CHAPTER X.
ERNESTINE.
"Ah, mesdames, what will you have? The French peasant is like that. When he is in a rage nothing stops him—he beats anything, everything; whatever his hand encounters must suffer when he is angry; his wife, his child, his servant, his horse, they are all alike to him when he sees red."
Monsieur Fouchet was tying up his rose-trees; we were watching him from our seat on the green bench. Here in the garden, beneath the blue vault, the roses were drooping from very heaviness of glory; they gave forth a scent that made the head swim. It was a healthy, virile intoxication, however, the salt in the air steadying one's nerves.
Nature, not being mortal and cursed with a conscience, had risen that morning in a mood for carousal; at this hour of noon she had reached the point of ecstatic stupor. No state of trance was ever so exquisite. The air was swooning, but how delicate its gasps, as if it fell away into calm! How adorably blue the sky in its debauch of sun-lit ether! The sea, too, although it reeled slightly, unsteadily rising only to fall away, what a radiance of color it maintained! Here in the garden the drowsy air would lift a flower petal, as some dreamer sunk in hasheesh slumber might touch a loved hand, only to let it slip away in nerveless impotence. Never had the charm of this Normandy sea-coast been as compelling; never had the divine softness of this air, this harmonious marriage of earth-scents and sea-smells seemed as perfect; never before had the delicacy of the foliage and color-gradations of the sky as triumphantly proved that nowhere else, save in France, can nature be at once sensuous and poetic.
We looked for something other than pure enjoyment from this golden moment; we hoped its beauty would help us to soften our landlord. This was the moment we had chosen to excite his sympathies, also to gain counsel from him concerning the tragedy we had witnessed the day before. He listened to our tale with evident interest, but there was a disappointing coolness in his eye. As the narrative proceeded, the brutality of the situation failed to sting him to even a mild form of indignation. He went on tying his rose-trees, his ardor expending itself in choice snippings of the stray stalks and rebellious tendrils.
"This Guichon," he said, after a brief moment, in the tone that goes with the pursuance of an occupation that has become a passion. "This Guichon—I know him. He is a hard man, but no harder than many others, and he has had his losses, which don't always soften a man. 'Qui terre a guerre a,' Molière says, and Guichon has had many lawsuits, losing them all. He has been twice married; that was his daughter by his first wife he was touching up like that. He married only the other day Madame Tier, a rich woman, a neighbor, their lands join. It was a great match for him, and she, the wife, and his daughter don't hit it off, it appears. There was some talk of a marriage for the girl lately; a good match presented itself, but the girl will have none of it; perhaps that accounts for the beating."
A rose, overblown with its fulness of splendor, dropped in a shower at
Fouchet's feet just then.
"Tiens, elle est finie, celle-là" he cried, with an accent of regret, and he stooped over the fallen petals as if they had been the remains of a friend. Then he sighed as he swept the mass into his broad palm.
"Come, let us leave him to the funeral of his roses; he hasn't the sensibilities of an insect;" and Charm grasped my arm to lead me over the turf, across the gravel paths, toward the tea-house.
This tottering structure had become one of our favorite retreats; in the poetic mise-en-scène of the garden it played the part of Ruin. It was absurdly, ridiculously out of repair; its gaping beams and the sunken, dejected floor could only be due to intentional neglect. Fouchet evidently had grasped the secrets of the laws of contrast; the deflected angle of the tumbling roof made the clean-cut garden beds doubly true. Nature had had compassion on the aged little building, however; the clustering, fragrant vines, in their hatred of nudity, had invested the prose of a wreck with the poetry of drapery. The tip-tilted settee beneath the odorous roof became, in time, our chosen seat; from that perch we could overlook the garden-walls, the beach, the curve of the shore, the grasses and hollyhocks in our neighbor's garden, the latter startlingly distinct against the great arch of the sky.
It was here Renard found us an hour later. To him, likewise, did Charm narrate our extraordinary experience of yesterday, with much adjunct of fiery comment, embellishment of gesture, and imitative pose.
"Ye gods, what a scene to paint! You were in luck—in luck; why wasn't
I there?" was Renard's tribute to human pity.
"Oh, you are all alike, all—nothing moves you—you haven't common human sympathies—you haven't the rudiments of a heart! You are terrible—all of you—terrible!" A moment after she had left us, as if the narrowness of the little house stifled her. With long, swinging steps she passed out, to air her indignation, apparently, beneath the wall of the espaliers.
"Splendid creature, isn't she?" commented Renard, following the long lines of the girl's fluttering muslin gown, as he plucked at his mustache. "She should always wear white and gold—what is that stuff?—and be lit up like that with a kind of goddess-like anger. She is wrong, however," he went on, a moment later; "those of us who live here aren't really barbarians, only we get used to things. It's the peasants themselves that force us; they wouldn't stand interference. A peasant is a kind of king on his own domain; he does anything he likes, short of murder, and he doesn't always stop at that."
"But surely the Government—at least their Church, ought to teach them—"
"Oh, their Church! they laugh at their curés—till they come to die. He's a heathen, that's what the French peasant is—there's lots of the middle ages abroad up there in the country. Along here, in the coast villages, the nineteenth century has crept in a bit, humanizing them, but the fonds is always the same; they're by nature avaricious, sordid, cruel; they'll do anything for money; there isn't anything sacred for them except their pocket."
A few days later, in our friend the cobbler we found a more sympathetic listener. "Dame! I also used to beat my wife," he said, contemplatively, as he scratched his herculean head, "but that was when I was a Christian, when I went to confession; for the confessional was made for that, c'est pour laver le linge sale des consciences, çà" (interjecting his epigram). "But now—now that I am a free-thinker, I have ceased all that; I don't beat her," pointing to his old wife, "and neither do I drink or swear."
"It's true, he's good—he is, now," the old wife nodded, with her slit of a smile; "but," she added, quickly, as if even in her husband's religious past there had been some days of glory, "he was always just—even then—when he beat me."
"C'est très femme, çà—hein, mademoiselle?" And the cobbler cocked his head in critical pose, with a philosopher's smile.
The result of the interview, however, although not entirely satisfactory, was illuminating, besides this light which had been thrown on the cobbler's reformation. For the cobbler was a cousin, distant in point of kinship, but still a cousin, of the brutal farmer and father. He knew all the points of the situation, the chief of which was, as Fouchet had hinted, that the girl had refused to wed the bon parti, who was a connection of the step-mother. As for the step-mother's murderous outcry, "Kill her! kill her!" the cobbler refused to take a dramatic view of this outburst.
"In such moments, you understand, one loses one's head; brutality always intoxicates; she was a little drunk, you see."
When we proposed our modest little scheme, that of sending for the girl and taking her, for a time at least, into our service, merely as a change of scene, the cobbler had found nothing but admiration for the project. "It will be perfect, mesdames. They, the parents, will ask nothing better. To have the girl out at service, away, and yet not disgracing them by taking a place with any other farmer; yes, they will like that, for they are rich, you see, and wealth always respects itself. Ah, yes, it's perfect; I'll arrange all that—all the details."
