‘Sir, you are most obliging,’ said John Treverton. ‘Extend your courtesy still further, and bring Father le Mescam to dine with me and my friend at six o’clock this evening, and you will weigh me down with obligations.’
‘You are very kind, sir,’ murmured the priest. ‘We have vespers at five—yes, at six we shall be free. I shall feel much pleasure in persuading Father le Mescam to accept your very gracious invitation.’
‘A thousand thanks. I consider it settled. We are staying at the Pavillon d’en haut, where I suppose that if a man cannot dine, he can at least eat.’
‘Sir, I take it upon myself to answer for the hotel. As a type of the provincial cuisine the Pavillon d’en haut will prove itself worthy of your praise. You shall not be discontented with your dinner. I pledge myself to that. Till six o’clock, sir.’
The Vicaire lifted his biretta, and left them.
‘It will go hard if I cannot find out something about my wife’s antecedents from a man who has lived thirty years in Auray,’ said John Treverton, as he and his companion walked down the narrow stony street leading to the river. ‘So beautiful a woman must have been remarkable in a place like this.’
‘Judging from the specimens of female loveliness I have met with so far, I should say very remarkable,’ retorted Sampson; ‘for, with the exception of that pretty chambermaid at the Pavillong dong Haw, I haven’t seen a decent-looking woman since we left St. Mallow.’
They went down to the bridge, Sampson hobbling over the stony pathway, and vehemently abusing the vestry and local board of Auray, which settlement he appeared to think was governed exactly after the manner of our English country towns.
They crossed the bridge and went to look at an old church on the other side of the river, where the fisher folk had hung models of three-masters and screw steamers as votary offerings to their guardian saints; then they re-crossed the bridge and went up to an observatory on a hill above the little town, and surveyed as much as they could see of the landscape in the gathering winter gloom; and then Mr. Sampson, who might possibly have been impressed by Vesuvius in a state of eruption, but who had not a keen eye for the quaint and picturesque on a small scale, proposed that they should go back to their hotel and make themselves comfortable for dinner.
‘I should like a wash if there’s such a thing as a cake of soap in the place,’ said the lawyer, ‘but from the appearance of the inhabitants I should rather suspect there wasn’t. Soap would be a mockery for some of them. Nothing less than scraping would be any real benefit.’