Guenn: a wave on the Breton coast

Chapter I

|ATE one September afternoon a small red and yellow omnibus drew up noisily and discharged its passengers before the Hotel des Voyageurs, in the Breton village of Plouvenec. From the nearest railway-station to this region of ignorance, superstition, and picturesque beauty, endless white roads stretched away between fosses — or embankments oi granite and turf — six feet high, luxuriantly overgrown with moss and A'ines, and crowned by the great muti lated oak-trunks which distinctively mark the Breton landscape. GUENN. During a drive of four hours the box-like vehicle had mercilessly shaken its contents together ; and Mr. Everett Hamor had felt that there might be a certain difficulty in finally extricating himself from the vivid samples of the commercial-traveller, with whose elbows, knees, high-colored neckties, and A-alises he w-as fre quently in confusing juxtaposition.

Arriving, he was relieved to find that he could still verify his identity. Stretching his long, cramped legs with satisfaction, he stood a moment at his ease and looked about him. The village fathers were sitting at little tables in front of the cafe of the Voyageurs, regaling themselves with absinthe, vermouth, and stale politics. Iu Plouvenec, beside dram-shops of startling frequency, there were two cafes of distinction. Certain prominent person ages left one, only to walk across the common to the other. There was a tide in the affairs of the cafes, — each day a regularly recurring ebb and flow of popularity. Ebb-tide at the Voyageurs meant high-tide at the Grand, and vice versa. It was flood-tide at the Voya geurs when Hamor arrived. " Another fool of a painter down from Paris," was the tacit comment of the Plouvenec worthies, as he secured his traps, and, with a quick glance up and down the convivial tables and in the cafe windows, passed on to meet madame standing in the doorway.

Madame was then and there a woman much to Hamor's taste, and time but confirmed his impression of her estimable qualities ; while she, for her part, never ceased to regard the young man with the calm smile of approval which she was now bestowing upon him, as they inter changed ideas in respect to rooms. Madame had the air of a Roman matron in a Bre tonne coiffe. Five feet and eight inches in height, of GUENN. 3 massive proportions, impressiA-ely handsome, and strong enough to throw a too noisy inebriate out of the window without shortening her breath or heightening her color, she was one of the happy few whom destiny adapts to their surroundings. No one had ever seen or desired to see her angry. Madame's personality was too potent in its calm for a wise man to care to brave its storm. She had singularly wide-open brown eyes, whose soft unswerving gaze, turned broadly upon the village Falstaff and his recruits, caused panic in their ranks, and disorderly retreat.

Beneath the edge of her white coiffe, smooth bands of dark hair lay close on her imperturbable forehead. Placidity and power were expressed in all her move ments. In short, madame was a newly discoA'ered Fate, whom to defy were madness. There was a monsieur, a large and plethoric man, rarely seen. It was not known for what purpose he was employed in madame's menage. There were also seven children, in a more or less thriving condition, never known to visibly occupy their mamma's attention. She was supposed to provide for them according to some A'ast and inscrutable method No weakness of the ordinary mother, solicitous about mending Jack's manners and socks, could be imputed to her. Madame and Hamor were then mutually gratified. She classified him as a handsome and amiable young fellow, who would give little trouble and in all prob ability pay his bills.

He saw before him a comely woman of superior nerve, who would care for his creature-comforts, and never come to him weeping and demanding sympathy — as the rustic landlady, according to his experience, was prone to do in hot and crowded seasons. He disliked demands upon his sympathy. GUENN. Whether because he possessed too large or too small a supply, he had never asked himself. From her finely intelligent replies, he learned that his friends were at work at some distance from the village. Having lunched to his satisfaction, he lighted a cigarette and sauntered out. Before him was an open square, hard with the tread of many sabots. Near the inn stood a couple of oaks. Beyond, no trees, no shrub or turf, relieved the barren ness of the expanse of earth, which bore the resounding name, la Place Nationale, — otherwise the village common, where markets, menageries, gavottes, games and wrestling matches, wax-figures, Robert Macaires, and every species of public entertainment known to Plouvenec, were wont to appear.

