MID-DAY
Just after walking past rows of very ordinary houses, suddenly you will come across a really fine old mansion, dating from the seventeenth century, white-faced, with ancient black beams, gables, and diamond panes. Then, just as you think that you have exhausted the resources of the town, and turn down a moss-grown alley homewards, you find yourself face to face with another town, typically Breton, white-faced and gray-roofed, clustering round a church and surrounded by old moss-grown walls. This little town is situated far down in a valley, into which you descend by a sloping green path. We sat on a stone bench above, and watched the people as they passed before us. There were bare-legged school-children in their black pinafores and red berés, hurrying home to déjeuner, swinging their satchels; and beggars, ragged and dirty, holding towards us tin cups and greasy caps, with many groans and whines. One man held a baby on his arm, and in the other hand a loaf of bread. The baby's face was dirty and covered with sores; but its hair was golden and curly, and the sight of that fair sweet head nodding over the father's shoulder as they went down the hill made one's heart ache. It was terrible to think that an innocent child could be so put out of touch with decent humanity.
To reach this little town one had to cross a sluggish river by a pretty gray stone bridge. Some of the houses were quaint and picturesque, mostly with two stories, one projecting over the other, and low windows with broad sills, bricked down to the ground, on which were arranged pots of fuchsias, pink and white geraniums, and red-brown begonias. Nearly every house had its broad stone stoop, or settle, on which the various families sat in the warm afternoon drinking bowls of soup and eating tartines de beurre.
It is a notably provincial little town, full of flowers and green trees, and dark, narrow streets, across which hang audaciously strings of drying linen. All the children of the community appeared to be out and about—some skipping, others playing at peg-tops, and others merely sucking their fingers and their pinafores in the way that children have. One sweet child in a red pinafore, her hair plaited into four little tails tied with red ribbon, clasped a slice of bread-and-butter (butter side inwards, of course) to her chest, and was carelessly peeling an apple with a long knife at the same time, in such a way as to make my heart leap.
A happy wedding-party were swinging gaily along the quay arm in arm, singing some rollicking Breton chanson, and all rather affected by their visits to the various débits de boissons. There were two men and two women—the men fair and bearded, wearing peaked caps; the women in their best lace coifs and smartest aprons. As they passed everyone turned and pointed and laughed. It was probably a three days' wedding.
A mite of a girl walking gingerly along the street carried a bottle of ink ever so carefully, biting her lips in her anxiety to hold it steadily. Round her neck, on a sky-blue ribbon, hung a gorgeous silver cross, testifying to good behaviour during the week. Alack! a tragedy was in store. The steps leading to the doorway of her home were steep, and the small person's legs were short and fat. She tripped and fell, and the ink was spilled—a large, indelible, angry black spot on the clean white step. Fearfully and pale-faced, the little maid looked anxiously about her, and strove to put the ink back again by means of a dry stick, staining fingers and pinafore the more. It was of no avail. Her mother had seen her. Out she rushed, a pleasant-faced woman in a white lace cap, now wearing a ferocious expression.
'Monster that thou art!' she cried, lifting the tearful, ink-bespattered child by the armpits, and throwing her roughly indoors, whence piteous sounds of sobbing and wailing ensued.
The child's heart was broken; the silver cross had lost its charm; and the sun had left the heavens. The mother, busily bending over her sewing-machine, looked up at us through the window, and smiled understandingly.