Two days later the result of the arrangement stood before us. She was standing with her arms crossed, her fingers clasping her elbows—with her very best peasant manner. She was neatly, and, for a peasant, almost fashionably attired in her holiday dress—a short, black skirt, white stockings, a flowery kerchief crossed over her broad bosom, and on her pretty hair a richly tinted blue foulard. She was very well dressed for a peasant, and, from the point of view of two travellers, of about as much use as a plough.
"It's a beautiful scheme, and it's as dramatic as the fifth act of a play; but what shall we do with her?"
"Oh." replied Charm, carelessly, "there isn't anything in particular for her to do. I mean to buy her a lot of clothes, like those she has on, and she can walk about in the garden or in the fields."
"Ah, I see; she's to be a kind of a perambulating figure-piece."
"Yes, that's about it. I dare say she will be very useful at sunset, in a dim street; so few peasants wear anything approaching to costume nowadays."
Ernestine herself, however, as we soon discovered, had an entirely different conception of her vocation. She was a vigorous, active young woman, with the sap of twenty summers in her lusty young veins. Her energies soon found vent in a continuous round of domestic excitements. There were windows and floors that cried aloud to Heaven to be scrubbed; there were holes in the sheets to make mam'zelle's lying between them une honte, une vraie honte. As for Madame Fouchet's little weekly bill, Dieu de Dieu, it was filled with such extortions as to make the very angels weep. Madame and Ernestine did valiant battle over those bills thereafter. Ernestine was possessed of the courage of a true martyr; she could suffer and submit to the scourge, in the matter of personal persecution, for the religion of her own convictions; but in the service of her rescuer, she could fight with the fierceness of a common soldier.
"When Norman meets Norman—" Charm began one day, the sound of voices, in a high treble of anger, coming in to us through the windows.
But Ernestine was knocking at the door, with a note in her hand.
"An answer is asked, mesdames," she said, in a voice of honey, as she dropped her low courtesy.
This was the missive:
ALONG AN OLD POST-ROAD.
TO HONFLEUR AND TROUVILLE.
CHAPTER XI.
TO AN OLD MANOR.
"Will ces dames join me in a marauding expedition? Like the poet Villon, I am about to turn marauder, house breaker, thief. I shall hope to end the excursion by one act, at least, of highway robbery. I shall lose courage without the enlivening presence of ces dames. We will start when the day is at its best, we will return when the moon smiles. In case of finding none to rob, the coach of the desperadoes will be garrisoned with provisions; Henri will accompany us as counsellor, purveyor, and bearer of arms and costumes. The carriage for ces dames will stop the way at the hour of eleven.
"I have the honor to sign myself their humble servant and co-conspirator.
"John Renard."
"This, in plain English," was Charm's laconic translation of this note, "means that he wishes us to be ready at eleven for the excursion to P——, to spend the day, you may remember, at that old manor. He wants to paint in a background, he said yesterday, while we stroll about and look at the old place. What shall I wear?"
In an hour we were on the road.
A jaunty yellow cart, laden with a girl on the front seat; with a man, tawny of mustache, broad of shoulder, and dark of eye, with face shining to match the spring in the air and that fair face beside him; laden also with another lady on the back seat, beside whom, upright and stiff, with folded arms, sat Henri, costumer, valet, cook, and groom. It was in the latter capacity that Henri was now posing. The role of groom was uppermost in his orderly mind, although at intervals, when his foot chanced to touch a huge luncheon-basket with which the cart was also laden, there were betraying signs of anxiety; it was then that the chef crept back to life. This spring in the air was all very well, but how would it affect the sauces? This great question was written on Henri's brow in a network of anxious wrinkles.
"Henri," I remarked, as we were wheeling down the roadway, "I am quite certain you have put up enough luncheon for a regiment."
"Madame has said it, for a regiment; Monsieur Renard, when he works, eats with the hunger of a wolf."
"Henri, did you get in all the rags?" This came from Renard on the front seat, as he plied his steed with the whip.
"The costume of Monsieur le Marquis, and also of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour, are beneath my feet in the valise, Monsieur Renard. I have the sword between my legs," replied Henri, the costumer coming to the surface long enough to readjust the sword.
"Capital fellow, Henri, never forgets anything," said Renard, in
English.
"Couldn't we offer a libation or something, on such a morning—"
"On such a morning," interrupted the painter, "one should be seated next to a charming young lady who has the genius to wear Nile green and white; even a painter with an Honorable Mention behind him and fame still ahead, in spite of the Mention, is satisfied. You know a Greek deity was nothing to a painter, modern, and of the French school, in point of fastidiousness."
"Nonsense! it's the American woman who is fastidious, when it comes to clothes."
Meanwhile, there was one of the party who was looking at the road; that also was arrayed in Nile green and white; the tall trees also held umbrellas above us, but these coverings were woven of leaves and sky. This bit of roadway appeared to have slipped down from the upper country, and to have carried much of the upper country with it. It was highway posing as pure rustic. It had brought all its pastoral paraphernalia along. Nothing had been forgotten: neither the hawthorn and the osier hedges, nor the tree-trunks, suddenly grown modest at sight of the sea, burying their nudity in nests of vines, nor the trick which elms and beeches have, of growing arches in the sky. Timbered farm-houses were here, also thatched huts, to make the next villa-gate gain in stateliness; apple orchards were dotted about with such a knowing air of wearing the long line of the Atlantic girdled about their gnarled trunks, that one could not believe pure accident had carried them to the edge of the sea. There were several miles of this driving along beneath these green aisles. Through the screen of the hedges and the crowded tree-trunks, picture succeeded picture; bits of the sea were caught between slits of cliff; farmhouses, huts, and villas lay smothered in blossoms; above were heights whereon poplars seemed to shiver in the sun, as they wrapped about them their shroud-like foliage; meadows slipped away from the heights, plunging seaward, as if wearying for the ocean; and through the whole this line of green roadway threaded its path with sinuous grace, serpentining, coiling, braiding in land and sea in one harmonious, inextricable blending of incomparable beauty. One could quite comprehend, after even a short acquaintance with this road, that two gentlemen of Paris, as difficult to please as Daubigny and Isabey, should have seen points of excellence in it.
There are all sorts of ways of being a painter. Perhaps as good as any, if one cares at all about a trifling matter like beauty, is to know a good thing when one sees it. That poet of the brush, Daubigny, not only was gifted with this very unusual talent in a painter, but a good thing could actually be entrusted in his hands after its discovery. And herein, it appears to me, lies all the difference between good and bad painting; not only is an artist—any artist—to be judged by what he sees, but also by what he does with a fact after he's acquired it—whether he turns it into poetry or prose.
I might incautiously have sprung these views on the artist on the front seat, had he not wisely forestalled my outburst by one of his own.
"By the way," he broke in; "by the way, I'm not doing my duty as cicerone. There's a church near here—we're coming to it in a moment—famous—eleventh or twelfth century, Romanesque style—yes—that's right, although I'm somewhat shaky when it comes to architecture—and an old manoir, museum now, with lots of old furniture in it—in the manoir, I mean."
"There's the church now. Oh, let us stop!"
