 
 " You don't say so : he must have been hard up 
 for money. What did he charge you ? " 
 
 After some demur we named the modest sum 
 Baptiste had accepted. 
 
 " He was a fool," opined Cousin Gloannec. 
 
 " Suppose he'd wanted more ? " I asked. 
 
 " You'd have been the fool then," she snapped. 
 " Come inside, and I'll see what I can do for you." 
 
 She " did for us " very handsomely : her big oak 
 ceiUng beams and brass-studded oak furniture, 
 carved this way and that by quaint Breton crafts- 
 men, were sheer dreams of dehght. Her embroidered 
 linen and bed canopy made Helen gasp. The candle 
 which fit us to bed was held in a brass candlestick 
 of formidable dimensions and polish, and after it 
 had been blown out the yellow moon-beams fil- 
 tered through the window to invest the whole 
 resplendent room with the weird mystery of dead- 
 and-gone Gloannecs. The entire family seemed to 
 pass in review before our eyes as the light shifted 
 gradually from one object to another. 
 
 And in the next room its only surviving represen- 
 tative was snoring Hke a steam-engine. 
 
 At half-past six next morning we were awakened 
 by a tremendous knocking at the door. Cousin 
 Gloannec entered with a breakfast tray. 
 
 " They shall be spoiled, the Httle dears," she 
 roared at us, " and have their breakfast brought 
 up to bed for them. And understand, please. 
 
HOLLYHOCK-LAND 226 
 
 that I want to tidy this room in an hour, and if 
 you aren't out of it by then I shall march in and 
 begin working no matter what you're doing. I 
 can't have quite all my household arrangements 
 upset for your M. Coriton of Plouharnel." 
 
 When we returned from a muddy and rather 
 crab-ridden bathe, she was awaiting us with her 
 head poked far out of the window. 
 
 " No, you don't," she bellowed. " Now that 
 I've cleaned this place you won't bring your dirty 
 things in here. Just take them round to the back 
 and hang them on the line." 
 
 As " the back " comprised a dung-heap and a 
 cow-house, Helen objected. Cousin Gloannec be- 
 came almost beside herself : she trembled with rage 
 as she denounced us from our own bedroom window. 
 She reminded me of some High Church dignitary 
 pronouncing excommunication. 
 
 "... now will you take them round the back," 
 she concluded her tirade. 
 
 " No," said Helen stoutly. 
 
 " I don't wonder Baptiste turned you out," she 
 shrieked. " I've a good mind to do the same 
 myself." 
 
 " You needn't trouble," repUed Helen, marching 
 in at the front door, upstairs and entering the bed- 
 room. 
 
 " Hasn't she got a temper ? " asked Cousin 
 Gloannec of me. " One might have thought I 
 meant it." She faced Helen again. " Don't be 
 a little cat." 
 
 But Helen did not answer. 
 
 " Just stop that packing." 
 
 " If you'll apologise," said Helen, continuing. 
 
 A sudden gleam of admiration came into Cousin 
 Gloannec' s eyes. 
 
 ''Ditidonc,^^ she exclaimed. "You're the best 
 Coriton of them all." 
 
226 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Could one have an ampler apology ? After that 
 we fraternised to such an extent that no harsh 
 word was again hurled at our offending heads. 
 Indeed, Cousin Gloannec became even confiding. 
 
 " As for Baptiste," she told me one day, " he's 
 all right, you know, but he takes the death of his 
 sons hardly — ^fooUsh, I call it. As soon as they 
 went into the Navy I said to him, ' Baptiste, mark 
 my words, those boys won't come back.' He only 
 laughed at the time ; but I knew I was right. 
 After all, what has one got to do in war except be 
 killed ? And even if they had by chance come back, 
 they'd have been killed somehow else. So that I 
 don't see what Baptiste has to make so much fuss 
 about." 
 
 " But your own children ? " 
 
 " Ah yes, I suppose you're right," she said. 
 " I've never had any. I'm an inhuman old beast 
 to talk like that." 
 
 This was the only time she betrayed emotion. 
 And as she had no cabbages to water, she had to 
 cover it by an extra polish to the big brass candle- 
 stick. 
 
XIX 
 
 THE PEASANTS AND THE PAINTER 
 
 After we had left roaring Cousin Gloannec, the 
 calm was so pronounced that we entered willy- 
 nilly upon a period of peaceful stagnation. We 
 sat for hours beside hot Brittany roads, sprinkled 
 by the dust of motors and moving only when 
 forced to. We were still happily idling when we 
 discovered ourselves in financial drought. 
 
 " I'm afraid I shall have to take to work again," 
 I said despondently. 
 
 " That will be a pity," commiserated Helen. 
 
 So in Auray, with the help of old guide-books, 
 casual conversations with local worthies and a 
 few execrable photographs, I wrote a short guide to 
 the megahths of the district for the benefit of 
 English visitors. To my surprise it was snapped 
 up by an enterprising jobbing printer who paid me 
 well and turned it into incomprehensible rubbish. 
 Over my attempted corrections I bit my nails to 
 the flesh and wore my pencil to the merest stump : 
 I argued with my employer, pleaded, buUied, pointed 
 out that he was making a fool both of himseK and 
 of me — but in vain. He answered obstinately that 
 he was the proud owner of the only Enghsh guide- 
 book to Auray. I forbade him to allow my name to 
 appear in connection with it, and went on my way 
 with modified rejoicing. 
 
 But it was by Jules Delaunay that we were 
 really roused out of our lethargy. He had just 
 
228 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 turned his back on the schools and the Quartier 
 Latin so full of ideas for the regeneration of the 
 painter's craft that it seemed as if his head must 
 burst with them. On no two days, however, were 
 his ideas the same: a disciple of Corot one day, of 
 Picasso the next, of Fra Angelico the third, and 
 of some unknown Messiah of Montmatre the fourth, 
 he would flaunt his latest gospel in bur faces with 
 picturesque oaths and a whirl of arms. To keep 
 still seemed impossible to him when he enthused ; 
 but at other times he would stare at a bed of flowers 
 for twenty minutes without moving a muscle. 
 
 " I am going to Concameau," he cried one day. 
 " I start in an hour. Will you visit Mecca with me ? '^ 
 
 It appears to be a convention among painters — 
 or is it among the pubHc on whom they are half 
 dependent ? — ^that Concarneau is the be-all and 
 end-all of Brittany. It is assuredly a delightful 
 place (more attractive at high tide than at low), 
 but there seemed to us little to justify its preference 
 to the exclusion of such other places as Vannes or 
 La Rochelle ; yet we had not seen a single easel in 
 either town as compared with the dozens we found 
 at Concameau. Pont Aven, beloved of artists, is 
 utterly disappointing; Pont FAbbe . . , but per- 
 haps I am exposing appalUng PhiUstinism. Yet 
 even a Phihstine . . . 
 
