[4] Breton expression, derived from an old custom of parading all insolvents about the parish with a girdle of straw.
[5] Equivalent to the French proverb, “One must not sell the bear-skin till the bear is killed.”
The Blessed Mao.
Those Christians who stand in need of heavenly aid cannot do better than apply themselves to our Lady of All-Help near Faou. In that place has been built, expressly in her honour, the very richest chapel ever yet raised for her by human hands. The whole inside is ornamented with golden images, and the belfry-tower, which is made exactly like the one at Kreisker, is perforated like a Quimper fritter. There stands also near the church a stone fountain, famed for healing the infirmities both of body and soul.
It was at this chapel that Mao stopped on his road to pray. Mao came from Loperek, which is a pleasant little parish between Kimerc’h and Logoma. His friends and relations were all dead, and his guardian had sent him off to seek his living where he liked, with a good club-stick in his hand and three silver crowns in his purse.
After saying devoutly at the foot of the high-altar all the prayers he had ever learned from the curé, or the old woman who had nursed him, Mao went out of church to go on his way. But as he passed the palisades, he saw a crowd of people gathered around a corpse upon the grass, and learnt upon inquiry that it was the body of a poor beggar-man, who had yielded up his soul the morning before, and who could not be buried for want of the money-payment.
“Was he, then, a heathen, or a wretched reprobate who had been unfaithful to his Christian duties, that no one will do him this charitable service?” asked Mao.
“He was a sheep of the true fold,” replied one who stood by; “and however hardly he might be pressed by hunger, he would not pluck the three apples, or even ears of corn, which are permitted by old usage to be gathered by the passing stranger. But poor Stevan has not left the means of paying for his funeral, and so here he is allowed to lie. If I were not as poor myself, I would not have allowed him to lie here so long.”
“Alas,” cried Mao, “are the people so cruel in this part of the world, that they suffer the poor to enter the church-doors whilst living, but not after death? If money is all that is wanted, here are three crowns; they are all I have, but I will gladly give them to unlock holy ground to one of the faithful departed.”