In point of fact there were two churches before us. There was one of ivy: nave, roof, aisles, walls, and conic-shaped top, as perfectly defined in green as if the beautiful mantle had been cut and fitted to the hidden stone structure. Every few moments the mantle would be lifted by the light breeze, as might a priest's vestment; it would move and waver, as if the building were a human frame, changing its posture to ease its long standing. Between this church of stone and this church of vines there were signs of the fight that had gone on for ages between them. The stones were obviously fighting decay, fighting ruin, fighting annihilation; the vines were also struggling, but both time and the sun were on their side. The stone edifice was now, it is true, as Renard told us, protected by the Government—it was classed as a "monument historique"—but the church of greens was protected by the god of nature, and seemed to laugh aloud, as if with conscious gleeful strength. This gay, triumphant laugh was reflected, as if to emphasize its mockery of man's work, in the tranquil waters of a little pond, lily-leaved, garlanded in bushes, that lay hidden beyond the roadway. Through the interstices of the vines one solitary window from the tower, like a sombre eye, looked down into the pond; it saw there, reflected as in a mirror, the old, the eternal picture of a dead ruin clasped by the arms of living beauty.
This Criqueboeuf church presents the ideal picturesque accessories. It stands at the corner of two meeting roadways. It is set in an ideal pastoral frame—a frame of sleeping fields, of waving tree-tops, of an enchanting, indescribable snarl of bushes, vines, and wild flowers. In the adjoining fields, beneath the tree-boughs, ran the long, low line of the ancient manoir—now turned into a museum.
We glanced for a few brief moments at the collection of antiquities assembled beneath the old roof—at the Henry II. chairs, at the Pompadour-wreathed cabinets, at the long rows of panels on which are presented the whole history of France—the latter an amazing record of the industry of a certain Dr. Le Goupils.
"Criqueboeuf doesn't exactly hide its light under a bushel, you know, although it doesn't crown a hill. No end of people know it; it sits for its portrait, I should say at least twice a week regularly, on an average, during the season. English water-colorists go mad over it—they cross over on purpose to `do' it, and they do it extremely badly, as a rule."
This was Renard's last comment of a biographical and critical nature, concerning the "historical monument," as we reseated ourselves to pursue our way to P——.
"Why don't you show them how it can be done?"
"Would," coolly returned Renard, "if it were worth while, but it isn't in my line. Henri, did you bring any ice?"
Henri, I had noticed, when we had reseated ourselves in the cart, had greeted us with an air of silent sadness; he clearly had not approved of ruins that interfered with the business of the day.
"Oui, monsieur, I did bring some ice, but as monsieur can imagine to himself—a two hours' sun—"
"Nonsense, this sun wouldn't melt a pat of butter; the ice is all right, and so is the wine."
Then he continued in English: "Now, ladies, as I should begin if I were a politician, or an auctioneer; now, ladies, the time for confession has arrived; I can no longer conceal from you my burglarious scheme. In the next turn that we shall make to the right, the park of the P—— manoir will disclose itself. But, between us and that Park, there is a gate. That gate is locked. Now, gates, from the time of the Garden of Eden, I take it, have been an invention of—of—the other fellow, to keep people out. I know a way—but it's not the way you can follow. Henri and I will break down a few bars, we'll cross a few fields over yonder, and will present ourselves, with all the virtues written on our faces, to you in the Park. Meanwhile you must enter, as queens should—through the great gates. Behold, there is a curé yonder, a great friend of mine. You will step along the roadway; you will ring a door-bell; the curé will appear; you will ask him if it be true that the manoir of P—— is to rent, you have heard that he has the keys; he will present you the keys; you will open the big gate and find me."
"But—but, Mr. Renard, I really don't see how that scheme will work."
"Work! It will work to a charm. You will see. Henri, just help the ladies, will you?"
Henri, with decisive gravity, was helping the ladies to alight; in another instant he had regained his seat, and he and Renard were flying down the roadway, out of sight.
"Really—it's the coolest proceeding," Charm began. Then we looked through the bars of the park gate. The park was as green and as still as a convent garden; a pink brick mansion, with closed window-blinds, was standing, surrounded by a terrace on one side, and by glittering parterres on the other.
"Where did he say the old curé was?" asked Charm, quite briskly, all at once. Everything had turned out precisely as Renard had predicted. Doubtless he had also counted on the efficacy of the old fable of the Peri at the Gate—one look had been sufficient to turn us into arrant conspirators; to gain an entrance into that tranquil paradise any ruse would serve.
"Here's a church—he said nothing about a church, did he?"
Across the avenue, above the branches of a row of tall trees, rose the ivied facade of a rude hamlet church; a flight of steep weedy steps led up to its Norman doorway. The door was wide open; through the arched aperture came the sounds of footfalls, of a heavy, vigorous tread; Charm ran lightly up a few of the lower steps, to peer into the open door.
"It's the curé dusting the altar—shall I go in?"
"No, we had best ring—this must be his house."
The clatter of the curé's sabots was the response that answered to the bell we pulled, a bell attached to a diminutive brick house lying at the foot of the churchyard. The tinkling of the cracked-voiced bell had hardly ceased when the door opened.
But the curé had already taken his first glance at us over the garden hedges.
CHAPTER XII.
A NORMAN CURE.
"Mesdames!"
The priest's massive frame filled the narrow door; the tones of his mellow voice seemed also suddenly to fill the air, drowning all other sounds. The grace of his manner, a grace that invested the simple act of his uncovering and the holding of his calotte in hand, with an air of homage, made also our own errand the more difficult.
I had already begun to murmur the nature of our errand: we were passing, we had seen the manoir opposite, we had heard it was to rent, also that he, Monsieur le Curé, had the keys.
Yes, the keys were here. Then the velvet in Monsieur le Curé's eyes turned to bronze, as they looked out at us from beneath the fine dome of brow.
"I have the keys of the garden only, mesdames," he replied, with perfect but somewhat distant courtesy; "the gardener, down the road yonder, has the keys of the house. Do you really wish to rent the house?"
He had seen through our ruse with quick Norman penetration. He had not, from the first, been in the least deceived.
It became the more difficult to smooth the situation into shape. "We had thought perhaps to rent a villa, we were in one now at Villerville. If Monsieur le curé would let us look at the garden. Monsieur Renard, whom perhaps he remembered—
"M. Renard! Oh ho! Oh ho! I see it all now," and a deep, mellow laugh smote the air. The keenness in the fine eyes melted into mirth, a mirth that laid the fine head back on the broad shoulders, that the laugh that shook the powerful frame might have the fuller play.
"Ah, mes enfants, I see it all now—it is that scoundrel of a boy. I'll warrant he's there, over yonder, already. He was here yesterday, he was here the day before, and he is afraid, he is ashamed to ask again for the keys. But come, mes enfants, come, let us go in search of him." And the little door was closed with a slam. Down the broad roadway the next instant fluttered the old curé's soutane. We followed, but could scarcely keep pace with the brisk, vigorous strides. The sabots ploughed into the dust. The cane stamped along in company with the sabots, all three in a fury of impatience. The curé's step and his manner might have been those of a boy, burning with haste to discover a playmate in hiding. All the keenness and shrewdness on the fine, ruddy face had melted into sweetness; an exuberance of mirth seemed to be the sap that fed his rich nature. It was easy to see he had passed the meridian of his existence in a realm of high spirits; an irrepressible fountain within, the fountain of an unquenchable good-humor, bathed the whole man with the hues of health. Ripe red lips curved generously over superb teeth; the cheeks were glowing, as were the eyes, the crimson below them deepening to splendor the velvet in the iris. The one severe line in the face, the thin, straight nose, ended in wide nostrils in the quivering, mobile nostrils of the humorist. The swell of the gourmand's paunch beneath the soutane was proof that the curé was a true Norman he had not passed a lifetime in these fertile gardens forgetful of the fact that the fine art of good living is the one indulgence the Church has left to its celibate sons.
