Luncheon! The good Curé stopped dead in his tracks. The œuf à la coque was calling. Back we trailed, still dripping, still muddy, even more earthly and less celestial than before, back to the house that had such a delicious old garden, and where fat rabbits grew daily fatter in their cages. The table was spread in a panelled room hung with exquisite old potteries. Seated solemnly, the Curé trying to conceal himself behind a vast napkin, the end of which he tucked under his collar, to us entered the bonne carrying six boiled eggs in a bowl. Being sufficiently hungry, we each ate two; they were more or less liquid, so Monsieur tilted up the egg-shell and drank his down with gulping noises, while we laboured unsatisfyingly with a spoon. Then came the bonne with a dish of grilled rabbit (it was delicious); we ate rabbit. Then came a large dish of beans; we ate beans. We were sending out wireless messages by this, but no relief ship appeared on the horizon. The priest groaned over the smallness of our appetites, and shovelling large masses of beans into his mouth, explained that it is sinful to drink too much because the effects are demoralising, depraving, bringing ruin on others, but one may eat as much or more than one wants or likes, as a superfluity of food does no harm. A little physical discomfort, perhaps, but that passes. Injury to the spirit? None.
Then he commented on the strides Roman Catholicism was making in England, the most influential people were being converted—we thought he must be apologising to himself for his country's alliance with a people of heretical creed, but later on I realised that this idea is very prevalent among the priests of the district. An old man at Behonne congratulated me on the same good tendency. It had not occurred to him that I was of another faith, so there was an awkward moment when I—as in honour bound—admitted the error, but he glided over it with characteristic politeness, and our interview ended as amicably as it began.
At N. we volunteered the information that I was Irish, which shed balm on the Curé's perturbed soul. Though not of the right way of thinking, one of us came of a nation that was. That, at least, was something, and a compliment to the evangelising Irish saints of mediæval times—had not one of them settled in the district, teaching the people and bringing the Gospel-light into paths shadowed by infidelity?—steered us round what might have been an awkward corner.
The beans finished, there came a cheese of the country, rich and creamy and good. We ate cheese, but we no longer looked at each other. The cheese finished, in came a massive cherry tart; we ate tart, then we drank coffee, and then Monsieur, rising from the table, opened the door, stood in the hall and said —— No. I think I had better not tell you what he said, nor where he waved us to. If ever you go to N. and have a meal with him you will find out for yourself. During lunch one of us admired his really very beautiful plates. "You shall have one," he said, and taking two from the wall, offered us our choice. Of course we refused, and the relief we read in his eye as he hung them up again in no way diminished our appreciation of his action.
Then we paid more visits, and yet more, and more, and finally, the rain having cleared, we walked home again in a balmy evening down the wide road under the communal fruit trees, where the woods which clothed the hill-side were to look like wonderful tapestry later on, when autumn had woven her mantle of russet and red, and dull dark crimson, and sober green, and browns of rich, light-haunted shades and flung it over the trees. Walked home soberly, as befitted those who had dined with a gourmand; walked home expectantly, for was not the list, the careful, exhaustive, all-comprehensive list of the Curé to follow on the morrow?
It was and it did, and with it came the following letter which we perused with infinite delight. How, oh, how could he say that the miry, inarticulate bipeds who trotted dog-like at his heels did their work avec élicatesse? How, oh, how aver that we did it under his "modest" guidance?
Yet he said it. Read and believe.
"Mesdames, et excellentes dames,
"J'ai l'honneur de vous offrir l'hommage de mes sentiments les plus reconnaissantes et les plus devoués pour tout le bien que vous faites autour de vous avec tant de délicatesse et de générosité. Je prie Dieu de vous benir, vous et tous les membres de vos chères families, de donner la victoire aux vaillantes armées de l'Angleterre, de Russie, et de France et n'y avons nous pas le droit car vous et nous nous representons bien la civilisation, l'honneur et la vraie religion. Je vous envoie ci-joint la liste (bien mal faite) des pauvres émigrés que vous avez visités sous ma modeste direction. Il en est qui manque de linge et pour les vieux qui out besoin de vêtements on pourra leur donner l'étoffe, ils se changeraient de la confection ce qui je crois serait meilleur.
"Veuillez me croire votre tout devoué."
The list was by no means all comprehensive, it was not careful, it was indeed bien mal faite, and it exhausted nothing but our patience. Our own demented notes were the best we had to work upon, and so it befell that one day some soldiers drove a vast wagon to our door and in it we piled, not the neat paquets of our dreams, but blankets, sheets, men's clothes, women's clothes, children's clothes, seaux and other needful things and sent them off to N., where they were dumped in a room, and where an hour or two later, under conditions that would have appalled the stoutest, we fitted garments on some three hundred people, while M. le Curé smiled wide approval and presented every émigré child in the village with a cap, a bonnet or a hat filched from our scanty store.
And then because the sun was shining and several batteries of soixante-quinze were en repos in the village, we went off to inspect them. The guns were well hidden from questing Taubes under orchard trees, the men were washing at the fountain, or eating a savoury stew round the camp kitchen, or flirting desperately with the women. They showed us how to load and how to train a gun, and then the priest, whom they evidently liked, for he had a kindly "Hé, mon brave, ça va bien?" or an affectionate fat-finger-tap on the shoulder for them all, bore us off to visit an artillery officer who had been doing wonderful things with a crapouillot. We found him in a beautiful garden in which, on a small patch of grass, squatted the crapouillot, a torpedo fired from a frame fixed in the ground. Alluding to some special bomb under discussion, the lieutenant said, "It isn't much, but this—oh, this has killed a lot of Boches."