Page:Watts Mumford--Whitewash.djvu/16

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WHITEWASH

pushed forward in anticipation. Here were ancient and dilapidated diligences, called into service by the influx of visitors, carts, drays, carriages of all ages and previous conditions of servitude, heavy, high swinging landaus, with emblazoned panels, bringing the chatelaines of the neighborhood, even the pumping, banging automobiles that all fashionable France had gone mad over. Mixed in and about the carriage pilgrims came the rank and file of foot farers: men from Beltz, with white trousers and coats of peacock blue; women of Lorient, in the dress made famous by the "chocolatière" of Dresden; peasants of Pont-Aven in their pleated collars and wide-winged head-dresses; deputations from Morlaix, wearing the fifteenth century "hénin" in all its glory; women of Point l'Abbé, broad-shouldered and square-hipped, marching through the heat in multitudinous black cloth skirts and yellow embroidered jackets. And in all alike, men, women, and children, the deep, contained fire of fanatic faith.

An ancient and dilapidated vehicle of the period of the first Empire, driven by a pompous peasant

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