Part 5 (2/2)

The population of islands like Guernsey is composed of men who have pa.s.sed their lives in going about their little fields or in sailing round the world. These are the two cla.s.ses of the labouring people; the labourers on the land, and the toilers of the sea. Mess Lethierry was of the latter cla.s.s; he had had a life of hard work. He had been upon the continent; was for some time a s.h.i.+p carpenter at Rochefort, and afterwards at Cette. We have just spoken of sailing round the world; he had made the circuit of all France, getting work as a journeyman carpenter; and had been employed at the great salt works of Franche-Comte. Though a humble man, he had led a life of adventure. In France he had learned to read, to think, to have a will of his own. He had had a hand in many things, and in all he had done had kept a character for probity. At bottom, however, he was simply a sailor. The water was his element; he used to say that he lived with the fish when really at home. In short, his whole existence, except two or three years, had been devoted to the ocean. Flung into the water, as he said, he had navigated the great oceans both of the Atlantic and the Pacific, but he preferred the Channel. He used to exclaim enthusiastically, ”That is the sea for a rough time of it!” He was born at sea, and at sea would have preferred to end his days. After sailing several times round the world, and seeing most countries, he had returned to Guernsey, and never permanently left the island again. Henceforth his great voyages were to Granville and St. Malo.

Mess Lethierry was a Guernsey man--that peculiar amalgamation of Frenchman and Norman, or rather English. He had within himself this quadruple extraction, merged and almost lost in that far wider country, the ocean. Throughout his life and wheresoever he went, he had preserved the habits of a Norman fisherman.

All this, however, did not prevent his looking now and then into some old book; of taking pleasure in reading, in knowing the names of philosophers and poets, and in talking a little now and then in all languages.

II

A CERTAIN PREDILECTION

Gilliatt was a child of Nature. Mess Lethierry was the same.

Lethierry's uncultivated nature, however, was not without certain refinements.

He was fastidious upon the subject of women's hands. In his early years, while still a lad, pa.s.sing from the stage of cabin-boy to that of sailor, he had heard the Admiral de Suffren say, ”There goes a pretty girl; but what horrible great red hands.” An observation from an admiral on any subject is a command, a law, an authority far above that of an oracle. The exclamation of Admiral de Suffren had rendered Lethierry fastidious and exacting in the matter of small and white hands. His own hand, a large club fist of the colour of mahogany, was like a mallet or a pair of pincers for a friendly grasp, and, tightly closed, would almost break a paving-stone.

He had never married; he had either no inclination for matrimony, or had never found a suitable match. That, perhaps, was due to his being a stickler for hands like those of a d.u.c.h.ess. Such hands are, indeed, somewhat rare among the fishermen's daughters at Portbail.

It was whispered, however, that at Rochefort, on the Charente, he had, once upon a time, made the acquaintance of a certain grisette, realising his ideal. She was a pretty girl with graceful hands; but she was a vixen, and had also a habit of scratching. Woe betide any one who attacked her! yet her nails, though capable at a pinch of being turned into claws, were of a cleanliness which left nothing to be desired. It was these peculiarly bewitching nails which had first enchanted and then disturbed the peace of Lethierry, who, fearing that he might one day become no longer master of his mistress, had decided not to conduct that young lady to the nuptial altar.

Another time he met at Aurigny a country girl who pleased him. He thought of marriage, when one of the inhabitants of the place said to him, ”I congratulate you; you will have for your wife a good fuel maker.” Lethierry asked the meaning of this. It appeared that the country people at Aurigny have a certain custom of collecting manure from their cow-houses, which they throw against a wall, where it is left to dry and fall to the ground. Cakes of dried manure of this kind are used for fuel, and are called _coipiaux_. A country girl of Aurigny has no chance of getting a husband if she is not a good fuel maker; but the young lady's especial talent only inspired disgust in Lethierry.

Besides, he had in his love matters a kind of rough country folks'

philosophy, a sailor-like sort of habit of mind. Always smitten but never enslaved, he boasted of having been in his youth easily conquered by a petticoat, or rather a _cotillon_; for what is now-a-days called a crinoline, was in his time called a _cotillon_; a term which, in his use of it, signifies both something more and something less than a wife.