Meanwhile, our guide was peering with quick, excited gaze, through the thick foliage of the park; his fine black eyes were sweeping the parterre and terrace.
"Ah-h!" his rich voice cried out, mockingly; and he stopped, suddenly, to plant his cane in the ground with mock fierceness.
"Tiens, Monsieur le Curé!" cried Renard, from behind a tree, in a beautiful voice. It was a voice that matched with his well-acted surprise, when he appeared, confronting us, on the other side of the tree-trunk.
The curé opened his arms.
"Ah, mon enfant, viens, viens! how good it is to see thee once again!"
They were in each other's arms. The curé was pressing his lips to Renard's cheek, in hearty French fashion. The priest, however, administered his reproof before he released him. Renard's broad shoulders received a series of pats, which turned to blows, dealt by the curé's herculean hand.
"Why didn't you let me know you were here, yesterday, Hein? Answer me that. How goes the picture? Is it set up yet? You see, mesdames," turning with a reddened cheek and gleaming eyes, "it is thus I punish him—for he has no heart, no sensibilities—he only understands severities! And he defrauded me yesterday, he cheated me. I didn't even know of his being here till he had gone. And the picture, where is it?"
It was on an easel, sunning itself beneath the park trees. The old priest clattered along the gravelly walk, to take a look at it.
"Tiens—it grows—the figures begin to move—they are almost alive. There should be a trifle more shadow under the chin, what do you think?"
Henri raised his chin. Henri had undergone the process of transformation in our absence. He was now M. le Marquis de Pompadour—under the heart-shaped arch of the great trees, he was standing, resplendent in laces, in glistening satins, leaning on a rusty, dull-jewelled sword. Renard had mounted his palette; he was dipping already into the mounds of color that dotted the palette-board, with his long brushes. On the canvas, in colors laid on by the touch of genius, this archway beneath which we were standing reared itself aloft; the park trees were as tall and noble, transfixed in their image of immutable calm, on that strip of linen, as they towered now above us; even the yellow cloud of the laburnum blossoms made the sunshine of the shaded grass, as it did here, where else no spot of sun might enter, so dense was the night of shade. The life of another day and time lived, however, beneath that shade; Charm and the curé, as they drooped over the canvas, confronted a graceful, attenuated courtier, sickening in a languor of adoration, and a sprightly coquette, whose porcelain beauty was as finished as the feathery edges of her lacy sleeves.
"Très bien très bien" said the curé, nodding his head in critical commendation. "It will be a little masterpiece. And now," waving his hand toward us, "what do you propose to do with these ladies while you are painting?"
"Oh, they can wander about," Renard replied, abstractedly. He had already reseated himself and had begun to ply his brushes; he now saw only Henri and the hilt of the sword he was painting in.
"I knew it, I could have told you—a painter hasn't the manners of a peasant when he's painting," cried the priest, lifting cane and hands high in air, in mock horror. "But all the better, all the better, I shall have you all to myself. Come, come with me. You can see the house later. I'll send for the gardener. It's too fine a day to be indoors. What a day, hein? Le bon Dieu sends us such days now and then, to make us ache for paradise. This way, this way—we'll go through the little door—my little door; it was made for me, you know, when the manoir was last inhabited. I and the children were too impatient—we suffered from that malady—all of us—we never could wait for the great gates yonder to be opened. So Monsieur de H—— built us this one." The little door opened directly on the road, and on the curé's house. There was a tangle of underbrush barring the way; but the curé pushed the briars apart with his strong hands, beating them down with his cane.
When the door opened, we passed directly beyond the roadway, to the steep steps leading to the church. The curé, before mounting the steps, swept the road, upward and downward, with his keen glance. It was the instinctive action of the provincial, scenting the chance of novelty. Some distant object, in the meeting of two distant roadways, arrested the darting eyes; this time, at least, he was to be rewarded for his prudence in looking about him. The object slowly resolved itself into two crutches between which hung the limp figure of a one-legged man.
"Bonjour, Monsieur le curé." The crutches came to a standstill; the cripple's hand went up to doff a ragged worsted cap.
"Good-day, good-day, my friend; how goes it? Not quite so stiff, hein—in such a bath of sunlight as this? Good-day, good-day."
The crutches and their burden passed on, kicking a little cloud of dust about the lean figure.
"Un peu cassé, le bonhomme" he said, as he nodded to the cripple in a tone of reflection, as if the breakage that bad befallen his humble friend were a fresh incident in his experience. "Yes, he's a little broken, the poor old man; but then," he added, quickly renewing his tone of unquenchable high spirits—"one doesn't die of it. No, one doesn't die, fortunately. Why, we're all more or less cracked, or broken up here."
He shook another laugh out, as he preceded us up the stone steps. Then he turned to stop for a moment to point his cane toward the small house with whose chimneys we were now on a level. "There, mesdames, there is the proof that more breaking doesn't signify in this matter of life and death, Tenez, madame—" and with a charming gesture he laid his richly-veined, strong old hand on my arm—a hand that ended in beautiful fingers, each with its rim of moon-shaped dirt; "tenez—figure to yourself, madame, that I myself have been here twenty years, and I came for two! I bought out the bonhomme who lived over yonder.
"I bought him and his furniture out. I said to myself, 'I'll buy it for eight hundred, and I'll sell it for four hundred, in a year.'" Here he laid his finger on his nose—lengthwise, the Norman in him supplanting the priest in his remembrance of a good bargain. "And now it is twenty years since then. Everything creaks and cracks over there: all of us creak and crack. You should hear my chairs, elles se cassent les reins—they break their thighs continually. Ah! there goes another, I cry out, as I sit down in one in winter and hear them groan. Poor old things, they are of the Empire, no wonder they groan. You should see us, when our brethren come to take a cup of soup with me. Such a collection of antiquities as we are! I catch them, my brothers, looking about, slyly peering into the secrets of my little ménage. 'From his ancestors, doubtless, these old chairs and tables, say these good frères, under their breath. And then I wink slyly at the chairs, and they never let on."
Again the mellow laugh broke forth. He stopped again to puff and blow a little, from his toil up the steep steps. Then all at once, as the rough music of his clicking sabots and the playful taps of his cane ceased, the laugh on his mobile lips melted into seriousness. He lifted his cane, pointing to the cemetery just above us, and to the gravestones looking down over the hillsides between a network of roses.
