Part 5 (1/2)
”Escaped convicts,” said papa in a low voice. ”Poor devils! And you see, Sophie, how dangerous it is for little girls to wander on the roads at night.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink”]
On another occasion we found a wretched, exhausted man lying by the roadside, and papa stopped and asked him what was the matter. He must have felt the kindness of the face and voice, for he said:
”I am an escaped convict, monsieur. For G.o.d's sake! don't betray me. I am dying of hunger.” Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink, and then, when we saw that the brandy had given him strength, he put some money into his hand and said:
”It is against the law that I should help you, but I give you an hour before I raise the alarm. Go in that direction, and G.o.d be with you!”
The church-bells were rung everywhere, answering one another from village to village when a convict was known to be at large; but on this occasion I know that my father did not fulfil his duty, the poor creature's piteous face had too much touched him. Once, too, when we children were walking with Jeannie along the highroad we caught sight of a beggar-woman sleeping in the ditch. In peering over cautiously to have a good look at her, we saw huge men's boots protruding from her petticoats, and, at the other end, a black beard, and we then made off as fast as our legs would carry us, realizing that the beggar-woman was a convict in disguise. At an inn not far from Loch-ar-Brugg there was a woman of bad character who sold these disguises to the escaped convicts.
Papa and my little brother and sister (Maraquita was not then born) were not my only companions at Loch-ar-Brugg. The property of Ker-Azel adjoined ours, and I saw all my Laisieu cousins continually, dear, gentle France, domineering Jules, and the rest. There were nine of them. It was Jules who told us one day that he had been thinking over the future of France (the country, not his brother), and had come to the conclusion that we should all soon suffer from a terrible famine.
Famines had come before this, said Jules, so why not again? It was only wise to be prepared for them; and what he suggested was that we should all accustom ourselves to eat gra.s.s and clover, as the cattle did. If it nourished cows, it would nourish us. All that was needed was a little good-will in order that we should become accustomed to the new diet. Jules was sincerely convinced of the truth of what he said; but he was a tyrannous boy, and threatened us with beatings if we breathed a word of his plan to our parents. We were to feign at meals that we were not hungry, and to say that we had eaten before coming to the table. I well remember the first time that we poor little creatures knelt down on all fours in a secluded meadow and began to bite and munch the gra.s.s. We complained at once that we did not like it at all, and Jules, as a concession to our weakness, said that we might begin with clover, since it was sweeter. For some time we submitted to the ordeal, getting thinner and thinner and paler, growing accustomed, it is true, to our tasteless diet and never daring to confess our predicament; we were really afraid of the famine as well as of Jules. At last our parents, seriously alarmed, consulted the good old doctor, as nothing could be got from us but stout denials of hunger. He took me home with him, for I was his special pet, and talked gravely and gently to me, reminding me that I was now eight years old and of the age of reason, going to confession and capable of sin. It was a sin to tell lies, and if I would tell him the truth, he would never betray my confidence. Thus adjured, I began to cry, and confessed that we had all been eating nothing but gra.s.s and clover. The doctor petted and consoled me, told me that it was all folly on the part of Jules, and that he would set it right without any one knowing that I had told him. He kept his promise to me. It was as if by chance he found us all in our meadow next day, on all fours, munching away. Jules sprang up, sulky and obstinate.
”Yes; we are eating gra.s.s and clover,” he said, ”and we are quite accustomed to it now and like it very much, and we shall be better off than the rest of you when the famine comes.”
The doctor burst out laughing, and his laughter broke the spell Jules had cast upon us. He told us that not only was there no probability of a famine, no possibility even, France being a country rich in food, but that even were there to be a famine, we should certainly all be dead before it came if we went on eating as the cattle did, since we were not accommodated with the same digestive apparatus as they. He described to us this apparatus and our own, and at last even Jules, who was as thin and as weary as the rest of us, was convinced, and glad to be convinced. It was not till many years afterward that we told our parents the story.
One day we children were all in a deep lane--perhaps the same that had frightened me years before--when, at a turning, the most inconceivable monster towered above us in the gloom. We recognized it in a moment as a camel (a camel in Brittany!), and with it came a band of Gipsies, with dark skins, flas.h.i.+ng teeth, bright handkerchiefs, and ear-rings.
Our alarm was not diminished when we saw that they led, as well as the camel, two thin performing bears. But as we emerged into the light with the chattering, fawning crowd, alarm gave way to joyous excitement. The camel and the bears were under perfect control, and the Gipsies were not going to hurt us. They asked if they might make the bears dance for us, and we ran to show them the way to Loch-ar-Brugg. _Maman_, in her broad garden hat, was walking in the beech-avenue, and came at once to forbid the Gipsies to enter, as they were preparing to do; but as we supplicated that we should be allowed to see the bears dance, she consented to allow the performance to take place in the highroad before the _grille_. We sat about on the gra.s.s; the camel towered against the sky, gaunt, tawny, and melancholy; and the bears, armed with wooden staffs, went through their clumsy, reluctant tricks. _Maman_, from within the _grille_, surveyed the entertainment with great disfavor, and it lost its charm for us when we heard her say: ”How wretchedly thin and miserable the poor creatures look! They must be dying of hunger.” We then became very sorry for the bears, too, and glad to have them left in peace, and while we distributed sous to the Gipsies, _maman_ went to the house and returned with a basket of broken bread and meat, which she gave to the famished beasts. How they s.n.a.t.c.hed and devoured it, and how plainly I see _maman_ standing there, the deep green vault of the avenue behind her, the clumps of blue hydrangeas, her light dress, her wide-brimmed garden hat, and her severe, solicitous blue eyes as she held out the bread to the hungry bears!
