I like its cavernous fireplace with its crane and spit, and the low ceiling upheld by great beams of rough-hewn oak, and the tall clock in the corner, and the hanging copper saucepans, kettles and ladles, kept as bright as polished gold. Here, too, is a generous Norman armoire with carved oaken doors swung on bar-hinges of shining steel, and a centre-table provided with a small bottle of violet ink, a scratchy pen and an iron seal worked by a lever—a seal that has grown dull from long service in the stamping of certain documents relative to plain justice, marriage, the official recognition of the recently departed and the newly born. Above the fireplace hangs a faded photograph of a prize bull, for you must know that Monsieur le Maire has been for half a generation a dealer in Norman cattle.
Presently he returned with the tray, placing it upon the table within reach of our chairs while I stood admiring the bull.
He stopped as he half drew the cork from a fat brown jug, and looked at me curiously, his voice sinking almost to a whisper.
"You never were a dealer in beef?" he ventured timidly.
I shook my head sadly.
"Hélas! Hélas! Never mind," said he. "One cannot be everything. There's my brother-in-law, Péquin; he does not know a yearling from a three-year-old. It is he who keeps the little store at Saint Philippe."
The cork squeaked out. He filled the thimble glasses with rare old applejack so skilfully that another drop would have flushed over their worn gilt rims. What a gracious old gentleman he is! If it be a question of clipping a rose from his tidy garden and presenting it to a lady, he does it with such a gentle courtliness that the rose smells the sweeter for it—almost a lost art nowadays.
"I saw the curé this morning," he remarked, as we settled ourselves for a chat. "He could not stop, but he waved me an au revoir, for he was in a hurry to catch his train. He had been all night in his duck-blind—I doubt if he had much luck, for the wind is from the south. There is a fellow for you who loves to shoot," chuckled the mayor.
"Some news for him of game?" I inquired.