"We are old, madame—we are old, but, alas! we never die! It is difficult to people, that cemetery. There are only sixty of us in the parish, and we die—we die hard. For example, here is my old servant"—and he covered a grave with a sweep of his cane—for we were leisurely sauntering through the little cemetery now. The grave to which he pointed was a garden; heliotrope, myosotis, hare-bells and mignonette had made of the mound a bed of perfume—"see how quietly she lies—and yet what a restless soul the flowers cover! She, too, died hard. It took her years to make up her mind; finally le bon Dieu had to decide it for her, when she was eighty-four. She complained to the last—she was poor, she was in my way, she was blind. 'Eh bien, tu n'as pas besoin de me faire les beaux yeux, toi'—I used to say to her. Ah, the good soul that she was!" and the dark eye glistened with moisture. A moment later the curé was blowing vigorously the note of his grief, in trumpet-tones, through the organ that only a Frenchman can render an effective adjunct to moments of emotion.
"You see, mes enfants, I am like that—I weep over my friends—when they are gone! But see," he added quickly, recovering himself—"see, over yonder there is my predecessor's grave. He lies well, hein?—comfortable, too—looking his old church in the face and the sun on his old bones all the blessed day. Soon, in a few years, he will have company. I, too, am to lie there, I and a friend." The humorous smile was again curving his lips, and the laughter-loving nostrils were beginning to quiver. "When my friend and I lie there, we shall be a little crowded, perhaps. I said to him, when he proposed it, proposed to lie there with us, 'but we shall be crunching each other's bones!' 'No,' he replied, 'only falling into each other's arms!' So it was settled. He comes over from Havre, every now and then, to talk our tombstones over; we drink a glass of wine together, and take a pipe and talk about our future—in eternity! Ah, how gay we are! It is so good to be friends with God!"
The voice deepened into seriousness. He went on in a quieter key:
"But why am I always preaching and talking about death and eternity to two such ladies—two such children? Ah—I know, I am really old—I only deceive myself into pretending I'm young. You will do the same, both of you, some day. But come and see my good works. You know everyone has his little corner of conceit—I have mine. I like to do good, and then to boast of it. You shall see—you shall see."
He was hurrying us along the narrow paths now, past the little company of grave-stones, graves that were bearing their barbaric burdens of mortuary wreaths, of beaded crosses, and the motley assemblage, common to all French graveyards, of hideous shrines encasing tin saints and madonnas in plaster.
Above the sunken graves and the tin effigies of the martyrs behind the church, arose a fair and glittering marble tomb. It was strangely out of keeping with the meagre and paltry surroundings of the peasant grave-stones. As we approached the tomb it grew in imposingness. It was a circular mortuary chapel, with carved pediment and iron-wrought gateway.
"It's fine, hein, and beautiful, hein? It is the Duke's!" The curé, it was easy to see, considered the chapel in the light of a personal possession. He stood before it, bare-headed, with a new earnestness on his mobile face. "It is the Duke's. Yes, the Duke's. I saved his soul, blessed be God! and he—he rebuilds my cellars for me: See"—and he pointed to the fine new base of stone, freshly cemented, on which the church rested—"see, I save his soul, and he preserves my buildings for me. It's a fair deal, isn't it? How does it come about, that he is converted? Ah, you see, although I am a man without science, without knowledge, devoid of pretensions and learning, the good God sometimes makes use of such humble instruments to work His will. It came about in the usual way. The Duke came here carrying his religion lightly, as one may say, not thinking of his soul. I—I dine with him. We talk, we argue; he does, that is—I only preach from my Bible. And behold! one day he is converted. He is devout. And from gratitude, he repairs my crumbling old stones. And now see how solid, how strong is my church cellar!"
Again the fountain of his irrepressible merriment bubbled forth. For all the gayety, however, the severe line deepened as one grew to know the face better; the line in profile running from the nose into the firm upper lip and into the still more resolute chin, matched the impress of authority marked on the noble brow. It was the face of one who might have infinite charity and indulgence for a sin, and yet would make no compromise with it.
We had resumed our walk. It led us at last into the interior of the little church. The gloom and silence within, after the dazzling brilliancy of the noon-day sun and the noisy insect hum, invested the narrow nave and dim altar with an added charm. The old priest knelt for the briefest instant in reverence to the altar. When he turned there was surprise as well as a gentle reproach in the changeable eyes.
"And you, mesdames! How is this? You are not Catholics? And I was so sure of it! Quite sure of it, you were so sympathetic, so full of reverence. And you, my child"—turning to Charm—"you speak our tongue so well, with the very accent of a good Catholic. What! you are Protestant? La! La! What do I hear?" He shook his cane over the backs of the straw-bottomed chairs; the sweet, mellow accents of his voice melted into loving protest—a protest in which the fervor was not quenched in spite of the merry key in which it was pitched.
"Protestants? Pouffe! pouffe! What is that? What is it to be a Protestant? Heretics, heretics, that is what you are. So you are deux affreuses hérétiques? Ah, la! la! Horrible! horrible! I must cure you of all that. I must cure you!" He dropped his cane in the enthusiasm of his attack; it fell with a clanging sound on the stone pavement. He let it lie. He had assumed, unconsciously, the orator's, the preacher's attitude. He crowded past the chairs, throwing back his head as he advanced, striking into argumentative gesture:
"Tenez, listen, there is so little difference, after all. As I was saying to M. le comte de Chermont the other day, no later than Thursday—he has married an English wife, you know—can't understand that either, how they can marry English wives. However, that's none of my business—we have nothing to do with marrying, we priests, except as a sacrament for others. I said to M. le comte, who, you know, shows tendencies toward anglicism—astonishing the influence of women—I said: 'But, my dear M. le comte, why change? You will only exchange certainty for uncertainty, facts for doubts, truth for lies.' 'Yes, yes,' the comte replied, 'but there are so many new truths introduced now into our blessed religion—the infallibility of the pope—the—' 'Ah, mon cher comte—ne m'en parlez pas. If that is all that stands in your way—faites comme le bon Dieu! Lui—il ferme les yeux et tend les bras. That is all we ask—we his servants—to have you close your eyes and open your arms.'"
The good curé was out of breath; he was panting. After a moment, in a deeper tone, he went on:
"You, too, my children, that is what I say to you—you need only to open your arms and to close your eyes. God is waiting for you."
For a long instant there was a great stillness—a silence during which the narrow spaces of the dim aisles were vibrating with the echoes of the rich voice.
The rustle of a light skirt sweeping the stone flooring broke the moment's silence. Charm was crossing the aisles. She paused before a little wooden box, nailed to the wall. There came suddenly on the ear the sound of coin rattling down into the empty box; she had emptied into it the contents of her purse.
"For your poor, monsieur le curé," she smiled up, a little tremulously, into the burning, glowing eyes. The priest bent over the fair head, laying his hand, as if in benediction, upon it.
"My poor need it sadly, my child, and I thank you for them. God will bless you."
It was a touching little scene, and I preferred, for one, to look out just then at Henri's figure advancing toward us, up the stone steps.
When the priest spoke again, it was in a husky tone, the gold in his voice dusted with moisture; but the bantering spirits in him had reappeared.
"What a pity, that you must burn! For you must, dreadful heretics that you are! And this dear child, she seems to belong to us—I can never sit by, now, in Paradise, happy and secure, and see her burn!" The laugh that followed was a mingled caress and a blessing. Henri came in for a part of the indulgence of the good curé's smile as he came up the steps.
"Ah, Henri, you have come for these ladies?"
"Oui, monsieur le curé, luncheon is served."