Directly across the common was a gleam of water, from which rose low crenellated walls of granite, flanked by towers and broad ramparts. Over the battlements was a glimpse of tree-tops and steep roofs, clustering around one church-spire. Plouvenec, the ancient town, with its one irregular street of crowded houses, stood on an island encircled by a broad arm of the sea, and connected with the mod ern yUlage only by a drawbridge. The fortress was quaint, ugly, and suggestive. It knew more than five centuries of history, and the doughty deeds of the many wars which during that time convulsed Brittany. Du Guesclin, De Rohan, and many gallant soldiers had besieged and occupied it, and enriched its memories. Old tales, less creditable to its reputation, relate grimly that, as earlyas the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, thieves, cut-throats, and any gentleman who had mur dered his friend or committed some other base and un pardonable crime, sought refuge among the notorious GUENN. 5 rascals sheltered behind the stout walls of Plouvenec.

Like many another old sinner, it now wore, in spite of its scandalous past, an air of sullen and forbidding morality. Its sunrise gun, its bugle-call, — its score of soldiers, in baggy scarlet trousers, marching under the portcullis and over the drawbridge, to perform somewhat languid evolutions on the common, — seemed a tribute to what had been, rather than discipline demanded by any present or anticipated need. Rumors of war were far remote from the dull little island citadel. Its grass grown ramparts commanded broad and peaceful waters, furrowed only by the fishing-boats of the village. Hamor passed slowly down the long village street. On one side was a row of small white houses Avith steep gables. On the other, boats were crowded along the quay, with fishing-nets hanging to dry on the masts, and waving slightly with a shadowy effect.

The street was very quiet. An old woman in sabots hobbled by. A group of dirty and pretty little girls, each with a knitting-needle over her right ear for safe keeping, or run through the top of her coiffe, sat on the ground playing jackstones. Small cabins stood in a line along the quay farther down. A sharp salt smell filled the air, and the incoming tide was impatiently washing the mighty foundations of the granite digue. The street rounded a point, and ran into a long road by the bay. Here people were standing waiting, while hundreds of fishing-boats, bringing food and work and traffic, were coming in. It was the life of Plouvenec drawing near. Over the broad bay the boats came floating like a flock of great, slow birds. The low light caught their dusky red sails, and warmed them to a deeper signifi cance.

The sun hung far clown in the western sky, and sent one broad golden shaft straight along the GUENN. surface of the water, to lose itself in rich masses of shin ing yellow seaweed, that covered the great rocks at Hamor's feet. The sky was gray, and tranquil and tender. Faint rosy clouds drifted together over a dark promontory in the distance, and fluttered about a bold procession of pines on a hill near by, — their stems all leaning landward, as if marching hurriedly away from the pursuing sea. Far away to the west the long land line was strongly blue. On the low wall between the road and the beach perched groups of women, knitting, chattering, making bold jokes, telling scandalous stories, laughing noisily. They were fisher-girls, employed in the sardine packing houses across the way. Hamor, also seated on the wall, listened to them half unconsciously, — viewed them as a part of the landscape.

Their caps were luminous bits of white. Their faded colors were charming against the gray stone. So much he perceived, merely as he saw the empty packing-houses, — with long low rooms, where soon the chattering women would be at work, — the advancing waves break on the beach, the pale clouds hovering over the hill, the long road curving towards shining sands ; and, as far as the eye could reach, the sardine-boats, a long perspectiA'e of slowly advancing luggers, all heading towards the quay, all running in with lazy sail on a wind from the sea, — a wind that came from beyond the Lannions, the group of barren islands far away, whose line was barely perceptible on the iori zon, and whose brave light, even as Hamor looked, Hashed into existence, and flung its cheery greeting to the sailorworld.

The young painter was moved to mild retrospection. He remembered certain pretty girls he had known, lightly yet not unkindly doubting whether they were GUENN. quite as charming as they had seemed. He recaUed a solitary mountain-peak, whose noble shape and snowy summit he had watched mornings and evenings during a long season of rough California life. It did not occur to him to doubt the transcendent loveliness of Mount Shasta. Hamor worshipped Nature. He had never worshipped a woman. Rising, he walked slowly on, — smoking still, glancing critically at the knots of women. As he passed, some made remarks in Breton and giggled obtrusively, some stared at him stolidly, — others with evident dislike, or coarse admiration. They were fisher-folk, — wives, sisters, and daughters of rough men, who worked hard at sea and drank hard on land.