 But Jules was emphatic in his assertion that the 
 mere pubHc were unable to judge a picture : except, 
 that is, during his Tolstoian periods when he 
 declared with equal emphasis that they were the 
 sole arbiters of good taste. As mood followed mood 
 we wrangled heatedly and verbosely. And mean- 
 while the other artists went on working. 
 
 They clustered round the old-world town in the 
 harbour like flies round a honey-pot, looking with 
 eyes of many nationalities at its stately beauty. 
 The pictures upon which they daily lavished them- 
 
THE PEASANTS AND THE PAINTER 229 
 
 selves were good, bad, and most of them indifferent : 
 the best of all was from the brush of a Japanese. His 
 every spot of paint sparkled with hght, and he 
 whistled as he worked. It is a great mistake to 
 take yourself seriously in such a business. 
 
 That was where Jules went wrong — ^he was out 
 to reform the world, and succeeded (on canvas) 
 only in making it a much worse world than it is. 
 He never whistled as he worked : and his work 
 suffered. 
 
 But in one respect Jules was right — ^when he took 
 his cue from his countryman J. F. Millet. He 
 painted the peasant as he saw him, and not with 
 the pretty conventional picturesqueness of his 
 confreres. 
 
 " He's a clodhopping fool, you know, is the 
 Breton peasant," he exclaimed to me — " dirty and 
 conservative, ignorant and hopelessly poor. Why 
 not paint him so ? His costumes — ^they're gor- 
 geous in colouring and design, but they're wicked 
 for those who have to wear them : abolish them 
 and you'd halve the number of cripples in Brittany : 
 but of course the children are cripples when the 
 women wear such abominations. For myself I 
 refuse to spread the idea that such things are 
 desirable and to be perpetuated when I know, 
 and you know, and everybody who thinks for him- 
 self knows perfectly well that they're a sin against 
 France." 
 
 " But are these moral considerations the artist's 
 job ? " I asked. 
 
 " Certainly. If a butcher sold bad meat you'd 
 call him a rogue : if I sold a picture that reeked 
 with beastliness — as I should do if I painted these 
 costumes — ^I should be a rogue too. If I were to 
 paint an open sewer nobody would buy the picture : 
 but, nom de nom, it would at least be frank. This 
 method of visiting the sins of the parents on the 
 
230 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 children and calling it picturesque is like sprink- 
 ling eau-de-cologne on the sewer and saying how 
 nice it smells." 
 
 " But your own Millet isn't as hard on the 
 peasant as you are." 
 
 " Am I hard on him, mon ami, if I call him a fool 
 and pig when he is one ? I didn't pretend my 
 analysis to be complete. He's a dear old fool 
 because he knows no better, just as you and every- 
 body else are fools : it's only a term of reproach 
 when the person who uses it thinks himself superior. 
 Millet didn't : he knew we're all a pack of fools 
 together, and the peasant exhibiting a certain 
 phase of foolishness. Millet painted it. But it 
 was the peasant he painted, not his costumes and 
 trappings and barbarities. He left all that sort of 
 thing to the bigger fools who have nothing better 
 to do than to potter round the outside because 
 they don't know the peasant himself. 
 
 " Look here," he said on another occasion, " I'll 
 show you what I mean." 
 
 Five minutes with a pencil produced an old man 
 with a face like a hard dry apple, his hair falling 
 over his elaborately embroidered tunic, his pleated 
 breeches so baggy above his spindle-like legs that 
 they seemed to belong to a different being. He 
 leant heavily on his stick as he walked, the buckles 
 on his shoes flashing in the sunhght. It was a 
 wonderfully vivid impression of a type you may 
 see any day in Brittany. 
 
 In the succeeding five minutes Jules produced a 
 different picture. 
 
 The apple face and long hair were the same : 
 but sabots replaced the buckled shoes and coarsely 
 patched, ill-fitting smock and trousers, the elaborate 
 costume of the companion sketch. You looked not 
 at the clothes but at the man. It was an equally 
 vivid impression of a type you may see any 
 
THE PEASANTS AND THE PAINTER 231 
 
 day in Brittany — and pass over because it is so 
 common. 
 
 " Now then," asked Jules, " which of those is the 
 real peasant ? " I indicated the second. 
 
 " Where did you learn the Breton peasant so 
 intimately ? " I said, looking into the kindly face 
 of the sketch. Every line Jules had put on to the 
 paper was aUve with respect for his subject ; nothing 
 was overlooked, nothing exaggerated. It shone with 
 intimate knowledge. 
 
 "It's my father," said Jules simply. " You see 
 I can speak both as peasant — a lucky one I admit — 
 and as painter. And when you go into these cot- 
 tages of Brittany, count how many secular pictures 
 you see that aren't Millets. The peasant knows 
 his worth, never fear. These little summer 
 artists . . . ! " 
 
XX 
 
 IN THE CITY OF WATERSMEET 
 
 If you feel inclined to envy the birds, it must be 
 at Quimper, for the jackdaws and the swallows 
 see so much more of its beauty from the air than 
 ever it will be your luck to see from the ground. 
 The whole charm of Quimper lies in its roofs tumbled 
 hither and thither as by a gigantic whirlwind, bear- 
 ing, sometimes, no apparent relation to the houses 
 they cover, gossiping over the narrow roadways, 
 leaning against one another for mutual support 
 or standing in splendid isolation until age or the 
 hand of the renovator sweeps them away. 
 
 Although, as at Vannes, the restorer has acted 
 both leniently and judiciously. In both towns you 
 may wander along the streets and, in their unaltered 
 facings, meet the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. 
 But in Quimper the pressure of business has trans- 
 formed the lower stories of many houses into smart 
 little shops ; only the roofs remain in their original 
 best style. And under this picturesque hat, which you 
 may see from the shaded walks on the hillside near 
 the Odet, strut all the comedy and tragedy that 
 together make up the theatrically natural Ufe of 
 France. 
 
 n 
 
 It was in Quimper that we found a cat. 
 
