Part 28 (1/2)
”Amel and Penhor had no children, but now the Virgin was pleased with them, and gave them their hearts' desire. Their little son they called Paol, and dedicated him to the Holy Mother of G.o.d. In her honour he always wore a blue dress.
”Then one night the river Couesnon rose rapidly, the wind howled, and the earth shook. In the morning the sea had risen over the barriers.
”All the inhabitants of the land fled to the church, which stood on a hill; but Amel and Penhor came too late.
”Then Amel lifted Penhor high in his arms, and she in turn raised her child above the cruel waves. It was at this moment that the Virgin left her niche in the church to fly heavenwards, and, in pa.s.sing, she saw Paol's blue frock, and remembered he was hers.
”So she raised him in her arms, but found he was very heavy. Then, as she lifted him higher to her breast, she saw his mother held him, and that Amel, the father, held both; so, with a smile, she gathered them all in her arms, and they awoke in heaven.”
”A pretty legend,” said Morice absently, for he had heard but little of the tale, his eyes being on the speaker's face.
”It is the land of legend,” she replied--”the land of romance and poetry.”
”And of sorrow, too.”
”Ah! you feel that? It is because you are also Breton. Yes, we have our sorrow--it is in the voice of the sea. Not only the lament of the crierien,* but the warning that always at our doors there waits an enemy as cruel as it is remorseless. Yet to-day----”
* Unburied dead, drowned at sea.
”To-day we will not think of the sighings of ghosts or the weepings of widows to be. I prefer your romance.”
”And I. But the sorrow is there, and now----”
She was thinking of the tales Louise had told her that morning.
The shadow of the Terror eclipsed the possible suns.h.i.+ne of the present.
But Morice was not one to see coming shadows. The present for him; and his pulses were stirring as they never had before.
”You are teaching me,” he said suddenly.
She smiled.
”Yes; and you are clever. But Pere Mouet would do it better than I.”
”I was not speaking of your Breton lessons.”
”No!”
She looked up in surprise, and, meeting his gaze, felt the warm blood surge in her cheeks.
”I would like to teach you of our Brittany,” she said falteringly, ”because--well--is it not your country too?”
”I never counted it such till I knew you.”
”You have never been here before?”
”I vow I shall never wish to leave it, _if_----”