tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">224

66. A Little Water-Carrier 226 67. Weary 230 68. The Master of the House 232 69. In the Ingle Nook 234 70. A Blind Beggar 236 71. La Petite Marie 240 72. The Little Housewife 242 73. An Old Woman 246 74. A Pig-Market 248 75. Household Duties 252

BRITTANY

CHAPTER I
DOUARNÉNEZ

The gray and somewhat uninteresting village of Douarnénez undergoes a change when the fishing-boats come home. Even with your eyes shut, you would soon know of the advent of the fishermen by the downward clatter of myriads of sabots through the badly-paved steep streets, gathering in volume and rapidity with each succeeding minute. The village has been thoroughly wakened up. Douarnénez is the headquarters of the sardine fishery, and the home-coming of the sardine boats is a matter of no little importance. The 9,000 inhabitants of the place are all given up to this industry. Prosperity, or adversity, depends upon the faithfulness, or the fickleness, of the little silver fish in visiting their shores. Not long ago the sardines forsook Douarnénez, and great was the desolation and despair which settled upon the people. However, the season this year is good, and the people are prosperous.

As one descends the tortuous street leading to the sea, when the tide is in, everything and everyone you encounter seem to be in one way or another connected with sardines. The white-faced houses are festooned and hung with fine filmy fishing-nets of a pale cornflower hue, edged with rows of deep russet-brown corks. Occasionally they are stretched from house to house across the street, and one passes beneath triumphal arches of really glorious gray-blue fishing-nets. This same little street, which barely an hour ago was practically empty and deserted, now swarms with big bronzed fishermen coming up straight from the sea, laden with their dripping cargo of round brown baskets half filled with glistening fish. They live differently from the sleepy villagers—these strapping giants of the sea, with their deep-toned faces, their hair made tawny by exposure, their blue eyes, which somehow or other seem so very blue against the dark red-brown of their complexion, their reckless, rollicking, yet graceful, sailor's gait. A sailor always reminds me of a cat amongst a roomful of crockery: he looks as if he will knock over something or trip over something every moment as he swings along in his careless fashion; yet he never does.

What a contrast they are, these stalwart fishers of the deep, to the somewhat pallid, dapper-looking, half-French hotel and shop keepers, who are the only men to be seen in the village during the daytime—these fishermen, with their russet-brown clothing faded by the salt air into indescribably rich wallflower tones of gold and orange and red! What pranks Mistress Sea plays with the simple homespun garments of these men, staining and bleaching them into glorious and unheard-of combinations of colour, such as would give a clever London or Parisian dressmaker inspiration for a dozen gowns, which, if properly adapted, would take the whole of the fashionable world by storm! You see blue woollen jerseys faded into greens and yellows, red bérets wondrously shaded in tones of vermilion and salmon. From almost every window tarpaulin and yellow oilskin trousers hang drying; every woman in the place is busily employed.

Many a fascinating glimpse one catches at the doorways when passing, subjects worthy of Peter de Hooch—a young girl in the white-winged cap and red crossway shawl of Douarnénez cutting up squares of cork against the rich dark background of her home, in which glistening brass, polished oak, blue-and-white china, and a redly burning fire can be faintly discerned. A soft buzzing noise, as of many people singing, occasionally broken by a shrill treble, and a group of loafing men, peering in at a doorway, attract your attention. You gaze inquisitively within. It is a large shed or barn filled with hundreds of young girls and women, with bare feet and skirts tucked up to their knees, salting and sifting and drying and cooking sardines, singing together the while as with one voice some Breton folk-song in a minor key, as they busy themselves about their work.

It is impossible to describe one's feelings when, after descending the steep cobbled street, one first catches sight of the sea at Douarnénez. One can only stand stock-still for a moment and draw in a deep breath of astonishment and fulfilment of hopes.

Before you lies a broad expanse of gray-blue. I can liken it to nothing but the hue of faded cornflowers. Whether it is the time of day or not I cannot tell, but sea and sky alike are flooded with this same strange cornflower hue; the hills in the distance are of a deeper cornflower; and clustered about the quay are many fishing-barques, showing purply-black against the blue delicacy of the background.

Over the gray-blue sea are scudding myriads of brown, double-winged boats, all making for the little harbour—some in twos, some in threes, others in flocks, like so many swallows. Close to the dark cornflower hills is a patch of brilliant verdant green—so