 It is difficult to give this new Mend a nice cut- 
 and-dried sort of name. You don't christen cats 
 
IN THE CITY OP WATERSMEET 233 
 
 as you do babies; no family quarrel arises as to 
 whether they shall be Cicely, after the grand- 
 mother, or Jane, after the great-aunt. Their 
 name grows up with them, and nobody can say 
 with certainty who was the first to fix on it; in 
 short, to name a cat is usually a serious matter, 
 occupying much time and attention, and when we 
 first met him, Methuselah was only one day old. 
 
 I wish Helen wasn't so impetuous — she made me 
 bring out the name in the first few lines, when I 
 had meant to keep it back as a specimen of her 
 wit. For it was she who pounced upon both the 
 kitten and the name as soon as she entered the 
 photographer's shop. 
 
 " Just look," she cried, enraptured, " there's 
 Methuselah, bless his little heart ! " And in less 
 time than it takes to say it, the tiny blind bit of 
 white flujff was crawHng about her lap, uttering 
 piteous " miaows " full of the most intense surprise 
 at life, while Mother — JuHenne was her name — 
 lashed the air vigorously with her tail, and sprang 
 lightly from table to chair, and from chair to table 
 in her anxiety for Baby. After a good deal of per- 
 suasion Helen was induced to part with Methuselah ; 
 his mother seized him in her careful mouth, and 
 he was soon recovering from the first rude shock of 
 his twenty-four hours' existence. 
 
 If Baby had been disturbed, so had the silent 
 routine of the shop. Helen's entrance was alto- 
 gether like a whirlwind. The two girls industriously 
 retouching portraits dropped their brushes, a third 
 behind the counter clutched some unmounted 
 prints ; I could almost have imagined that a portly 
 gentleman, who was at the moment transacting 
 some business, seized his hat with both hands to 
 prevent it from blowing away. M. Lozach, the 
 fussy proprietor in spreading black bow and tor- 
 toiseshell-rimmed spectacles dashed from his room 
 
234 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 at the back ; and ten minutes later, when we were 
 safely installed as lodgers and Helen had been subtly- 
 warned by our landlord not to do it again, work 
 was on the point of nervously recommencing. 
 
 " But you shouldn't have such sweet httle 
 kittens," expostulated Helen. 
 
 " Eh hien,'' rephed the photographer, " we can- 
 not help them. Three months ago it was a black 
 
 kitten ; this time it is white, one speculates " 
 
 and he shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "Where is the black?" asked Helen, full of 
 expectation. 
 
 " In the Paradise of pussies, Madame." 
 
 This was a crushing blow, but it had the advan- 
 tage of allowing Helen to concentrate all her ener- 
 gies on Methuselah. Whether Methuselah fully 
 appreciated this is to be doubted. At first, at any 
 rate, he was very much in the dark as to what 
 it was that seized him so often by the scruff of his 
 neck, whirled him through the air and deposited 
 him with a bump on a substance entirely foreign to 
 his experience. Even when his eyes were opened, 
 and he was able to follow with more intelligence 
 the course of events, he expressed no actual relish : 
 his miaowing was as heart-rending as ever, and 
 Julienne's anxiety Httle the less. But it seemed as 
 if he did achieve some sort of familiarity with 
 Helen's dress : his struggles became less frantic and 
 at last he would curl up in a lonely kind of way and 
 try to sleep. 
 
 Helen's boisterous entrance into M. Lozach's 
 shop, however much it was resented by everyone 
 present, had a decisive influence upon the Ufe of 
 Methuselah. For up to that moment nobody, 
 probably, had given him more than a passing glance 
 — Julienne's cunning in choosing a dark cupboard 
 had assured that. But as soon as Helen began to 
 fuss over the kitten he became the pivotal point 
 
IN THE CITY OF WATERSMEET 235 
 
 around which the entire world of the shop moved. 
 Lozach himself, his cherubic face beaming and his 
 hands covered in chemicals, would run at intervals 
 from his dark room or the bureau to " have a chat 
 with le p'tit Mathusalem " — ^the " chat " consisting 
 of horrifying gurgles uttered a quarter of an inch 
 from the kitten's ear — one of the assistants would 
 tear herself away from work to utter exclamations 
 of surprise at his rapid development ; even customers 
 were introduced to him by name. 
 
 And that is how he came to know M. Larousse. 
 
 M. Larousse, as an important man at the Prefec- 
 ture, was a person of considerable social standing 
 and was at times painfully aware of the fact. But 
 at others, thank goodness, he forgot it, and when 
 sufficiently unbent was a genuine lover of animals. 
 He took to Methuselah immediately, put him 
 through a searching examination and pronounced 
 him a healthy specimen. 
 
 " Tenez,'^ he exclaimed. " I suppose he will 
 follow his black brother ? " 
 
 Now M. Lozach' s heart was torn, at this time, 
 between his appreciation of domestic arrangements 
 — ^two cats are apt to be a nuisance about the house 
 — and a growing affection for this latest arrival. 
 He hedged therefore. 
 
 " Perhaps yes ; perhaps no," he replied. " One 
 cannot say." 
 
 "It is a pity that he should," pursued M. 
 Larousse. 
 
 " Most things in this world are a pity," replied 
 the photographer. 
 
 The next day Larousse paid another visit. 
 
 ** I have just dropped in to pay my respects to 
 Methuselah," he said. " One must do what one can 
 for the dying." 
 
 " What do you mean ? " asked Lozach, plainly 
 disturbed. 
 
236 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 " You told me you were going to drown him.'* 
 
 " Did I, really ? Then I have changed my 
 mind. No, I am not going to drown him." 
 1^^^ " Dites, done I " exclaimed Larousse absent- 
 mindedly. 
 
 His visits after this became regular, which was 
 curious, because at each one he found greater and 
 greater fault with Methuselah. The kitten he had 
 at first pronounced so healthy seemed to be dwind- 
 ling and fading to a skeleton before our eyes. 
 
 " One may, of course, always make a mistake," 
 he pleaded in extenuation. " I thought him good, 
 but he has disappointed me. His mother must be 
 unhealthy, I think." 
 
 " Well, well, well," moaned Lozach, " since 
 Larousse, who is an expert, thinks so httle of him 
 I suppose I had better let him join his brother in 
 Paracfise." And he began to gaze long and shud- 
 deringly at the river. 
 
 " Are you determined to drown him ? " asked 
 Helen one day, fondling Methuselah in her 
 arms. 
 
 " Alas ! yes, Madame. It is better to put him 
 out of his misery." 
 
 " It seems almost wicked. He is such a dear 
 little thing." 
 
