OF SINISTER PORTENT
She had been walking for the last hour, lightly yet oppressed, inhaling the healthy open breeze whistling up the roads to where they crossed and /Calvaires/ were erected, ghastly highway ornaments of our Saviour on His cross, to which Bretons are given.
From time to time she passed through small fishing villages, which are beaten about by the winds the whole year through till of the colour of the rocks. In one of these hamlets, where the path narrows suddenly between dark walls, and between the whitewashed roofs, high and pointed like Celtic huts, a tavern sign-board made her smile. It was "The Chinese Cider Cellars." On it were painted two grotesque figures, dressed in green and pink robes, with pigtails, drinking cider. No doubt the whim of some old sailor who had been in China. She saw all on her way; people who are greatly engrossed in the object of a journey always find more amusement than others in its thousand details.
The tiny village was far behind her now, and as she advanced in this last promontory of the Breton land, the trees around her became more scarce, and the country more mournful.
The ground was undulating and rocky, and from all the heights the open sea could be seen. No more trees now; nothing but the shorn heaths with their green reeds, and here and there the consecrated crosses rose, their outstretched arms outlined against the sky, giving the whole country the aspect of a cemetery.
At one of the cross-ways, guarded by a colossal image of Christ, she hesitated between two roads running among thorny slopes.
A child happening to pass, came to her rescue: "Good-day, Mademoiselle Gaud!"It was one of the little Gaoses, one of Yann's wee sisters. Gaud kissed her and asked her if her parents were at home.
"Father and mother are, yes. But brother Yann," said the little one, without intent, of course, "has gone to Loguivy; but I don't think he'll be very late home again."So he was not there? Again destiny was between them, everywhere and always. She thought at first of putting off her visit to another day.
But the little lass who had met her might mention the fact. What would they think at Pors-Even? So she decided to go on, but loitering so as to give Yann time to return.
As she neared his village, in this lost country, all things seemed rougher and more desolate. Sea breezes that made men stronger, made shorter and more stubbly plants. Seaweeds of all kinds were scattered over the paths, leaves from growths in another element, proving the existence of a neighbouring world; their briny odour mingled with the perfume of the heather.
Now and again Gaud met passers-by, sea-folk, who could be seen a long way off, over the bare country, outlined and magnified against the high sea-line. Pilots or fishers, seeming to watch the great sea, in passing her wished her good-day. Broad sun-burnt faces were theirs, manly and determined under their easy caps.
Time did not go quickly enough, and she really did not know what to do to lengthen the way; these people seemed surprised at seeing her walk so slowly.
What could Yann be doing at Loguivy? Courting the girls, perhaps.
Ah! if she only had known how little he troubled his head about them!
He had simply gone to Loguivy to give an order to a basket-maker, who was the only one in the country knowing how to weave lobster pots. His mind was very free from love just now.
She passed a chapel, at such a height it could be seen remotely. It was a little gray old chapel in the midst of the barren. A clump of trees, gray too, and almost leafless, seemed like hair to it, pushed by some invisible hand all on one side.
It was that same hand that had wrecked the fishers' boats, the eternal hand of the western winds, and had twisted all the branches of the coast trees in the direction of the waves and of the off-sea breezes.
The old trees had grown awry and dishevelled, bending their backs under the time-honoured strength of that hand.
Gaud was almost at the end of her walk, as the chapel in sight was that of Pors-Even; so she stopped there to win a little more time.
A petty mouldering wall ran round an enclosure containing tombstones.
Everything was of the same colour, chapel, trees, and graves; the whole spot seemed faded and eaten into by the sea-wind; the stones, the knotty branches, and the granite saints, placed in the wall niches, were covered by the same grayish lichen, splashed pale yellow.
On one of the wooden crosses this name was written in large letters:
"GAOS.--GAOS, JOEL, 80 years."
Yes, this was the old grandfather--she knew that--for the sea had not wanted this old sailor. And many of Yann's relatives, besides, slept here; it was only natural, and she might have expected it;nevertheless, the name upon the tomb had made a sad impression.
To waste a little more time, she entered to say a prayer under the old cramped porch, worn away and daubed over with whitewash. But she stopped again with a sharp pain at her heart. "Gaos"--again that name, engraved upon one of the slabs erected in memory of those who die at sea.
She read this inscription:
"To the Memory of GAOS, JEAN-LOUIS, Aged 24 years; seaman on board the /Marguerite/.
Disappeared off Iceland, August 3d, 1877.
May he rest in peace!"
Iceland--always Iceland! All over the porch were wooden slabs bearing the names of dead sailors. It was the place reserved for the shipwrecked of Pors-Even. Filled with a dark foreboding she was sorry to have gone there.
In Paimpol church she had seen many such inscriptions; but in this village the empty tomb of the Iceland fishers seemed more sad because so lone and humble. On each side of the doorway was a granite seat for the widows and mothers; and this shady spot, irregularly shaped like a grotto, was guarded by an old image of the Virgin, coloured red, with large staring eyes, looking most like Cybele--the first goddess of the earth.
"Gaos!" Again!
