However, we were forced to partake of a second supper; it is the custom and there was no escape. An omelette, more pancakes, and slices of brown bread and butter. Afterwards we proceeded to retire for the night, the men first and then, the light having first been extinguished, the women. Under our mattresses there were thick litters made of a mass of branches of oaks and beeches; these subsided with a crackle of dry leaves when we lay down, and we felt ourselves sink into a little hollow, which kept us warm.
"Hoo! hoo-oo-oo! Hoo! hoo-oo-oo!" sang the wind outside, with a voice like an owl's, as if it were angry, as if it were indignant, then as if it were complaining and dying.
When the candle was put out and the cottage was in darkness, came the sound of a small voice beginning a Breton prayer; it was the voice of a little girl of four who had been adopted by the family; she was in fact the child of Gildas by a girl in Plouherzel, begotten during his last visit to his home.
A very long prayer, broken by solemn responses of the old grandmother; all the Saints of Brittany: Saints Corentin and Allain, Saints Thénénan and Thégonnec, Saints Tuginal and Tugdual, Saints Clet and Gildas were invoked, and then there was silence.
Quite near me, the scarcely perceptible breathing of Yves, already sunk in deep sleep. At the foot of our bed the hens at roost dreaming on their high perch. A cricket giving out from time to time, in the still warm hearth, a mysterious little crystal note. And outside, around the solitary cottage, the continuous noise of the wind: an immense groaning which swept over all the Breton country: an unceasing pressure which came from the sea with the night and stirred the country to a monotonous dark movement, at the hour when the dead appear and ghosts walk.
[CHAPTER XXI]
"Good morning, Yves!"
"Good morning, Pierre!"
And we throw open to the light of the morning the shutters of our cupboard.
This "Good morning, Pierre!" preceded by a little smile of intelligence, is said with hesitation, in a shy voice; it is "Good morning, Captain!" that Yves is accustomed to say, and he is rather disconcerted at finding himself on awakening, so near me and under the necessity of calling me by my name. To impose upon the good people of Plouherzel and preserve the character given me by my borrowed clothes, we had concerted this show of intimacy.