The silence, intensified by the double thunder of the breakers on the sands, was suddenly pierced by a far cock-crow; vague gray figures passed across the square as I traversed it; a cow-bell tinkled near by, and I smelt the fresh-blown wind from the downs.
Presently, as I turned into the cliff-path, I saw a sober little Breton cow plodding patiently along ahead; beside her moved a fresh-faced maid of Paradise in 196 snowy collarette and white-winged head-dress, knitting as she walked, fair head bent.
As I passed her she glanced up with tear-dimmed eyes, murmuring the customary salutation: “Bonjour d’ac’h, m’sieu!” And I replied in the best patois I could command: “Bonjour d’ec’h a laran, na œled Ket! Why do you cry, mademoiselle?”
“Cry, m’sieu? They are taking the men of Paradise to the war. France must know how cruel she is to take our men from us.”
We had reached the green crest of the plateau; the girl tethered her diminutive cow, sat down on a half-imbedded stone, and continued her knitting, crying softly all the while.
I asked her to direct me to the house where Robert, the Lizard, lived; she pointed with her needles to a large stone house looming up in the gray light, built on the rocks just under the beacon. It was white with sea-slime and crusted salt, yet heavily and solidly built as a fort, and doubtless very old, judging from the traces of sculptured work over portal and windows.
I had scarcely expected to find the ragged Lizard and more ragged Jacqueline housed in such an anciently respectable structure, and I said so to the girl beside me.
“The house is bare as the bones of Sainte-Anne,” she said. “There is nothing within—not even crumbs enough for the cliff-rats, they say.”
So I went away across the foggy, soaking moorland, carrying my gun and satchel in their cases, descended the grassy cleft, entered a cattle-path, and picked my way across the wet, black rocks toward the abode of the poacher.
The Lizard was standing on his doorsill when I came up; he returned my greeting sullenly, his keen eyes of a sea-bird roving over me from head to foot. A rumpled and sulky yellow cat, evidently just awake, 197 sat on the doorstep beside him and yawned at intervals. The pair looked as though they had made a night of it.