And at the thanksgiving she crossed herself, and at the boast she struck her stick with a sharp crack upon the floor.
“Madame has probably many kinsfolk in Orbec? It is all that there is of happiest to see one’s children grow and prosper.”
“Ah! Ah! But Monsieur does not know; does not know. They are here no more, they are here no more. I pray for them up there. I go soon to join them. Pardon, Monsieur, if I weary you. Monsieur is without doubt tired. I beg you to seat yourself.”
At my mention of children she drew a sudden gasping breath, and gazed out at the sea, whitened merrily under wind and sun. As she spoke of prayer for them she pointed in the direction of the church. Then, with more than the delicacy of Saint German’s Faubourg, she apologised for obtruding her memories on me.
Of course I longed to hear the tale thus hinted at. I hope I did not requite the old lady’s delicacy with unwarrantable curiosity in inducing her to tell it.
I will not repeat it in her words, for the idiom would be tedious. I sat in the cottage doorway as I listened, looking out on the sparkling sand, the merry urchins rambling down to the breakers, the crumbling fort, and the far sea.
Somewhere about the year of our Lord 1785, Marie Giguet was the brightest, prettiest, most loveable lass in all Orbec. All the youths of Orbec looked longingly on that dainty figure, always freshly clad, poised so truly on those little sun-browned feet. All the youths of Orbec worshipped that yellow hair and those dark brown eyes. Of course, with one exception all the youths of Orbec were doomed to disappointment and (temporary) despair. That one was Charles Barjac, sprung of a family which had come to Orbec from the South. Charles Barjac (the old dame’s eyes kindled as she spoke in passing of his sturdy frame and crisp black hair) won the prize, was married at the church behind the village, and became a loving husband. In some four or five years three stout boys came into the world to perpetuate the Barjac name. Never was wife or mother happier than Marie. Her only trouble was that her lord’s seafaring life led him for long intervals away from home; and that she knew her boys must one day in their turn go down to the sea in ships.
It was to be gathered from the narrative that Monsieur Barjac’s voyages were not mere paltry fishing excursions; that he visited various parts of the coasts of Albion; that he at least could with no good face cast at Albion the common charge of perfidy, for that he himself kept little faith with the customs regulations of King George III.; that whatever perfidy stained the subjects of that virtuous monarch was rather to their sovereign than to their neighbours; and was, moreover, a source of much gain to himself. Righteously or unrighteously, Barjac the skipper made many voyages and much profit. Charles, Antoine, and Jules, the three lads aforementioned, grew up stout-hearted, straight-limbed, and strong; and as each reached the age of ten, each sailed for the first time with his sire. When the time came for Charles to go, Antoine and little Jules were still left with their mother. Antoine went: but Jules stayed behind. When the time came for Jules to go too, the mother’s heart was sore and sad; but her heart was brave though it sorrowed. Her lads must not be milksops. She wept in secret, and parted from her Benjamin with a cheery smile.
It was a voyage of no ordinary importance, this. The days when the eighteenth century lay a-dying and the days when the nineteenth was in its babyhood were not days of great order in France. Every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And when the new century was not yet three years old, there was a lull in the fight between the Jack and the Tricolor, and Commerce took advantage of the slumber of War. So Monsieur Barjac made a great venture; not only with his three boys, but also with such commodities as used to acquire a richer flavour with freedom from duty. And when the Belle Marie sailed from the Harbour of Grace, she carried with her a freight which was destined to make the skipper quite a wealthy man. The mother left at home in Orbec thought little of the freight, and much of her goodman and her boys. There was Charles, nearly as tall as his father, and already beginning to smile meaningly on the successors to the realm of beauty once reigned over by Marie Giguet. There was Antoine, hardy and strong. And little Jules was the merriest fellow who ever prisoned his lusty little limbs in big stiff bags of breeches, or ever covered his cropped curls with a long red bag of a cap.
Nor were Madame Barjac’s the only eyes which were with her “heart, and that was far away there, where” the Belle Marie sailed over the sea. Other Orbec folk had kinsmen on board the jaunty little craft. There was old Widow Nodier, whose only son Jacques was Captain Barjac’s right hand; and there was Thérèse Fanjeaux, who had promised to become Thérèse Nodier when the ship came back. Thibaud le Roy was the oldest sailor on the Belle Marie; such an ancient Triton that he looked more like a piece of seaweed than a man, but whose experience, Madame Barjac rejoiced to know, was invaluable to the skipper—and his old wife Manon used to trudge every day to the Barjac house and ask, “Is it that Madame has news of our husbands?” There were several more, but I forget them. It is enough to say that the Belle Marie was freighted with the hopes and the fears of many of the people of Orbec.
Time went on. The friends of the sailors began to say “It is time for the Belle Marie to be starting home again.” The names of the places whither she was bound their lips could hardly shape. It may be presumed, from mention made by old Madame Barjac of Scarrebourre, Vitebi, and Yorkéchire, that her destination was the north-east coast of England.
And now, said the old dame, I was about to hear a marvellous tale. She did not expect that I should believe it. But she would tell what was indeed the truth.
Often in the night she lay long awake, thinking on her husband and their boys. On one special night she felt more anxious than at other times. It was very late before she retired to her bed.