Many, it may be the most of them, were innocent in life or thought ; but hardly one could be quite ignorant of vice. Impure influences hovered round their A'ery cradles. Drunken ness, brutality, vile language, wife-beating, brawls, and murderous assaults were as familiar to their earliest years, as its mother's face and sweet lullabyto a happy child. They knew only this life which surrounded them, and habit had made them indifferent to scenes that ought to chill a young girl's blood with horror. But a little distance from the village, and peasantwomen, on broad farms, were dutiful, innocent, gentle, as the ideal country maiden need be. Here in turbulent Plouvenec, fate had exposed girls to evil with as much assiduity as she guards others from it. They had never had the chance to be what we call respectable.

Yet among these coarse women and girls waiting on the wall, while the red sailed boats came steadily on over the sunset-lighted bay, there were faces as pure and proud as the face of a young duchess, eyes that were bold yet honest and fresh ; there were the beautiful curves and free vigorous GUENN. limbs of youth and perfect health ; while the sun and wind and weather, which browned and roughened their checks, had faded their kerchiefs, once of glaring colors, down to a gentle and harmonious indistinctness ; and they all wore their simple and beautiful coiffe, which softens heaA-y peasant-features marked by toil and time, refines the coarse, and lends an indefinable charm of delicacy and tenderness to a fresh young face. Hamor, as he regarded them, was moved by the pure enthusiasm of the artist.

No psychological prob lems occupied him, no benevolent probings into their sufferings, experiences, and possibilities. He was sim ply and greatlypleased Avith their colors and contours ; and his handsome young face expressed vivid æsthetic satisfaction, which the uninitiated might easily construe as personal, rather than objective and eleA'atcd. The women saw the look in his eyes, aud, woman-like, misinterpreted it. They became aware of this friendly young gentleman's approval, and their laughter and movements betrayed a certain consciousness of his presence. In rude play, a close circle was formed concealing one of their number from his view. They looked at him over their shoulders in high glee. Sud denly, as if by military command, the circle broke. The women, with shrieks of coarse laughter, scattered to the right and lest.

A small, black-cloth object flew through the air and dropped near him ; when Hamor perceived directly before him, alone and abandoned, a little figure, with a heavy mane of long brown hair, falling on either side of the fiercest eyes it had ever been his lot to see in a girl's face. Transfixed with confusion and rage, she glared at the unoffending stranger as if he were the exclusive author of her woes. "By Jove, what a model!" and Hamor stopped GUENN. 9 short. She was scarcely seventeen. A broad kerchief, of softly blending reds, was folded over her pretty shoulders and down to her slender waist. Her short woollen skirts hung in dark folds, which defined her shape with the unreserve of intimate acquaintance, as long-worn, much-patched garments are apt to do ; and she stood in her little sabots, with a bold grace only possible to a girl who, consciously or unconsciously, has neA-er studied the proprieties.

One small rough hand clutched her coiffe. The other was raised to her head, while from under her lifted elbow she scowled at Hamor ; and all her brown, shining hair, down to its gleaming, russet ends, hung loose before the strange man. He stooped and mechanically picked up the black skull-cap lying at his feet, inspecting it seriously. At this the women shrieked anew, and doubled themselves up in uncouth mirth. "This is yours?" he said, approaching the girl, and now observing other caps upon the grass near her. He looked at her kindly. It was his way with children, and she seemed like a child to him. In his expression, as he held the cap towards her, was the quiet scrutiny of the artist and the habitual courtesy of a well-bred man. She did not know what courtesy meant. It was extraneous to the PlouA-enec fish-wife sphere.

She thought that he was mocking her. Snatching the cap rudely from his hand, her angry blue eyes flung at him their parting message of hate and defiance. "You, — you mind your own business!" she said passionately, in rapid, indistinct Breton-French ; and, with one swift motion, sprang towards the women who had played her false, upbraiding them, now that she had found her tongue, in no measured terms. Her com- GUENN. panions, pleased with the delicate humor and success of their practical joke, were apparently willing enough now to form themselves into a dressing-room for the convenience of the dishevelled little maid, who, with all her great rage and small caps, disappeared from Hamor's view. Within the stalwart circle the angry child was pouring forth volleys of invective and reproach in her native Breton tongue, which, though verbally unintelligible to Hamor, could not fail to impress him as singu larly adapted to the expression of ungovernable rage.