 " I know it, Madame. I am desolated at the 
 thought." 
 
 " Listen, M'sieur. If I can promise him a good 
 home, will you let me have him ? " 
 
 " But is it in his own interest to let him go on 
 Uving ? " 
 
 " I will do all that is possible for him. Please, 
 M. Lozach, sell him to me." 
 
 " For what, Madame ? " 
 
 " What you wiU." 
 
 " Five francs ? " 
 
 " It is a bargain." 
 
IN THE CITY OF WATERSMEET 237 
 
 " Good Heavens ! " I exclaimed, " what do you 
 want a cat for, my dear girl ? " 
 
 Helen's only reply was a violent kick on my 
 ankle. Without further comment I paid the five 
 francs. 
 
 Methuselah now lives a sleek life in M. Larousse's 
 home, with M. Lozach none the wiser. But I'm 
 surprised at Helen lending herself to such deception. 
 
 in 
 
 Claire Delahaye hated the Germans with a concen- 
 trated passion that was the fuel of her life. It is 
 Uttle to be wondered at. 
 
 Imagine a woman, refined, gentle, in easy cir- 
 cumstances, accustomed since her childhood to a 
 wide circle of congenial companionship, suddenly 
 robbed of everyone she held dear by the hand of 
 the hereditary enemy, and you have a picture of 
 Claire Delahaye, ddbitante, of Quimper, the only 
 survivor of her family after the Great War. 
 
 Her loss had been catastrophic. Husband and 
 two brothers had been killed at the front ; father 
 had been blown to pieces by a bomb in Paris and 
 mother had died from shock ; her little son, born 
 soon after the war had commenced, overshadowed 
 from the first by tragedy, deprivation and semi- 
 starvation, terminated his little existence on 
 Armistice Day. Throughout the four years of slaugh- 
 ter friend after friend had " gone west," and 
 Claire's closest confidante, unable to stand the 
 strain of such times, was now in an asylum. Claire 
 herself had ruined her health as an Army nurse. 
 The family resources, invested largely in Russian 
 securities, had dwindled almost to nothing, with 
 but remote probability of recovery. 
 
 Written thus baldly, the series is complete enough, 
 but Claire, by an heroic effort of will, could have 
 recovered something of her composure : it was the 
 
 1^ 
 
238 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 final blow — ^that of having to degrade herseK to a 
 ddbitante, and if not actually serving behind the 
 counter at least spend her days in the shop — 
 which turned her from a tired and stricken woman 
 into a virago. Her pride, not for herself but for 
 her family, was shattered ; and out of her debase- 
 ment there flamed a scorching hatred of those whom, 
 rightly or wrongly, she conceived to be the authors 
 of her misfortunes. No one could enter into a con- 
 versation with her without having to hear a tor- 
 rent of invective against Germany ; every action she 
 performed was inspired by vindictive hate ; she 
 had no mercy for any moderating influence in in- 
 ternational affairs, despised England, and when 
 she discovered our nationality, shut the door in 
 our faces. The greatest pleasure of her life, she 
 openly declared, would be to see rows of Germans 
 shot down by machine guns, or because that would 
 be too easy a death, left herded in stinking pens 
 to starve. Any French soldier who entered her 
 Debit de Vins was sure of a welcome, as much 
 free drink as he could swallow and a fervent ex- 
 hortation to allow nothing to stand in his way of 
 punishing " les sales betes " if chance should bring 
 him into contact with them. 
 
 Nothing enraged Claire more than when I once 
 described Germany as " oiu- late enemy." 
 
 " It is false ! " she cried shrilly. " They have been 
 our enemies for fifty years — did not my father fight 
 them ? They are our enemies now, waiting like 
 tigers to spring upon us as soon as they see their 
 opportunity. They must be crushed — ^utterly 
 crushed out of existence, the robbers. . . . 
 
 "You English — " pointing an accusing finger 
 at me — " you boasted your way through the war, 
 and now, mon Dieu, you want to make friends with 
 them because, you say, it is good for trade. As if 
 there was nothing in the world but trade and busi- 
 
IN THE CITY OF WATERSMEET 239 
 
 ness and money ! Despicable creatures that you 
 are ! Do you not know what it is to hate with 
 your whole mind and your whole soul, so that 
 money and trade and affairs are nothing — ^nothing ! 
 — so that the very name of Germany stinks in your 
 nostrils and your children's nostrils for ever — so 
 that you are consumed and burned up with hatred 
 of those who killed your menfolk by treachery 
 and spying and torture ? — ^yes, and your women- 
 folk too. Do you cold-blooded English know what 
 it is to hate like that, or are your low minds think- 
 ing only about your pounds, and your stocks and 
 shares, and your markets ? " 
 
 " Some of us," I replied, " know what it is 
 to hate." 
 
 " You lie ! " she cried. " You are traitors and 
 renegades, you English, playing a dirty game — 
 thinking only of your own interests. You do not 
 hate." 
 
 " It is war that we hate," I said, " and we hate 
 it with all the loathing one has for a foul disease." 
 
 " What do you know of war ? Were your homes 
 ruined, and your fields pillaged ; your old men shot 
 down, and your young women outraged ? " 
 
 " You in France have a better reason to hate it, 
 Madame," I answered, " and your children the 
 best reason of all." 
 
 " And those that made it — ^your friends, the 
 Germans." 
 
 " Not my friends," I retorted. " I spent four 
 years fighting them." 
 
 " Get outside — quick — before I put you out — 
 you Englishman ! " cried Claire, trembling with 
 passion. It was then that she slammed the door 
 after us, and through its glass panels we could see 
 her return to her desk and break into a torrent of 
 sobbing. 
 
 Claire Delahaye had grounds for her hatred such 
 
240 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 as we in England will never fully understand. But 
 can Europe afford these melancholy luxuries ? 
 
 IV 
 
 The cry of fire is one of the most stirring that can 
 be heard when uttered by strong men in alarm. 
 It was four o'clock on a drizzling morning when the 
 half-dozen cried it along the streets of Quimper. 
 
 Lights appeared at the windows of houses : ques- 
 tions were shouted and hurriedly answered : more 
 men were heard passing to and fro, and still more 
 men : at the barracks opposite, the bugle sounded ; 
 and gradually there spread along the roofs and up 
 the church tower the Hght of fire. Within ten 
 minutes of the alarm the spire stood out as clearly as 
 in daylight. 
 
