At a place called Captieux we found the bells clattering discordantly, and I went to the church to ascertain how they were being rung. I found the sexton there dancing about with a rope in his hands.
"Why," said I, "you are driving the bells mad."
"Ah, Monsieur!" he replied. "To-day is Le Toussaint, our fête. I am responsible for the bells. I have fastened a broom-stick in a loop up yonder; and when I spring about, away goes the stick, now here, now there; now up, then down, among the bells like a gallant youth, such as yourself, among the maids."
"Tenez," said I, interrupting him, "you have likened me to a broom-stick."
"Ah! Monsieur! Pardonnez! All similitudes halt somewhere. I should have said a magnet." Then he recommenced his dancing, and the bells their clatter.
Presently, after mopping his face with a blue handkerchief with white moons on it, he asked:
"Will Monsieur be here this evening? There will be dancing, and our village beauties—mon Dieu! it makes my mouth water like my brow, to think of them—will be there, and if Monsieur will condescend to be present, he will be a magnet among iron filings. Mais Sacré! a similitude does not hold at all points. He will not discover that they are iron filings."
"Ah! Monsieur," I replied, "the interpretation of your similitude demands revision. Surely it is the girls who are the magnets; and as neither I nor Pain-au-lait (so the natives called Pengelly) are made of iron, my father has judiciously resolved to drive on to Pont de Marsan." Then: "Mais regardez donc votre drapeau ——" I pointed to that waving above the church.
"C'est juste," interrupted the sexton. "It is peculiar. It is not of a festal colour and there is a canton in it of a different complexion. I will explain. That flag is made out of an old pair of my trousers; my wife ripped them up at the sides. That canton is a patch in the seat, adapted from an old petticoat. We are poor at Captieux, and have no other flag. II faut faire son tout possible pour le bon Dicu!"
As we were on our way to Pont de Marsan, and I was behind with Pengelly, he said to me:
