"Dame! Anglaises, Américaines—they go round the world thus, à deux!"
"And why not, if they are young and can pay?"
"Bah! old or poor, it's all one—they're never still, those English!" A chorus of croaking laughter rattled down the street along with the rolling of our carriage-wheels.
Above, the great arch of sky had shrunk, all at once, into a narrow scallop; with the fields and meadows the glow of twilight had been left behind. We seemed to be pressing our way against a great curtain, the curtain made by the rich dusk that filled the narrow thoroughfare. Through the darkness the sinuous street and rickety houses wavered in outline, as the bent shapes of the aged totter across dimly-lit interiors. A fisherman's bare legs, lit by some dimly illumined interior; a line of nets in the little yards; here and there a white kerchief or cotton cap, dazzling in whiteness, thrown out against the black facades, were spots of light here and there. There was a glimpse of the village at its supper—in low-raftered interiors a group of blouses and women in fishermen's rig were gathered about narrow tables, the coarse-featured faces and the seamed foreheads lit up by the feeble flame of candles that ended in long, thin lines of smoke.
"Ohé—Mère Mouchard!—des voyageurs!" cried forth our coachman into the darkness. He had drawn up before a low, brightly-lit interior. In response to the call a figure appeared on the threshold of the open door. The figure stood there for a long instant, rubbing its hands, as it peered out into the dusk of the night to take a good look at us. The brown head was cocked on one side thoughtfully; it was an attitude that expressed, with astonishingly clear emphasis, an unmistakable professional conception of hospitality. It was the air and manner, in a word, of one who had long since trimmed the measurement of its graciousness to the price paid for the article.
"Ces dames wished rooms, they desired lodgings and board—ces dames were alone?" The voice finally asked, with reticent dignity. "From Havre—from Trouville, par p'tit bateau!" called out lustily our driver, as if to furnish us, gratis, with a passport to the landlady's not too effusive cordiality.
What secret spell of magic may have lain hidden in our friendly coachman's announcement we never knew. But the "p'tit bateau" worked magically. The figure of Mère Mouchard materialized at once into such zeal, such effusion, such a zest of welcome, that we, our bags, and our coachman were on the instant toiling up a pair of spiral wooden stairs. There was quite a little crowd to fill the all-too-narrow landing at the top of the steep steps, a crowd that ended in a long line of waiters and serving-maids, each grasping a remnant of luggage. Our hostess, meanwhile, was fumbling at a door-lock—an obstinate door that refused to be wrenched open.
"Augustine—run—I've taken the wrong key. Cours, mon enfant, it is no farther away than the kitchen."
The long line pressed itself against the low walls. Augustine, a blond-haired, neatly-garmented shape, sped down the rickety stairs with the step of youth and a dancer; for only the nimble ankles of one accomplished in waltzing could have tripped as dexterously downward as did Augustine.
"How she lags! what an idiot of a child!" fumed Mère Mouchard as she peered down into the round blackness about which the curving staircase closed like an embrace. "One must have patience, it appears, with people made like that. Ah, tiens, here she comes. How could you keep ces dames waiting like this? It is shameful, shameful!" cried the woman, as she half shook the panting girl, in anger. "If ces dames will enter,"—her voice changing at once to a caressing falsetto, as the door flew open, opened by Augustine's trembling fingers—"they will find their rooms in readiness."