Flower of the Gorse

by Louis Tracy

"Toc! toc! toc! toc!

C'est à Concarneau

Qu'on voit de belles filles,

Prestes et gentilles,

Dans leur petits sabots!"

"Shut up, Peridot, for the sake of the good God!" muttered his friend. "Come, Man! There's your mother looking out. She heard your voice!"

"Is that you, Jean Jacques?" came a shrill cry from a bent figure etched in the lighted rectangle of an open door in a cottage higher up the hill. "Time you were home and in bed!"

"Don't worry, Mother, I'm in good company," he shouted. "Here is the law on one side of me, and a dead viper on the other! I'll go straight tonight, never fear!"

Mère Larraidou saw her son walk off down the hill with his friend the sergeant. In pity the men who were lifting a corpse desisted from their gruesome labor till the door was closed again.

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