 Four o'clock is not a convenient time to rise, but 
 there is something elemental about a fire which dis- 
 pels all thought of sleep. Besides, the burning 
 building was only a few yards away and the light 
 breeze was blowing the sparks alarmingly in our 
 direction. As we slipped on our clothes the tramp 
 of the fire-picket from the barracks and the hurried 
 passing of appliances somewhat restored confi- 
 dence. We gathered together our few worldly 
 goods, and descended sheepishly into the road. 
 
 The roof where the fire had originated was, by 
 this time, a mass of flame and by its light the house- 
 hold goods, or such as could be snatched, were 
 being dumped in the small square in front. A 
 sleepy crowd had been attracted to the scene and 
 were held at a safe distance by a dozen soldiers 
 with fixed bayonets — ^which was caution indeed 
 when one realised that the crowd wasn't awake 
 enough to be excited. Meanwhile a fierce argument 
 was in progress between the Commandant of the 
 Town Fire Brigade, the Commandant of the Rail- 
 way Fire Brigade, and the Subaltern who commanded 
 
IN THE CITY OP WATERSMEET 241 
 
 the Military Fire Picket. Their respective helmets 
 twinkled and flashed in the hght of the flames as they 
 gesticulated amongst themselves. 
 
 " I should take charge of the whole affair," 
 argued the Subaltern, secure in the pre-eminence 
 of the mihtary status in France. 
 
 "In a military fire, yes," replied the Com- 
 mandant of the Town Brigade, " but this is a civil 
 outbreak and, therefore, my affair." 
 
 " But one of the lodgers works on the railway," 
 expostulated the Railway Brigade Commander. 
 " I must look after his goods." His retirement was 
 almost due, and he wanted to make the most of 
 what might be a last chance. 
 
 The Subaltern, however, was stiff-necked ; the 
 Town Brigade man stuck to his point ; only the 
 Railway Brigade Commandant seemed to be out of 
 the running. The argument increased in vehe- 
 mence ; the men themselves, who had all this 
 while been standing by smoking cigarettes, began to 
 feel that they were called upon to take part. One 
 felt the situation might develop : when two events, 
 one after another, altered the course of things. 
 
 The roof fell in. / . 
 
 The August Personage arrived. 
 
 The immediate consequence of the former was 
 that the top storey began to blaze; of the latter 
 that the argument was subdued. The August 
 Personage, after hearing the case put forward by 
 each of the three parties, decided to take charge 
 himself. 
 
 The fire seemed to realise something was about 
 to happen, for it blazed with increased fury. The 
 August Personage took off his coat. 
 
 " To begin with," he said, " we must have a hose 
 and quite a lot of water." 
 
 A hydrant was found at last and the stand-pipe 
 of the hose adjusted. But the couplings had been 
 
 Q 
 
V 
 
 242 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 so highly polished for a recent inspection that they 
 slipped and, moreover, nobody seemed absolutely 
 certain how they fitted. 
 
 " I think it's like this," said one fireman, gal- 
 vanised at last into activity. 
 
 " Not a bit of it," repHed his companion. " I 
 remember doing it like this, rather." 
 
 " Well, I've been to a fire since you, so I ought 
 to know better." 
 
 " When was that . . . ? " 
 
 Somehow the couplings were joined, and squads 
 of men worked on the pumps like maniacs. No- 
 thing resulted. 
 
 From the rear of the building, however, appeared 
 a feeble squirt of water, which missed the seat of 
 the fire, but drenched the pumpers in the square. 
 A message was quickly sent round to stop it. 
 
 As the result of five minutes' assiduous ejffort, a 
 jet was at last started from the front, which just 
 reached the first floor (hitherto undamaged). A 
 few minutes later, a second — ^but the fire only won- 
 dered who was tickling it and blazed the more merrily. 
 Then the August Personage had his inspiration. 
 
 " A chain ! " he cried. " We will have a chain of 
 buckets." 
 
 Obedient to his command, gendarmes made 
 sudden raids into the crowd bringing back by the 
 scruff of the neck such young men as had not man- 
 aged to escape them. With the help of these 
 "volunteers," a chain was made between a canal 
 near-by and the pumps. Buckets passed along . . . 
 the fire began at last to feel uncomfortable . . . 
 half a dozen hose-pipes were working furiously . . . 
 men were sweating and cursing ... as the morn- 
 ing broke, the fire gave up the ghost. 
 
 " Among those present," we read next day in the 
 local paper, " were the ' August Personage,' who, 
 by his promptness, diverted a greater catastrophe ; 
 
IN THE CITY OF WATERSMEET 243 
 
 the Colonel and Officers of the — Infantry; the 
 Prefect ; the Inspector of Departmental Police, in 
 whose hands order was perfectly kept ; the Inspector 
 of Town Police ; the Inspector of Railway Police ; 
 the Military Picket ; the Town Fire Brigade ; and the 
 Railway Fire Brigade." 
 
 We had unwittingly been present at a social 
 function ! 
 
V 
 
 XXI 
 
 THE CRIME OF AJMELIE LE COIC 
 
 There had been no end of a commotion in the 
 remote Httle village of Hanvec, in the neighbourhood 
 of Brest, because Amehe le Coic wanted to marry a 
 tailor. 
 
 And why shouldn't she ? There seems no more 
 reason for fuss than if she had wanted to marry a 
 soldier, sailor, tinker, or anybody else in the list 
 down to the candlestick-maker. Think over such 
 of your friends as are tailors and see whether they 
 are not harmless inoffensive little men whose sharpest 
 point is in the pins in the bottom of their waistcoat 
 and whose only objectionable habit is that of rub- 
 bing chalk down the back of your shoulder blades 
 (which is all for your own good). It has always 
 seemed to me to require a clever man to keep up 
 his end of perfunctory conversation with a mouth 
 full of pins and a head full of measurements. And, 
 in the domestic sphere, do tailors make bad hus- 
 bands ? — a subject which might well be debated 
 in the daily or weekly Press. 
 
 But there was no Press in Hanvec to air the pros 
 and cons : that was done with sufficient thorough- 
 ness by the village itself. For marriage with a 
 tailor was a thing unheard of in Brittany and 
 to place tailors in a class apart is still the tradi- 
 tion in the remoter districts of the province. In 
 Hanvec the scandal waxed for two months before 
 the old women, baffled by the ingenuity of Amelie, 
 
THE CRIME OF AMELIE LE COIC 245 
 
 gradually let it drop, muttering into their toothless 
 jaws that no good could come of such a match. 
 But Amelie tossed her head and laughed. 
 