Our friend followed us to the topmost step, and to the very edge of the step. He stood there, talking down to us, as we continued to press him to return with us.
"No, my children—no—no, I can't join you; don't urge me; I can't, I must not. I must say my prayers instead; besides the children come soon, for their catechism. No, don't beg me, I don't need to be importuned; I know what that dear Renard's wine is. Au revoir et a bientôt—and remember," and here he lifted his arms—cane and all, high in the air—"all you need do is to close your eyes and to open your arms. God himself is doing the same."
High up he stood, with uplifted hands, the smile irradiating a face that glowed with a saint's simplicity. Behind the black lines of his robe, the sunlight lay streaming in noon glory; it aureoled him as never saint was aureoled by mortal brush. A moment only he lingered there, to raise his cap in parting salute. Then he turned, the trail of his gown sweeping the gravel paths, and presently the low church door swallowed him up. Through the door, as we crossed the road, there came out to us the click of sabots striking the rude flagging; and a moment after, the murmuring echo of a deep, rich voice, saying the office of the hour.
CHAPTER XIII.
HONFLEUR—NEW AND OLD.
The stillness of the park trees, as we passed beneath them, was like the silence that comes after a blessing. The sun, flooding the landscape with a deluge of light, lost something of its effulgence, by contrast with the fulness of the priest's rich nature. This fair world of beauty that lay the other side of the terrace wall, beneath which our luncheon was spread, was fair and lovely still—but how unimportant the landscape seemed compared to the varied scenery of the curé's soul-lit character! Of all kinds of nature, human nature is assuredly the best; it is at least the most perdurably interesting. When we tire of it, when we weary of our fellow-man and turn the blasé cheek on the fresh pillow of mother-earth, how quickly is the pillow deserted once the mental frame is rested or renewed! The history of all human relations has the same ending—we all of us only fall out of love with man to fall as swiftly in again.
The remainder of the afternoon passed with the rapidity common to all phases of enchantment.
How could one eat seriously, with vulgar, gluttonous hunger, of a feast spread on the parapet of a terrace-wall? The white foam of napkins, the mosaic of the patties, the white breasts of chicken, the salads in their bath of dew—these spoke the language of a lost cause. For there was an open-air concert going on in full swing, and the performance was one that made the act of eating seem as gross as the munching of apples at an oratorio—the music being, indeed, of a highly refined order of perfection. One's ears needed to be highly attuned to hear the pricking of the locusts in the leaves; even the breeze kept uncommonly still, that the brushing of the humming-birds' and bees' wings against the flower-petals might be the more distinctly heard.
I never knew which one of the party it was that decided we were to see the day out and the night in; that we were to dine at the Cheval Blanc, on the Honfleur quays, instead of sedately breaking bread at the Mère Mouchard's. Even our steed needed very little urging to see the advantages of such a scheme. Henri alone wore a grim air of disapproval. His aspect was an epitome of rigid protest. As he took his seat in the cart, he held the sword between his legs with the air of one burning with a pent-up anguish of protest. His eye gloomed on the day; his head was held aloft, reared on a column of bristling vertebra, and on his brow was written the sign of mutiny.
"Henri—you think we should go back; you think going on to Honfleur a mistake?"
"Madame has said it"—Henri was a fatalist—in his speech, at least, he lived up to his creed. "Honfleur is far—Monsieur Renard has not the good digestion when he is tired—he suffers. Il passe des nuits d'angoisse. Il souffre des fatigues de l'estomac. Il se fatigue aujourd'hui!" This, with an air of stern conviction, was accompanied by a glance at his master in which compassion was not the most obvious note to be read. He went on, remorselessly:
"And, as madame knows, the work but begins for me when we are at home. There are the costumes to be dusted and put away, the paintbrushes to clean, the dishes and lunch-basket to be attended to. As madame says, monsieur is sometimes lacking in consideration. Mais, que voulez-vous? le génie, c'est fait comme ça."
Madame had not expressed the feeblest echo of a criticism on the composition of the genius in front; but the short dialogue had helped, perceptibly, to lift the weight of Henri's gloom; he was beginning to accept the fate of the day with a philosopher's phlegm. Already he had readjusted a little difficulty between his feet and the lunch basket, making his religious care of the latter compatible with the open sin of improved personal comfort.
Meanwhile the two on the front seat were a thousand miles away. Neither we, nor the day, nor the beauty of the drive had power to woo their glances from coming back to the focal point of interest they had found in each other. They were beginning to talk, not about each other but of themselves—the danger-signal of all tête-à-tête adventures.
When two young people have got into the personal-pronoun stage of human intercourse, there is but one thing left for the unfortunate third in the party to do. Yes, now that I think of it, there are two roles to be played. The usual conception of the part is to turn marplot—to spoil and ruin the others' dialogue—to put an end to it, if possible, by legitimate or illegitimate means; a very successful way, I have observed, of prolonging, as a rule, such a duet indefinitely. The more enlightened actor in any such little human comedy, if he be gifted with insight, will collapse into the wings, and let the two young idiots have the whole stage to themselves. As like as not they'll weary of the play, and of themselves, if left alone. No harm will come of all the sentimental strutting and the romantic attitudinizing, other than viewing the scene, later, in perspective, as a rather amusing bit of emotional farce.
Besides being in the very height of the spring fashion, in the matter of the sentiments, these two were also busily treading, at just this particular moment, the most alluring of all the paths leading to what may be termed the outlying territorial domain of the emotions; they were wandering through the land called Mutual Discovery. Now, this, I have always held, is among the most delectable of all the roads of life; for it may lead one—anywhere or nowhere.
Therefore it was from a purely generous impulse that I continued to look at the view. The surroundings were, in truth, in conspiracy with the sentimentalists on the front seat; the extreme beauty of the road would have made any but sentimental egotists oblivious to all else. The road was a continuation of the one we had followed in the morning's drive. Again, all the greenness of field and grass was braided, inextricably, into the blue of river and ocean. Above, as before, in that earlier morning drive, towered the giant aisles of the beaches and elms. Through those aisles the radiant Normandy landscape flowed again, as music from rich organ-piped throats flows through cathedral arches. Out yonder, on the Seine's wide mouth, the boats were balancing themselves, as if they also were half divided between a doubt and a longing; a freshening spurt of breeze filled their flapping sails, and away they sped, skipping through the waters with all the gayety which comes with the vigor of fresh resolutions. The light that fell over the land and waters was dazzling, and yet of an astonishing limpidity; only a sun about to drop and end his reign could be at once so brilliant and so tender—the diffused light had the sparkle of gold made soft by usage. Wherever the eye roved, it was fed as on a banquet of light and color. Nothing could be more exquisite, for depth of green swimming in a bath of shadow, than the meadows curled beneath the cliffs; nothing more tempting, to the painter's brush, than the arabesque of blossoms netted across the sky; and would you have the living eye of nature, bristling with animation, alive with winged sails, and steeped in the very soul of yellow sunshine, look out over the great sheet of the waters, and steep the senses in such a breadth of aqueous splendor as one sees only in one or two of the rare shows of earth.
Then, all at once, all too soon, the great picture seemed to shrink; the quivering pulsation of light and color gave way to staid, commonplace gardens. Instead of hawthorn hedges there was the stench of river smells—we were driving over cobble-paved streets and beneath rows of crooked, crumbling houses. A group of noisy street urchins greeted us in derision. And then we had no doubt whatsoever that we were already in Honfleur town.