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”A woman of bad character, who sold these disguises to escaped convicts”]
A great character at Loch-ar-Brugg was the cure. It was he who had baptized me, for I was baptized not at Quimper, but in the little church of St. Eloi that stood at the foot of the Loch-ar-Brugg woods and had been in the Kerouguet family for generations. During my earliest years there he was our chaplain, inhabiting one of the _pavillons_ in the garden with his old servant; later on he was given the living of Plougastel, some miles away, and my father had to persuade him to accept it, for he was very averse to leaving Loch-ar-Brugg and our family. Still, even at Plougastel we saw him constantly; he drove over nearly every day in his little pony-trap, and officiated every Sunday at the seven o'clock ma.s.s at St. Eloi.
What a dear, honest fellow he was, and what startling sermons I have heard him preach! Once he informed his congregation that they would all be d.a.m.ned like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Fenelon! This threat, p.r.o.nounced in Breton, was especially impressive, and how he came by the two ill-a.s.sorted names I cannot imagine, for he was nearly as ignorant of books as his flock. He was devoted to my father body and soul, being the son of one of his farmers. They were great comrades.
Whenever my father had had a good day's shooting he would go to the _pavillon_ and cry: ”Come to dinner! There are woodc.o.c.ks.” And the cure never failed to come. I see him now, with his rustic, rugged face, weather-tanned, gay, and austere. One of my first memories is of the small, square neck ornament (_rabat_) that the clergy wear,--a _bavette_ we children called them,--st.i.tched round with white beads. I longed for these beads, and when he took me on his knee I always fixed my eyes upon them. Unattainable indeed they seemed, but one day, noticing the intentness of my gaze, he questioned me, and I was able to express my longing. ”But you shall have the beads!” he cried, touched and delighted. ”I have two _rabats_, and one is old and past wearing. Nothing is simpler than to cut off the beads for you, my little Sophie.”
His performance was even better than his promise, for he brought me a bagful of the beads, collected from among his cure friends, and for days I was blissfully occupied in making chains, rings, and necklaces.
Some of these ornaments survived for many years.
The cure was not at all happy in the presence of fine people. ”_Je me sauve!_” he would exclaim if such appeared, and he would make off to the garden, where he was altogether at home, true son of the soil that he was. Here he would gird up his _soutane_ over his homespun knee-breeches, open his coa.r.s.e peasant's s.h.i.+rt on his bare chest, and prune and dig and plant; and when he took a task in hand it went quickly. One of my delights was when he put me into the wheelbarrow and trundled me off to Ker-Eliane to dig up ferns for _maman's_ garden.
He, too, told me many legends. The one of St. Eloi especially interested me. St. Eloi was the son of a blacksmith and helped his father at the forge in the tiny hamlet called after him. One day as they were working, a little child came riding up, mounted on a horse so gigantic that four men could not have held him. ”Will you shoe my horse, good friends?” said the child,--who of course was _l'Enfant Jesus_,--very politely. ”His shoe is loose, and his hoof will be hurt.” The father blacksmith looked with astonishment and indignation at the horse, and said that he could not think of shoeing an animal of such a size; but the son, St. Eloi, said at once that he would do his best. So _l'Enfant Jesus_ slid down, and took a seat on the _talus_ in front of the smithy, and St. Eloi at once neatly unscrewed the four legs of the horse and laid them down beside the enormous body. At this point in the story I always cried out:
”But, _Monsieur le Cure_, did it not hurt the poor horse to have its legs unscrewed?”
And the cure, smiling calmly, would reply:
”Not in the least. You see, this was a miracle, my little Sophie.”
So St. Eloi was able to deal with the great hoofs separately, and when all was neatly done, the legs were screwed on again; and the child remounted, and said to St. Eloi's father before he rode away:
”You are a little soured with age, my friend. Your son here is very wise. Listen to him and take his advice in everything, for it will be good.”
It was no doubt on account of this legend that all the horses through all the country far and near were brought to the church of St. Eloi once a year to be blessed by the cure. This ceremony was called _le Bapteme des Chevaux_. The horses, from plow-horses to carriage-horses and hunters, were brought and ranged round the church in groups of fours and sixes. At the widely opened western door the cure stood, holding the _goupillon_, or holy-water sprinkler, and the horses were slowly led round the church, row after row, seven times, and each time that they pa.s.sed before him the cure sprinkled them with holy water.
After this initial blessing the cure took up his stand within beside the christening-font, and the horses were led into the church,--I so well remember the dull thud and trampling of their feet upon the earthen floor,--and the cure, with holy water from the font, made the sign of the cross upon each large, innocent forehead. Finally the tail of each horse was carefully cut off, and all the tails hung up in the church together, to be sold for the benefit of the church at the end of the year, before _le Bapteme des Chevaux_ took place again. This touching ceremony still survives, but the horses are only led round the church and blessed, not brought inside.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”A great character at Loch-ar-Brugg was the cure”]