 Yet if she was dealing a blow at fast fading tradi- 
 tion, Yves Yvenec, the other party to the scandal, 
 had already struck the first. It is true that he still 
 made his regular rounds of the farm houses on 
 horseback, wearing his black velvet hat, short 
 jacket with velvet facings and occasionally his 
 resplendent red and yellow embroidered waistcoat. 
 But he did this, avowedly, because they brought 
 custom among the conservative elements of the 
 countryside and not because he favoured their 
 general use : when he returned to his workshop in 
 LaHderneau he would cast them gratefully into a ^^ 
 
 corner and hurl imprecations after them, laugh 
 quietly to himself at his own folly, tuck up his 
 sleeves and settle down to work. His open de- 
 fiance of tradition was in refusing to follow the 
 practice whereby the village tailor is the professional 
 proposer of marriage, acting on behalf of the lover 
 by serenading his choice outside her window, offer- 
 ing her a sprig of genista, and then making the 
 formal declaration of love. Yves declared that 
 the lover who resorted to a professional mediator 
 was not worthy to be the husband of any girl, and 
 described the whole business as tomfoolery. 
 
 But when, being as other men, Yves desired to 
 take unto himself a wife, he found tradition a soUd 
 wall to bar his progress. To the countryside he was 
 a tailor rather than a man ; or at best a tailor as 
 well as a man, one whose professional duties 
 brought him into close contact with both men and 
 women. And how, argued tradition, could anyone, 
 who had constantly to make women's as well as 
 men's clothes, and who was forced to measure 
 women's as well as men's bodies, keep his mind true 
 to one woman ? Besides, traveUing as he did 
 
 i/' 
 
i 
 
 246 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 from farm to farm, every item of scandal and gossip 
 could not fail to reach him, would doubtless be 
 passed on to his wife and make her dangerous 
 even among her own sex. Tradition put its foot 
 down firmly : Yves and such as he must remain 
 single. 
 
 Only AmeUe thought differently : she was ready 
 to beheve that a man could be true to his wife even 
 if tailor he be, that his talk need not consist only of 
 scandal, in short that he was man first and tailor 
 second. She was a fool, said Hanvec : tradition 
 was not invented in a day, but had grown up out of 
 generations of experience. To which Amelie 
 answered that her experience, too, would influence 
 tradition. She did not boast of the risks she was 
 taking, but quietly accepted them : if things turned 
 out all right she would be able to go on laughing at 
 the croaking wiseacres, if not — well, it would not 
 be because Yves was a tailor : all marriage was a 
 lottery. 
 
 As the day approached the odds wavered some- 
 what : there had been such imanimity in the village 
 discussion, either that the match would turn out 
 disastrously or be broken off at the last minute, 
 that they could not, as it were, keep up the steep 
 price at which they had started. A Uttle doubt 
 crept in as to whether the favourite was all he was 
 thought to be : whether the other horse hadn't a 
 faint chance of a place. 
 
 " They're running in the face of Providence," 
 declared Mother Sadout emphatically, " you'll live 
 to see their downfall." 
 
 *' Maybe," agreed Mother Huet. 
 
 " There's no marriage with a tailor that's turned 
 out well yet," continued Mother Sadout. 
 
 " Maybe," repeated Mother Huet, " but I don't 
 remember such a one myself." 
 
 *' Well, you know well enough without thinking. 
 
THE CRIME OF AMELIE LE COIC 247 
 
 It's a thing you can be sure of, with tailors as they 
 are." 
 
 " Can you ? " queried Mother Huet. 
 
 " Of course you can." 
 
 "Maybe." But Mother Huet was not quite 
 convinced. 
 
 " I don't pity either of them," went on Mother 
 Sadout vigorously, in spite of her seventy-eight 
 years, " if she were my daughter I'd forbid it." 
 
 " Ah, but children aren't what they used to be," 
 wailed Mother Huet. 
 
 " She shouldn't marry him, anyway." 
 
 " Maybe." Mother Huet was still less convinced. 
 
 Mother Huet's " maybe " represented the ad- 
 vanced element in Hanvec, and it was to her side 
 that recruits came. Even Mother Sadout's em- 
 phatic certainty became weaker as the fulfilment of 
 her first prognostication — ^that of the breaking off 
 of the match — was delayed ; but she concentrated 
 with all the more vigour on her prophecy of disaster 
 to the couple. She recalled, out of her many memories, 
 the confused recollection of having heard from a 
 friend about a girl who had married a tailor and 
 who had been deserted by him — and this evidence 
 was accepted by her party as conclusive. Papa 
 Rosnic, who claimed to be the village's oldest 
 inhabitant, remembered another case — or, on 
 second thoughts, was it the same ? At any rate, 
 the consequences had been similar ; and who would 
 be bold enough to say that history would not re- 
 peat itself ? Not he, nor Mother Sadout, nor 
 even, in any definite manner. Mother Huet. The 
 most that could be done was to watch. 
 
 Day by day, however, Mother Huet's camp 
 grew in strength. With the exception of a few 
 irreconcilables, the whole village grew to famiharity 
 with the watchword " Maybe." 
 
 Then came the news which struck consternation 
 
 s^^ 
 
248 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 into the hearts of both sides : it was the biggest 
 blow that had yet fallen. I heard it from the 
 lips of Papa Rosnic himself. 
 
 He was leaning over his gate, muttering and 
 gesticulating like one bereft of reason. His pipe, 
 which had been forgotten, waggled up and down in 
 his mouth and his wrinkled forehead was beaded 
 with sweat. Both hands worked convulsively. 
 
 " Have you heard ? " he cried as I approached. 
 " The hussy that she is ! " 
 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 " What's the matter ! You haven't heard then ? 
 I can't understand it at all — ^why she consented to 
 it. Not being content with one scandal. ..." 
 
 " I don't follow you," I interrupted. 
 
 " Of course you don't. Well then, it's this. The 
 le Coic girl says she won't have anybody to her 
 wedding who isn't necessary. She isn't going to have 
 a feast or a dance or anything of that sort. She 
 says she's tired of us all and wants to get her 
 wedding over quietly." 
 
 Mother Sadout came up, winded but indignant. 
 
 " Amelie is a little cat," she wheezed, " she thinks 
 she's clever. But I don't mind, not me ! I've 
 seen plenty of weddings in my time, I have, and 
 better ones than Amelie's." 
 
 " It does seem a pity though," chimed in Mother 
 Huet, " it's so nice to watch, is a wedding." 
 
 " It's the last straw," snorted Mother Sadout. 
 " I always said it'll turn out badly ; now I mean it." 
 
