Vesper thanked him, and went on. When he reached the sudden and picturesque cove in the Bay, his attention was caught, not so much by its beauty, as by the presence of the inn pony, who neighed a joyful welcome, and impatiently jerked back and forth the road-cart to which he was attached.
Vesper glanced sharply at the yellow houses. Perhaps Rose was making a call in one of them. Then he stroked the pony, who playfully nipped his coat sleeve, and, after propping his wheel against a stump, ran nimbly down a grassy road, where a goat was soberly feeding among lobster-traps and drawn-up boats.
He crossed the strip of sand in the semicircular inlet, and there before him were the bears,—ugly brown rocks with coats of slippery seaweed, their grinning heads turned towards the mouth of a black cavern in the lower part of the bluff, their staring eye-sockets fixed on the dainty woman's figure inside, as if they would fain devour her.
Rose sat with her face to the sea, her head against the damp rock wall,—her whole attitude one of abandonment and mournful despair.
Vesper began to hurry towards her, but, catching sight of Narcisse, he stopped.
The child, with a face convulsed and tear-stained, was angrily seizing stones from the beach to fling them against the most lifelike bear of all,—a grotesque, hideous creature, that appeared to be shouldering his way from the water in order to plunge into the cave.
"Dost thou mock me?" exclaimed Narcisse, furiously. "I will strike thee yet again, thou hateful thing. Thou shalt not come on shore to eat my mother and the Englishman," and he dashed a yet larger stone against it.
"Narcisse," said Vesper.
The child turned quickly. Then his trouble was forgotten, and stumbling and slipping over the seaweed, but at last attaining his goal, he flung his small unhappy self against Vesper's breast. "I love you, I love you,—gros comme la grange à Pinot" (as much as Pinot's barn),—"yet my mother carried me away. Take me with you, Mr. Englishman. Narcisse is very sick without you."