"My brother Gildas," the daughter went on, "served for seven years on board an American ship engaged in whale fishing in the great ocean. That voyage made him very rich; but it seems that it is a hard calling, is it not, sir?"
"Yes, a hard calling indeed. . . ." I have seen them at work in the great ocean, these sailors in question, half whale fishers and half pirates, who pass years in the great swell of the southern seas without ever touching inhabited land.
"He was so rich, my brother Gildas, when he returned from this fishing, that he had a large sack filled full with pieces of gold."
"He poured them here on to my knees," said the old woman, holding out the skirt of her dress as if to receive them again, "and my apron was filled with them. Large golden coins of other countries, marked with all sorts of heads of kings and birds.[1] There were some of them quite new, with the portrait of a woman wearing a crown of feathers,[2] a single one of which was worth more than a hundred francs. Never had we seen so much gold. He gave a thousand francs to each of his sisters and a thousand to me, his mother, and bought me this little house in which we live. He squandered the rest in amusing himself at Paimpol and in doing things which, certainly, were not good. But they are all like that, sir, you know it better than I. For two months they spoke of none but him in the town.
"Then he left us again and we have not seen him since. He is a brave sailor, sir, is my son Gildas, but he has been ruined as his father was by his fondness for liquor."
And the old woman bowed her head sadly as she spoke of this incurable plague which destroys the families of Breton sailors.
There was silence for a time, and then she spoke again to her daughter in an earnest voice, looking at me the while.
"She asks, sir, if you will make her this promise . . . about my brother. . . ."
Her anxious, searching gaze, fixed on me, affected me strangely. It is no doubt true that all mothers, however far apart in station they may be, have, in certain hours, the same expression. . . . And now it seemed to me that this mother of Yves had some resemblance to mine.
"Tell her that I swear to look after him all my life, as if he were my brother."