 Amehe, in response to all this contumely, 
 shrugged her shoulders wearily. 
 
 " It's no use trying to please people," she said. 
 " I thought that as you were so shocked at my 
 marrying a tailor you'd at least appreciate my 
 keeping it quiet." 
 
 But tradition isn't as simple an affair as that. 
 
XXII 
 
 KERGOSIEN THE BUTCHER 
 
 MoRLAix isn't a town : it's a viaduct. It joins 
 two hills ; it joins many centuries. Old heavy- 
 wheeled carts lumber through its streets ; scream- 
 ing trains, two hundred feet up in the air, dash 
 across its enormous bridge. Paris and London 
 fashions are well represented ; so are the fashions 
 of Breton tradition. Had Morlaix, by any chance, 
 forgotten to chose a coat of arms, I would blazon one 
 for it : — vert (for that is the colour of the hills and i/ 
 countryside) ; a Breton hat, proper ; a motor car 
 
 rampant ; over all, a viaduct, or If such a shield 
 
 does not comply with the tenets of heraldry (and 
 I am told it does not) it still describes all one needs 
 to know about Morlaix. 
 
 Morlaix is a place one visits, not to see, but to pass 
 through : paradoxically it is called a " centre." 
 The towns and scenery in its district are considered 
 to be of greater interest than Morlaix itseK, so 
 one devotes a couple of hours and a spare evening 
 to looking at what lies immediately in front of one, 
 and many days in chasing the elusive sprite of the 
 picturesque. One has to travel outside to find that 
 Morlaix itself is worth seeing. Again the viaduct 
 with its double track is descriptive. 
 
 You can't get away from it. It is a bigger thing 
 than any of the church spires : it overawes the town 
 with a domination of the material against which 
 
250 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 they protest in vain. The old houses, of which 
 there are some fine specimens in Morlaix, count as 
 nothing beside it : it is modern and useful while 
 they are out of date and exist on suffrance. It is 
 the symbol of a Brittany, divested of its conservatism 
 and reaction, its poverty and pride, opening its 
 treasures to the outside world and saying " I am 
 worth looking at. Enter." The trains, snorting 
 and screaming their way across, wake the sleepy 
 town at night and during the day drown the rattle 
 of the country market carts on the cobblestones. 
 They are, as it were, bearing the strangers over the 
 chasm that once separated Brittany from the rest of 
 France, so close a corporation was she. They cross 
 the viaduct, and then the tourists make their ex- 
 cursions into the countryside, take their snapshots, 
 write their picture postcards and move on without 
 suspecting that within a dozen yards of the station 
 they were face to face with the most significant fact 
 that the whole district had to offer. 
 Morlaix isn't a town : it's a viaduct. 
 
 n 
 
 This is to celebrate an Englishman who, while in the 
 wrong, was tremendously in the right. He knocked 
 a man down for being less than a man. It was not 
 until later that I learned the Englishman's name, 
 for he was led away between two gendarmes. This 
 is how it happened. 
 
 Saturday is market day in Morlaix and Kergosien 
 (that at least was the name on the cart) had done 
 well in securing five well-reared fat calves. Ker- 
 gosien was a butcher ; and looked it. 
 
 He tied the feet of the poor brutes together and 
 slung them into the back of the cart, while he went 
 to fill his own belly with cider. It was a hot day, 
 and he wanted it — quite a lot, in fact, before his 
 thirst was quenched — ; but it did not occur to 
 
KERGOSIEN THE BUTCHER 251 
 
 him that the calves he had left in the glaring sun 
 might be equally hot and thirsty, and that they had 
 no cider, not even water. They had nothing to do 
 except to gaze, head downward, over the tail- 
 board, and to utter occasional plaintive mooings, 
 varied with ineffectual struggles to free their legs : 
 one does not obtain a very kindly view of life when 
 one's head is below the level of one's tethered feet. 
 But what did that matter anyhow : they were going 
 to be killed in a few hours. 
 
 Kergosien met some old friends in the buvette, 
 and had naturally much to tell them. His nar- 
 ration became so long-winded and his thirst so 
 fiery that he did not notice the passage of the 
 hours, and it was the middle of the afternoon be- 
 fore he suddenly remembered that his horse had 
 not been watered. He rose unsteadily, begged a 
 pail, which he filled at the street pump, and gave 
 his horse to drink : he was still sober enough to 
 know that if anything happened to Jacques he 
 would have to pay a stiff price to replace him (You 
 wouldn't have thought so to see him : but Ker- 
 gosien knew better) and that he must, therefore, 
 be looked after. 
 
 When Jacques at last lifted a grateful head from 
 the bucket, his master, instead of throwing away the 
 remainder, carelessly placed it on a high stone by 
 the tail-board of the cart before kicking a stray cat 
 and returning to his refreshment. The smell of 
 water was sweet in the dilated nostrils of the nearest 
 caH : a human being, much less an animal, could 
 not have withstood the temptation. There was a 
 desperate struggle in the cart . . . and the bucket 
 fell with a crash. 
 
 Kergosien, rushing from the buvette, took in the 
 situation on the instant : the agony of the calf 
 alone would have told him. He raised his whip, 
 and brought it down fiercely upon the helpless 
 
 
252 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 animal. He repeated the blow and still the whip 
 was raised. The calf cried and struggled, but 
 Kergosien was seeing red. 
 
 Two gendarmes looked on apathetically. . . . 
 
 Nobody knew exactly where the Englishman 
 came from : he appeared as an angel might suddenly 
 appear out of nowhere. But, unUke an angel, he 
 was almost foaming at the mouth with rage. 
 
 " You cad," he cried to Kergosien. 
 
 Kergosien did not understand in the least what 
 he was talking about, but there was no mistaking 
 his expression. The butcher thought it well to stay 
 his hand. 
 
 But the Englishman seized the whip. 
 
 " You swine ! " he said to him : the wrath was 
 gone now, and a calm, which seemed to the excit- 
 able French crowd even more dangerous, had taken 
 its place. He might have been holding a confiden- 
 tial talk with Kergosien from the quiet way in 
 which he uttered the words. 
 
 Then recollecting his situation, he tried to ex- 
 press himself in bad French, but contemptuously 
 throwing it aside, broke out again in EngHsh. 
 
 " I'll teach you to do that sort of thing, you 
 damned cur," he said in his quiet voice. " I'm 
 going to give you the biggest thrashing you ever had 
 in your life." 
 
