"Voilà le plaisir des dames!"
The Mount, in olden times a glorious and sacred place for royal pilgrimages, where kings came to pray and seek absolution, seemed now more mart than holy spot. But those whom the petty traders sought to entice—sullen-looking peasants, or poorly clad fishermen and their families—for the most part listened indifferently, or with stupid derision.
"Bah!" scoffed one of them, a woman dressed in worn-out costume of inherited holiday finery. "Where think you we can get sous for gew-gaws?"
"Or full stomachs with empty pockets?" said another. "The foul fiend take your Portugals!"
The nomadic merchants replied and a rough altercation seemed impending, when, pushing through the crowd, the girl hurried on.
Down, down, she continued; to the base of the rock where the sand's shining surface had attracted and yet held many of the people. Thither they still continued to come—in bands; processions; little streams that, trickling in, mingled with and augmented the rabble. An encampment for the hour—until the "petite" tide should break it up, and drive it piecemeal to the shore or up the sides of the Mount—it spread out and almost around the foundations of the great rock. Only the shadows it avoided—the chilling outlines of pinnacles and towers; the cold impress of the saint, holding close to the sunlit strand and basking in its warmth.
Some, following the example of their sea-faring fellows, dug half-heartedly in the sands in the hope of eking out the meager evening meal with a course, salt-flavored; others, abandoning themselves to lighter employment, made merry in heavy or riotous fashion, but the effect of these holiday efforts was only depressing and incongruous.
"Won't you join?" Some one's arm abruptly seized my lady.
"No, no!"
Unceremoniously he still would have drawn her into the ring, but with a sudden swift movement, she escaped from his grasp.