These rude seafaring men of the Norman Archipelago, have a certain amount of shrewdness. Almost all can read and write. On Sundays, little cabin-boys may be seen in those parts, seated upon a coil of ropes, reading, with book in hand. From all time these Norman sailors have had a peculiar satirical vein, and have been famous for clever sayings. It was one of these men, the bold pilot Queripel, who said to Montgomery, when he sought refuge in Jersey after the unfortunate accident in killing Henry II. at a tournament, with a blow of his lance, ”_Tete folle a ca.s.se tete vide_.” Another one, Touzeau, a sea-captain at St.

Brelade, was the author of that philosophical pun, erroneously attributed to Camus, ”_Apres la mort, les papes deviennent papillons, et les sires deviennent cirons_.”

III

THE OLD SEA LANGUAGE

The mariners of the Channel are the true ancient Gauls. The islands, which in these days become rapidly more and more English--preserved for many ages their old French character. The peasant in Sark speaks the language of Louis XIV. Forty years ago, the old cla.s.sical nautical language was to be found in the mouths of the sailors of Jersey and Aurigny. When amongst them, it was possible to imagine oneself carried back to the sea life of the seventeenth century. From that speaking trumpet which terrified Admiral Hidde, a philologist might have learnt the ancient technicalities of manoeuvring and giving orders at sea, in the very words which were roared out to his sailors by Jean Bart. The old French maritime vocabulary is now almost entirely changed, but was still in use in Jersey in 1820. A s.h.i.+p that was a good plyer was _bon boulinier_; one that carried a weather-helm in spite of her foresails and rudder was _un vaisseau ardent_; to get under way was _prendre aire_; to lie to in a storm, _capeyer_; to make fast running rigging was _faire dormant_; to get to windward, _faire chapelle_; to keep the cable tight, _faire teste_; to be out of trim, _etre en pantenne_; to keep the sails full, _porter plain_. These expressions have fallen out of use.

To-day we say _louvoyer_ for to beat to windward, they said _leauvoyer_; for _naviguer_, sail, they said _naviger_; for _virer vent devant_, to tack, _donner vent devant_; for _aller de l'avant_, to make headway, _tailler de l'avant_; for _tirez d'accord_, haul together, _halez d'accord_; for _derapez_, to weigh anchor, _deplantez_; for _embraquez_, to haul tight, _abraquez_; for _taquets_, cleats, _bittons_; for _burins_, toggles, _tappes_; for _balancine_, fore-lift, main-lift, etc., _valancine_; for _tribord_, starboard, _stribord_; for _les hommes de quart a babord_, men of the larboard watch, _les basbourdis_.

Tourville wrote to Hocquincourt: _nous avons singlet_ (sailed), for _cingle_. Instead of _la rafale_, squall, _le raffal_; instead of _bossoir_, cat-head, _boussoir_; instead of _drosse_, truss, _drousse_; instead of _loffer_, to luff, _faire une olofee_; instead of _elonger_, to lay alongside, _alonger_; instead of _forte brise_, stiff breeze, _survent_; instead of _jouail_, stock of an anchor, _jas_; instead of _soute_, store-room, _fosse_.

Such, at the beginning of this century, was the maritime dialect of the Channel Islands. Ango would have been startled had he heard the speech of a Jersey pilot. Whilst everywhere else the sails _faseyaient_ (s.h.i.+vered), in these islands they _barbeyaient_. A _saute de vent_, sudden s.h.i.+ft of wind, was a _folle-vente_. The old methods of mooring known as _la valture_ and _la portugaise_ were alone used, and such commands as _jour-et-chaque!_ and _bosse et vilte!_ might still be heard. While a sailor of Granville was already employing the word _clan_ for sheave-hold, one of St. Aubin or of St. Sampson still stuck to his _ca.n.a.l de pouliot_. What was called _bout d'alonge_ (upper fultock) at St. Malo, was _oreille d'ane_ at St. Helier. Mess Lethierry, as did the Duke de Vibonne, called the sheer of the decks _la tonture_, and the caulker's chisel _la patara.s.se_.

It was with this uncouth sea dialect in his mouth that Duquesne beat De Ruyter, that Duguay Trouin defeated Wasnaer, and that Tourville, in 1681, poured a broadside into the first galley which bombarded Algiers.

It is now a dead language. The idiom of the sea is altogether different.

Duperre would not be able to understand Suffren.

<script>