"What is going to happen?" I asked the landlord, who was sharpening tools on a bench.
"'Tis the Louée, Monsieur, the hiring that takes place every year. All in the neighbourhood who want farm-hands, or domestic servants, and those who want places, come to-morrow morning and make bargains. And the Directeur of Enfants Assistés (Foundlings) is coming, too; he is to stop here at my hotel, and so his children get work."
We were up early the next morning. Only deaf men, or dead ones, sleep through a Louée. There came to us in our bedroom, with the sunshine, an indescribable babel of sounds—babble of voices, braying of trumpets, banging of drums. To a Londoner, strange methods of doing business!
We went out into the din and the sunshine to find the transformation complete. All the green was dotted with booths bright with gaudy trinkets of every imaginable colour; shooting galleries, and a hundred other sou-trapping devices. Before every inn had sprung up, as if by magic, a salle de bal, with a real wooden floor, and a little balcony for the musicians. There was a gipsy encampment, too, where, heedless of the din, a Romany sat upon the trunk of a fallen tree, methodically skinning hedgehogs with a knife; while his two small sons were unmethodically currey-combing the yellow pony, and dusting him down with his own tail, cut off and tied to a stick! The door of the caravan opened; there was a glimpse of a woman's arm, and a pailful of slops shot out, sparkling in the sun, to alight where fate might decree. Brown drops splashed up into the hollow eyes of Grandmother, dreaming on a chair by the steps. Meanwhile the peasants went on hiring and being hired; some sealing the bargain with a glass of red wine, in the Café; some, if the maid were comely, with a kiss. Peasants I call them, though, at first sight, this array of black blouses and black squash hats suggests a meeting of nonconformist parsons, rather than farmers of the Morvan. Yet one learns to accept them so, and to enjoy the deep, black shadows that lurk in the folds of the garments. Straw hats are few; but the white caps of the old ladies are there for contrast.
Wearied of the buzzing crowd, the nerve-racking crack of the rifles, we wandered out of the village, and sat by the edge of a ploughed field, where we watched, above a rampart of firs shot with spring greens, the purple mass of dark Beuvray lifting its crested summit into the cloudless sky,—mysterious Beuvray, whence of old, as darkness closed upon their homes, the wondering peasants in the valley, heard, from the mysterious mountain city above their heads, the sound of great gates creaking harshly upon their hinges.
But to-morrow is for Beuvray. To-day we will watch the long stream of peasants coming to the Fair, by the lanes that wind, up and down, among the buttress hills of the mount. They come on foot, in farm carts, on bicycles; but most of them come in little, trim donkey-carts; husband and wife sitting primly side by side, their tanned faces shewing strongly above the silently twitching, brown ears of the "baudet." Here is a family in a donkey-drawn washing-basket, three generations of them, packed like sardines. After déjeuner, when the hiring is done, the older ones leave; the turn of the younger is come. Then the fillettes begin to appear—Fifines made fine for the Fair—all cut after the same pattern, with white blouses below much be-ribboned straw hats; each carrying, because of the mid-day sun, a grey jacket lined with light blue. These come tripping from village and hamlet, clinging to each other, with little toddlers holding their hands; all chattering, smiling, sweltering, happy. The fiddlers will be tuning up in the Salles de Bal.
So we followed the maids back to the village, and wandered again among the booths. An old, old lady, beside a not less ancient friend was nursing a tin mug. They were discussing bargains and their budget. "I got this for three sous; et je trouve que c'est bien solide." On that point she was cruelly deceived. But what matter? Thinking makes it so. What a popping of corks comes from the Café!
Bang! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! Bang!!! The crowd surges toward a compelling din. Before the largest of the tents a half-naked, muscular ruffian stands silent upon a tub; beside him another, clad in shiny velveteens, shouts himself hoarse.
"Gentlemen, you all know that the 'lutte est le premier gymnastique du monde.' Come in then, and see. Our professor challenges all comers. He will wrestle with a great bear. Now for la lutte aux ours! Entrez; we will show you the véritable gorille, and the most terrible beast in the world, the Monstre du Pole Nord." And, indeed, above his head was writ in gold letters, the fearsome legend: "Monstre du Pole Nord."