"The bien entente, or entente cordiale, or whatever you like to call it, which startled Europe, is so old a thing amongst us, that we were set laughing when told of the new discovery—the diplomatic radium of the hour," said the vicar, laughing.
"I thought you Cornish were very alarmed at French invasions, and hated Frenchmen like the lost archangel holy water. What were the popular stories with which you sent children sobbing to bed, about the Great Napoleon?" asked the Bookworm.
"Stories innumerable, and they served a purpose. A thousand such stories might be invented to-morrow, and some would be believed, with a German, a Russian, or a yellow bug-a-boo for figurehead. But, let me tell you, there has always been a link between England and France, and that is the Cornu-Breton link. Cornish boats were often safe in French harbours when Napoleon was fitting out his great Armada, and Nelson driving Frenchmen from the seas. We wanted brandy and silks, and the French merchants wanted money, so the bien entente was all serene. Then we wanted salt for curing, and there was nothing more common in our harbours than French chasse-marées laden with sea-salt; and who more popular than the Breton sailor in a Cornish port, in blue blouse and sabots, and pockets stuffed full of prunes, which he shook out as he walked, followed by a queue of children singing, 'How do you do, Johnny Crapaud?' And then, most touching, when Frenchy and the little mousse, trusting themselves alone in Cornish lanes, gathered bucketfuls of esculent snails for soup. The bien entente was all right still, though there were wars and rumours of wars. The Cornu-Breton link held fast when Cornwall raised its volunteers when Napoleon the Third sent a thrill of fear through the land, when Fashoda was a burning word, and when the Paris journals made the English blood boil during the Boer war. And what was the Cornu-Breton link?"
The vicar paused, and then added: "The link is here. It is knocking at my gate."
There was a chubby-faced youngster at the back door, in blue smock and knitted cap, bending under the weight of the onions he was carrying suspended from a pole on his shoulder.
"This is the Cornu-Breton link—onions followed salt, and salt brandy. These chubby-faced boys invade us every year and 'dump' all the spare onions they grow in their little gardens at home. It is their harvest, and the brave little hearts, trudging in a strange land, with raw shoulders, are welcomed everywhere, whatever the party passions of the hour. It is a small link, but it is steel, and when London and Paris were drinking champagne to the new sensation, we were buying our onions off our little Breton friends, giving them milk to drink, and sharing pasties, and giving them ointments with which to rub their poor little raw shoulders, and then resting them in barns so that they might be up and off with sunrise to sell their onions."
The vicar beckoned to the boy, who came and told us of his home at Paimpol; this was his second season here, and next year he would not come because he was conscript, and would serve on board a man-of-war. His eyes glistened when he talked of meeting British ships, and the Cornish bluejackets who knew him as a little onion boy. And they would be friends!
Guy tipped the boy when no one was looking, and so did his best to keep the Cornu-Breton link intact.
I do believe the good vicar was sorry when we went.