"Honfleur is an evil-smelling place," I remarked.
"Oh, well, after all, the smells of antiquity are a part of the show; we should refuse to believe in ancientness, all of us, I fancy, if mustiness wasn't served along with it."
"How can any town have such a stench with all this river and water and verdure to sweeten it?" I asked, with a woman's belief in the morality of environment—a belief much cherished by wives and mothers, I have noticed.
"Wait till you see the inhabitants—they'll enlighten you—the hags and the nautical gentlemen along the basins and quays. They've discovered the secret that if cleanliness is next to godliness, dirt and the devil are likewise near neighbors. Awful set—those Honfleur sailors The Havre and Seine people call them Chinamen, they are so unlike the rest of France and Frenchmen."
"Why are they so unlike?" asked Charm.
"They're so low down, so hideously wicked; they're like the old houses, a rotten, worm-eaten set—you'll see."
Charm stopped him then, with a gesture. She stopped the horse also; she brought the whole establishment to a standstill; and then she nodded her head briskly forward. We were in the midst of the Honfleur streets—streets that were running away from a wide open space, in all possible directions. In the centre of the square rose a curious, an altogether astonishing structure. It was a tower, a belfry doubtless, a house, a shop, and a warehouse, all in one; such a picturesque medley, in fact, as only modern irreverence, in its lawless disregard of original purpose and design, can produce. The low-timbered sub-base of the structure was pierced by a lovely doorway with sculptured lintel, and also with two impertinent modern windows, flaunting muslin curtains, and coquettishly attired with rows of flowering carnations. Beneath these windows was a shop. Above the whole rose, in beautiful symmetrical lines, a wooden belfry, tapering from a square tower into a delicately modelled spire. To complete and accentuate the note of the picturesque, the superstructure was held in its place by rude modern beams, propping the tower with a naive disregard of decorative embellishment. We knew it at once as the quaint and famous Belfry of St. Catherine.
As we were about to turn away to descend the high street, a Norman maiden, with close-capped face, leaned over the carnations to look down upon us.
"That's the daughter of the bell-ringer, doubtless. Economical idea that," Renard remarked, taking his cap off to the smiling eyes.
"Economical?"
"Yes, can't you see? Bell-ringer sends pretty daughter to window, just before vespers or service, and she rings in the worshippers; no need to make the bells ring."
"What nonsense!"—but we laughed as flatteringly as if his speech had been a genuine coin of wit.
A turn down the street, and the famous Honfleur of the wharves and floating docks lay before us. About us, all at once, was the roar and hubbub of an extraordinary bustle and excitement; all the life of the town, apparently, was centred upon the quays. The latter were swarming with a tattered, ragged, bare-footed, bare-legged assemblage of old women, of gamins, and sailors. The collection, as a collection, was one gifted with the talent of making itself heard. Everyone appeared to be shrieking, or yelling, or crying aloud, if only to keep the others in voice. Sailors lying on the flat parapets shouted hoarsely to their fellows in the rigging of the ships that lay tossing in the docks; fishermen's families tossed their farewells above the hubbub to the captain-fathers launching their fishing-smacks; one shrieking infant was being passed, gayly, from the poop of a distant deck, across the closely lying shipping, to the quay's steps, to be hushed by the generous opening of a peasant mother's bodice. One could hear the straining of cordage, the creak of masts, the flap of the sails, all the noises peculiar to shipping riding at anchor. The shriek of steam-whistles broke out, ever and anon, above all the din and uproar. Along the quay steps and the wharves there were constantly forming and re-forming groups of wretched, tattered human beings; of men with bloated faces and a dull, sodden look, strikingly in contrast with the vivacity common among French people. Even the children and women had a depraved, shameless appearance, as if vice had robbed them of the last vestige of hope and ambition. Along the parapet a half-dozen drunkards sprawled, asleep or dozing. At the legs of one a child was pulling, crying:
"Viens—mère t'battra, elle est soûle aussi."
The sailors out yonder, busy in the rigging, and the men on the decks of the smart brigs and steamships, whistled and shouted and sang, as indifferent to this picture of human misery and degradation as if they had no kinship with it.
As a frame to the picture, Honfleur town lay beneath the crown of its hills; on the tops and sides of the latter, villa after villa shot through the trees, a curve of roof-line, with rows of daintily draped windows. At the right, close to the wharves, below the wooded heights, there loomed out a quaint and curious gateway flanked by two watchtowers, grim reminders of the Honfleur of the great days. And above and about the whole, encompassing villa-crowded hills and closely packed streets, and the forest of masts trembling against the sky, there lay a heaven of spring and summer.
Renard had driven briskly up to a low, rambling facade parallel with the quays. It was the "Cheval Blanc." A crowd assembled on the instant, as if appearing according to command.
"Allons—n'encombrez pas ces dames!" cried a very smart individual, in striking contrast to the down at-heel air of the hotel—a personage who took high-handed possession of us and our traps. "Will ces dames desire a salon—there is un vrai petit bijou empty just now," murmured a voice in a purring soprano, through the iron opening of the cashier's desk.
Another voice was crying out to us, as we wound our way upward in pursuit of the jewel of a salon. "And the widow, La Veuve, shall she be dry or sweet?"
When we entered the low dining-room, a little later, we found that the artist as well as the epicure has been in active conspiracy to make the dinner complete; the choice of the table proclaimed one accomplished in massing effects. The table was parallel with the low window, and through the latter was such a picture as one travels hundreds of miles to look upon, only to miss seeing it, as a rule. There was a great breadth of sky through the windows; against the sky rose the mastheads; and some red and brown sails curtained the space, bringing into relief the gray line of the sad-faced old houses fringing the shoreline.
"Couldn't have chosen better if we'd tried, could we? It's just the right hour, and just the right kind of light. Those basins are unendurable—sinks of iniquitous ugliness, unless the tide's in and there's a sunset going on. Just look now! Who cares whether Honfleur has been done to death by the tourist horde or not? and been painted until one's art-stomach turns? I presume I ought to beg your pardon, but I can't stand the abomination of modern repetitions; the hand-organ business in art, I call it. But at this hour, at this time of the year, before this rattle-trap of an inn is as packed with Baedeker attachments as a Siberian prison is with Nihilists—to run out here and look at these quays and basins, and old Honfleur lying here, beneath her green cliffs—well, short of Cairo, I don't know any better bit of color. Look out there, now! See those sails, dripping with color, and that fellow up there, letting the sail down—there, splash it goes into the water, I knew it would; now tell me where will you get better blues or yellows or browns, with just the right purples in the shore line, than you'll get here?"
Renard was fairly started; he had the bit of the born monologist between his teeth; he stopped barely long enough to hear even an echoing assent. We were quite content; we continued to sip our champagne and to feast our eyes. Meanwhile Renard talked on.
"Guide-books—what's the use of guide-books? What do they teach you, anyway? Open any one of the cursed clap-trap things. Yes, yes, I know I oughtn't to use vigorous language."
"Do," bleated Charm, smiling sweetly up at him. "Do, it makes you seem manly."