 The surrounding crowd deemed it well to keep at 
 a safe distance : the EngHshman, tearing off the 
 lash of the whip, brought the stick down on Ker- 
 gosien' s back with such force that the accumulated 
 dust of Brittany high roads rose Hke a cloud into 
 the air. 
 
 Kergosien was no fool and was, moreover, furious 
 at such interference with his rights as a free citizen 
 of France : weren't the calves his to do what he 
 liked with ? His silence, hitherto, had been due 
 solely to the fact that he couldn't make out what 
 
KERGOSIEN THE BUTCHER 253 
 
 all the fuss was about : but a blow is a blow. He 
 landed a straight one at the Englishman's chest. 
 
 The Englishman dropped the whip, estimated 
 his distance for a fraction of a second — and Ker- 
 gosien's seventeen stone was lying its bulky length 
 beneath the cart and the calves. 
 
 The Englishman turned on his heel, but as the 
 crowd fell back the two gendarmes, spying from their 
 safe corner that damage had been done to a French 
 subject, bustled up. A long colloquy ensued most 
 of which was inaudible : I heard the words " if 
 Monsieur will accompany us " ; the EngHshman 
 nodded and the Httle party of three, followed by 
 the curious crowd, turned the corner. 
 
 I am glad to say that nobody was sufficiently 
 interested to look after Kergosien. He just lay 
 there . . . and for all I care he may be lying there 
 still. 
 
 ni 
 
 It was in Morlaix that the little cafe waiter 
 delivered his epigram. " What is wrong with 
 France is that one is allowed too much personal 
 liberty." 
 
 Thinking of Kergosien and the calves, of various 
 unseemly fights for tickets at booking-offices, of 
 the vision of a beautiful lady in a fashionable hotel 
 picking a flea from her arm and letting it drop 
 casually to the floor, of other and more repulsive 
 incidents which passed without the least protest 
 from the Frenchmen who witnessed them, I 
 agreed. 
 
 " It is the ruin of France," I said. " You are 
 the most charming nation in the world, and among 
 civihsed peoples the most uncouth and undisciplined. 
 What on earth does your conscription teach 
 you ? " 
 
 In the distance came the sound of artillery 
 
254 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 proclaiming the opening of a fete. I remembered 
 the bayonets and sentries at the fire in Quimper. 
 
 Perhaps I knew the answer before I put the 
 question. 
 
 IV 
 
 In St. Pol de Leon you leave Brittany altogether 
 and return to an English cathedral town. Amid 
 its dignified eighteenth century houses with their 
 restful walled gardens and their charming vistas 
 and glimpses of the twin towers of the old cathedral, 
 you breathe the out-of-the-world atmosphere which 
 belongs to Ely and Wells. Or you half expect to 
 find somewhere in the vicinity an English public 
 school. . . . 
 
 Though when you look at the tall, almost top- 
 heavy tower of the Chapelle du Kreisker, you 
 imagine yourself in Flanders, and wait in vain for 
 the chiming of the carillon. Wherever you go, in 
 the surrounding country or from the sea, the tower 
 stands out conspicuously : in the middle of a plain 
 it seems a ladder cHmbing to Heaven. 
 
 All the more so because, just as the theologians 
 would have us beheve, the earth from which it 
 climbs is a very dirty earth. All the charm of St. 
 Pol de Leon is spoiled by the slackness of the muni- 
 cipal authorities. Flies abound in swarms — ^they 
 descend on you Hke the falling of a black wall, 
 devour your food and person in numbers impossible 
 to estimate. There are other things too — and 
 more of them than Noah took with him officially 
 into the Ark. 
 
 They have, of course, a market in St. Pol de Leon. 
 It is held on Tuesday, and you may find, on the 
 following Sunday, its refuse and dirt still littering 
 the streets and choking the gutters, blowing into 
 your face, and filtering through the air on to your 
 food, a very haven for flies and such as they. The 
 
KERGOSIEN THE BUTCHER 255 
 
 market is only one of the backsliders, the other 
 . . . Well, if I had a municipal vote in St. Pol de 
 Leon, I know how I should use it. 
 
 But nobody seems to mind — nobody grumbles 
 at the refuse and the flies and the other " incon- 
 veniences." They take them all in the spirit of 
 fatalism which one observes throughout Brittany 
 — ^the fatalism which keeps it poor, which makes 
 it, as far as one can judge, the most drunken pro- 
 vince in France, which kills, or appears to kill, , 
 Initiative and progress and even " the will to do." | 
 One works because one has to work — and it matters 
 very little how one works or what at. i 
 
 It is curious that Brittany should be, at the same 
 time, so " religious." 
 
 Fatalism is a dangerous atmosphere to breathe. 
 It is not safe to cry Kismet, unless you are prepared 
 to adjust the rest of your life to it. 
 
 When I spied the Englishman who, a few days 
 previously, had given Kergosien his much-needed 
 castigation, I ran to him with my congratulations. 
 He was modest, surly even (as EngHshmen are when 
 they meet their fellow countrymen abroad), until by 
 accident I mentioned the name of his school. It 
 was the key to his confidence. 
 
 " Where are you off to now ? " I asked him. 
 
 " England," he replied. " I've no use for people 
 who treat horses and Germans as if they weren't 
 also God's creatures." 
 
 " Hear, hear ! " interposed Helen. 
 
 " And I've no use, either, for people who content 
 themselves with the lowest standard of cleanliness 
 and sanitation and then fancy themselves super- 
 civiUsed." 
 
 " Carried unanimously," I exclaimed. 
 
 " Then you're coming home too ? " he queried 
 
256 AMONG FRENCH FOLK 
 
 Up to that moment the idea hadn't occurred to 
 us. It was Helen who answered. 
 
 " We came out here in the Spring, when the 
 world's sap was rising. Now it is sinking again, 
 and soon it will drop to the dead winter level. The 
 sap of our enthusiasm for France is falling too. 
 Let's go." 
 
 Helen had spoken 
 
 " Kismet," I repUed. 
 
 THE END 
 
STAMPED BEjX^^^ ^^TE 
 
 NOV 18 Hi32 
 
 FEB 9 V 
 
 ^^^ 20,933 
 ^fP 5 19- 
 MAH IS 1935 
 
 APR ^D^s^^U 
 
 ^fP I3t938 
 APR 8 1939 
 
 V.' 
 
 APR 3 1936 '■" , 
 
 "^"N 6 1946 
 '^^'' ^9 ,93, 
 
 S.-Slj 
 
A- 
 
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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
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