Amused and curious, he was disposed to stay and watch her complete her toilette, which had for him the interest of any other unsolved problem. There was, to the inexperienced eyes of the young mau, an attractive incompatibility between the diminu tive head-gear and the amount of hair to be secreted within it. The multiplicity of caps also bewildered him. But feeling somewhat out of place, and having no desire to prolong her agitation, he went tranquilly on. "That girl must pose for me. She is a nice little thing. She's amusing," he concluded. Leaving the quarrelling fish-women far behind, he followed the road along the curving shore until he reached a dusky beach, where his tread sank noiselessly in the sand, the waves broke with a soft plash, and the subtle evening was creeping over land and sea.

Unconscious of distance, he walked on until a towering pile of crags suggested itself with sombre eloquence in the twilight as a fitting terminus to his wanderings. He turned and went inland. Broad meadows, tufted with heather, mullein, and brake, succeeded to the dunes. Narrow stony paths led him along fields and intimately between giant hay-stacks, and past the very threshold of some isolated cottage — where the day's toil was GUENN. already merging into heavy rest, and only the dusky figure of a belated peasant, and his mechanical greeting, Deves mat dor^ch, introduced brief life and movement into the stillness. The village lights shone feebly far away. Long roads between high, granite garden-walls, over which the foliage leaned in dense shapes, led down towards the village-centre. He returned to the hotel.

Here, except for the ap proach of evening, the only perceptible change was that the men, who had been drinking vermouth and absinthe at the door, were now drinking absinthe and vermouth in the cafe. Madame met him in the corridor, with her discrimina ting smile. It was not a broadly defined, unreserved smile, bnt slow and sphinx-like. She smiled to herself, not at you. "Monsieur's friends are not yet come. They do not expect monsieur to-day, probably." "You do not know if Mr. Staunton received my dispatch last night ?" "There is one here for him," she answered encouragingly; "but it was not deliA-ered until aster he was gone this morning." Hamor smiled. " Madame the postmistress is very clever and amiable," announced the landlady. Hamor politely remarked that he had no reason to doubt it. " But perhaps a little distraite," she continued gently.

"Ah?" "It is therefore well when messieurs les artistes give themselves the trouble to beg her to concentrate herself." GUENN. Madame was standing now in a doorway, and seemed to support her whole domicil. "Superb caryatid !" thought Hamor. " And is your postmistress apt to be distraite with letters too ?" he asked good-humoredly. " There are moments when it is possible for her to be distraite with letters also," madame admitted, her broad, unconscious gaze turned full upon the young man. " CleA'er people are often distraits," she added mildly. Then : " But monsieur without doubt has been to see the fish ? No ? They have had a good catch. The strangers find it interesting. Monsieur would do well to take a turn down the quay." Confident that this admirable woman would recom mend nothing insignificant to his notice, he thanked her, and went cheerfuUy out.

The deserted street along the quay, where he had strolled not many hours before, was now teeming with life. It was the Fish-corner of Plouvenec — as supreme in power and interest to the village, as is the Exchange of a great city to its speculators and capitalists. The boats were mostly in ; some, still arriving, met, as soon as they neared the shore, with calls, inquiries, and proposals. People were hurrying to and fro with long fiat baskets of sardines. Women knelt recounting fish, flinging, for every ten in one basket, one as tally into another. The buyers' cabins were lighted, and instinct with the spirit of traffic. Beside fishermen, buyers and sellers of sardines, men and women employed in the nsines, was an outer circle of lookers-on. The judge of the peace — short, burly and plausible, concealing a small nature be hind a large smile — bad come down from the cafe.

A brace of influential burghers — whose monarchical prin ciples, dormant mornings, swelled and grew blatant every GUENN. 13 evening after invigorating baths of absinthe — accompanied him. The judge, peasant-born and self-educated, had gained by his own solid exertion his comfortable niche in the Avorld's municipal wall, and regarded himself as indispensable to the safety of the French Republic. His patriotism howeA-er was tempered with love of popularity, and he never expressed himself too decidedly in the presence of his Royalist boon-companions. He found consolation in the reflection that the Republic seemed as yet placidly unaware that Plouvenec was bat tering at its outposts, and that his friends' weapons grew rustier as the years roUed by. His conception of the du ties of his office led him always to decide in favor of both contesting parties, or of neither of them.