Even Renard had to take time to laugh.
"Thank you! I'm not above making use of any aids to create that illusion. Well, as I was saying, what guide-book ever really helped anyone to see?—that's what one travels for, I take it. Here, for instance, Murray or Baedeker would give you this sort of thing: 'Honfleur, an ancient town, with pier, beaches, three floating docks, and a good deal of trade in timber, cod, etc.; exports large quantities of eggs to England.' Good heavens! it makes one boil! Do sane, reasonable mortals travel three thousand miles to read ancient history done up in modern binding, served up a la Murray, a la Baedeker?"
"Oh, you do them injustice, I think—the guides do go in for a little more of the picturesque than that—"
"And how—how do they do it? This is the sort of thing they'll give you: 'Church of St. Catherine is large and remarkable, entirely of timber and plaster, the largest of its kind in France.' Ah! ha! that's the picturesque with a vengeance. No, no, my friends, throw the guide-books into the river, pitch them overboard through the port holes, along with the flowers, and letters to be read three days out, and the nasty novels people send you to make the crossing pleasant. And when you travel, really travel, mind, never make a plan—just go—go anywhere, whenever the impulse seizes you—and you may hope to get there, in the right way, possibly."
Here Renard stopped to finish his glass, draining-the last drop of the yellow liquid. Then he went on: "To travel! To start when an impulse seizes one! To go—anywhere! Why not! It was for this, after all, that all of us have come our three thousand miles." Perhaps it was the restless tossing of the shipping out yonder in the basins that awoke an answering impatience within, in response to Renard's outburst. Where did they go, those ships, and, up beyond this mouth of the Seine, how looked the shores, and what life lived itself out beneath the rustling poplars? Is it the mission of all flowing water to create an unrest in men's minds?
Meanwhile, though the talk was not done, the dinner was long since eaten. We rose to take a glimpse of Honfleur and its famous old basin. The quays and the floating docks, in front of which we had been dining, are a part of the nineteenth century; the great ships ride in to them from the sea. But here, in this inner quadrangular dock, beside which we were soon standing, traced by Duquesne when Louis the Great discovered the maritime importance of Honfleur, we found still reminders of the old life. Here were the same old houses that, in the seventeenth century, upright and brave in their brand new carvings, saw the high-decked, picturesquely painted Spanish and Portuguese ships ride in to dip their flag to the French fleur-de-lis. There are but few of the old streets left to crowd about the shipping life that still floats here, as in those bygone days of Honfleur pride;—when Havre was but a yellow strip of sand; when the Honfleur merchants would have laughed to scorn any prophet's cry of warning that one day that sand-bar opposite, despised, disregarded, boasting only a chapel and a tavern, would grow and grow, and would steal year by year and inch by inch bustling Honfleur's traffic, till none was left.
In the old adventurous days, along with the Spanish ships came others, French trading and fishing vessels, with the salty crustations of long voyages on their hulls and masts. The wharves were alive then with fish-wives, whom Evelyn will tell you wore "useful habits made of goats' skin." The captains' daughters were in quaint Normandy costumes; and the high-peaked coifs and the stiff woollen skirts, as well as the goat-skin coats, trembled as the women darted hither and thither among the sailors—whose high cries filled the air as they picked out mother and wife. Then were bronzed beards buried in the deeply-wrinkled old mères' faces, and young, strong arms clasped about maidens' waists. The whole town rang with gayety and with the mad joy of reunion. On the morrow, coiling its way up the steep hillsides, wound the long lines of the grateful company, one composed chiefly of the crews of these vessels happily come to port. The procession would mount up to the little church of Notre Dame de Grâce perched on the hill overlooking the harbor. Some even—so deep was their joy at deliverance from shipwreck and so fervent their piety—crawled up, bare-footed, with bared head, wives and children following, weeping for joy, as the rude ex-votos were laid by the sailors' trembling hands at the feet of the Virgin Lady.
As reminders of this old life, what is left? Within the stone quadrangle we found clustered a motley fleet of wrecks and fishing-vessels; the nets, flung out to dry in the night air, hung like shrouds from the mastheads; here and there a figure bestrode a deck, a rough shape, that seemed endowed with a double gift of life, so still and noiseless was the town. Around the silent dock, grouped in mysterious medley and confusion, were tottering roof lines, projecting eaves, narrow windows, all crazily tortured and out of shape. Here and there, beneath the broad beams of support, a little interior, dimly lighted, showed a knot of sailors gathered, drinking or lounging. Up high beneath a chimney perilously overlooking a rude facade, a quaint shape emerged, one as decrepit and forlorn of life and hope as the decaying houses it overlooked. Silence, poverty, wretchedness, the dregs of life, to this has Honfleur fallen. These old houses, in their slow decay, hiding in their dark bosom the gaunt secrets of this poverty and human misery, seemed to be dancing a dance of drunken indifference. Some day the dance will end in a fall, and then the Honfleur of the past will not even boast of a ghost, as reminder of its days of splendor.
An artist quicker than anyone else, I think, can be trusted to take one out of history and into the picturesque. Renard refused to see anything but beauty in the decay about us; for him the houses were at just the right drooping angle; the roof lines were delightful in their irregularity; and the fluttering tremor of the nets, along the rigging, was the very poetry of motion.
"We'll finish the evening on the pier," he exclaimed, suddenly; "the moon will soon be up—we can sit it out there and see it begin to color things."
The pier was more popular than the quaint old dock. It was crowded with promenaders, who, doubtless, were taking a bite of the sea-air. Through the dusk the tripping figures of gentlemen in white flannels and jaunty caps brushed the provincial Honfleur swells. Some gentle English voices told us some of the villa residents had come down to the pier, moved by the beauty of the night. Groups of sailors, with tanned faces and punctured ears hooped with gold rings, sat on the broad stone parapets, talking unintelligible Breton patois. The pier ran far out, almost to the Havre cliffs, it seemed to us, as we walked along in the dusk of the young night. The sky was slowly losing its soft flame. A tender, mellow half light was stealing over the waters, making the town a rich mass of shade. Over the top of the low hills the moon shot out, a large, globular mass of beaten gold. At first it was only a part and portion of the universal lighting, of the still flushed sky, of the red and crimson harbor lights, of the dim twinkling of lamps and candles in the rude interiors along the shore. But slowly, triumphantly, the great lamp swung up; it rose higher and higher into the soft summer sky, and as it mounted, sky and earth began to pale and fade. Soon there was only a silver world to look out upon—a wealth of quivering silver over the breast of the waters, and a deeper, richer gray on cliffs and roof tops. Out of this silver world came the sound of waters, lapping in soft cadence against the pier; the rise and fall of sails, stirring in the night wind; the tread of human footsteps moving in slow, measured beat, in unison with the rhythm of the waters. Just when the stars were scattering their gold on the bosom of the sea-river, a voice rang out, a rich, full baritone. Quite near, two sailors were seated, with their arms about each other's shoulders. They also were looking at the moonlight, and one of them was singing to it:
"Te souviens-tu, Marie, De notre enfance aux champs?
"Te souviens-tu? Le temps que je regrette C'est le temps qui n'est plus."
[Illustration: THE INN AT DIVES—GUILLAUME-LE-CONQUERANT]