This original method of dispensing justice he practised with much in genuity. In the case of angry peasants it was eminently successful ; as, however much they might pommel each other, they were never inclined to pommel the judge, but were deeplyimpressed with his equity and wisdom. He was thus enabled to retain the good-wiU and respect of a somewhat turbulent neighborhood. When he saw two men fighting, he usnally moA'ed gently off in an opposite direction. The chief of the police, a slight young man with a mild face and no uniform, had also strolled down to the Fish-corner, and two of the ubiquitous gendarme species — as usual in country-places, obliA'ious of their surroundings — stood obstructively about. Hamor saw too, and quickly lost sight of, some young men whose brown velveteens and expression of ani mated, pleased inquiry proclaimed them painters.

He also observed an elderly tourist who, having inadver tently found himself among vulgar people, was harrying away, with an air of discomfort and reproach upon his respectable features. GUENN. 14 Young coiffed girls, linked together in long twining rows, as is girl-fashion wherever girls grow, and gam ins, darting about with shrUl street-songs and coarse street-wit, completed the scene. Now, fleeting single impressions fascinated Hamor ; now, it was the effect of the whole which interested him profoundly. Continually changing, — increasing, de creasing, and swaying, — inconstant, imperious, charged Avith excitement, hoarse voices rising in angry crescen do, — the mob seemed like one huge, fierce, multiform, protean, living thing. The row of high gabled houses held aloft dim lanterns, whieh cast sickly yellow beams upon the faces beneath.

Through the glass door of a drink-shop came an orange glow, and the muffled sounds of interior Use. Phantom like ships lay along the quay in intense shadow. The ancient citadel slumbered upon its island. Over the black . ..cers, on the other shore, were long, still reaches, where weary peasants slept among their fosses ; and an cient Druid stones raised themselves sternly under silent heavens. Beyond the digue throbbed the ocean, in the mystery of night and distance. The black mass of human life surged and swayed. An angry woman rose from among the kneeling fish wives. Cursing and heaping invectiA'e upon a neighbor, her figure dark for a moment against the white houses and the lights, she fell back into her place. Two men, quarrelling about the counting, grappled with each other and disappeared, rolling over in the shadow.

Thc buy ing and selling and counting went steadily on ; and, above the rough cries, Hamor heard the young girls' high voices chanting a hymn to Our Lady of the Sea. A violent push, followed by an opening in the crowd near him, seemed to suddenly transform him from a mere GUENN. 15 spectator into a constituent. Two fighting men emerged from the general indistinctness into ugly prominence. The bystanders accorded them respectful attention, from which Hamor inferred that they were well-known char acters, — it might be, possessed of chronic combative ness, like two rival watch-dogs in a small neighborhood. One was a short, thick-set sailor, between forty and fist}-, whose open jersey displayed his powerful throat and chest. As he turned awkwardly, now towards, now from the light, cursing in drunken fury, his stupid fist occasionally hitting his man, oftener plunging aimlessly about, Hamor thought he had never seen a more vicious looking brute.

The other was younger, taller, and less strong, but held his own tolerably well. Both were very drunk, and neither knew how to fight. Hamor watched them with extreme disgust, and a de sire to interfere which he found difficult to restrain. As long as they were content with an unskilful beiaJcbring of each other's persons with the natural weapon, the fist, he stood by, passive. When, however, the short man, by an evil inspiration, kicked his opponent, threw him flat, and began trampling upon him with his sabots, he found himself promptly seized from behind and drawn off, his elbows pinioned in an uncompromising grip, in spite of his fierce struggles. Meanwhile the prostrate man was again on his feet, demanding his enemy. Finding him now an easy prey, he struck him full in the face. " Let him alone, you coward !

" exclaimed Hamor, his own mettle well roused. "Keep this fellow back, some of you, can't you?" he cried to the unresponsive crowd. Then, to the struggling man : "I will let you go when you are quiet, not before — do you hear?" Observing a dangerous look in GUENN. the eyes of the attacking party, and an uplifted arm, he swung his prisoner round to save him from the blow. Powerless himself to parry, he moved as best he could to avoid it, and the next instant found himself unharmed and untouched. He turned, and perceived, with a feeling of strong surprise, the all-sufficient cause of the cessation of hostilities. A tall dark man, in a priest's cassock, was restraining the sailor, not by sacerdotal authority, but by the strength of his excellent biceps. Hamor involuntarily released his prisoner.

" Hoel," said the young priest, " you know it 's no use. I am stronger than you. When I let you free, you are to go home. You are not to speak to any one on the road. If you speak you will fight. Come, come!" — and throwing his arm round the man's shoulders, still guarding him weU, talking always, soothing him, he marched him through the crowd, pointed him in the right direction, and sent him off towards home. " Remember, — no talking by the way ! " Hoel walked a few steps, stopped, and burst into maudlin tears. " I haven't anything against RodeUec. He's my friend. You're my friend. We are all friends, monsieur le recteur, all good Bretons. But when Rodellec says — " ' ' Never mind Rodellec. You may tell me about him another day. You go home now, and try to keep quiet. I will see to Rodellec.

Trust me for that," said the cure grimly. Presently Hamor saw the dark face and broad shoulders of the priest returning, and observed in his walk a curious sailor-swing. Hamor's sailor in the meantime stood sullenly considering the feasibility of attacking the stranger. The tall priest, looking neither to the right nor lest, bore straight down upon his countryman. GUENN. " Rodellec, go home ! " he said, not ungently, but with a distinct tone of command. You've caught enough fish, and had enough drink and fighting. Go home now, and sleep it off." The light from the near est lantern shone on his grave and striking face. RodeUec, with profuse oaths, demurred. He would break Hoel's head first, and he would break anybody's head who tried to stop him. Scowling, and supported on the arms of his friends, he was edging along towards Hamor.

"I shall not fight you," said the young man coldly. "I have no quarrel with you, you know. But whenever I see you stamping on a man's face with your sabots, I shall stop it if I can." " Damn you ! " said Rodellec, advancing. But the priest, who had been intently watching each speaker's face, now stepped forward and stood beside Hamor. " Go home, I teU you Herve ! " His voice was stern and imperious. He towered above the sailors, — his head thrown back, a flash of honest anger in his eyes. " Shame, Rodellec ! and shame on the rest of you men, that you urge him on. Stand back, I say. You must be drunk, indeed, if you let me speak twice. What — you, Alain? You, Jean? And Michel, too ? Back, all of you ! Back, Loic ! " The men drew back abashed ; only Rodellec held his ground, snarling viciously.

" Do you dare to refuse me?" Rodellec evidently dared to refuse anybody. He was measuring the two men with his eyes, painfully speculating upon his chances of success, in case he should attack the Church Militant. "Man fights a priest ; priest fights a man," he muttered sullenly. GUENN. 18 ' ' Bad for man. Saints and angels stand by priest ; devil stands by man! Odds against me — and the stranger clutches like a fiend." The two young men exchanged an involuntary smile. Then the priest said more kindly : " Priests don't light, Rodellec, as you know when you are sober. They keep others from fighting — if they are strong enough ; and happily they are sometimes," he added, drawing up his powerful figure. "Go, Hervd. You'd better go now, you see." Growling a parting round of blasphemies and male dictions, RodeUec snatched his beret from a friend's hand, and stumbled off.

A light little figure pressed quickly through the crowd and foUowed him. Hamor recognized the girl he had seen on the shore, with thc loose hair. He knew her by her eyes. Now all the shining hair was out of sight, and the demure white coiffe, with its pure oval, framed the young face. She met his glance with a hard, bold stare, but when She greeted the priest a warm smUe broke over her defiant eyes and set mouth. "Bon soir, monsieur le recteur," she said modestly, making her little reverence, and was gone. Hamor turned to his neighbor. He was looking gravely after the girl. From the shadow a grotesque hump-backed figure leaped after her, with a whoop. Now they were lost in the darkness. Now the light from a lantern on the next house fell upon them, — the two children hand in hand, the girl walking stolidly beside her father, who was gesticulating and apparently swearing at her.