verns--old sailor
lullabies--songs of woe, arisen from the sea, drawn from the deep night
of bygone ages. Groups of sailors, arm-in-arm, zigzagging through the
streets, from their habit of rolling, and because they were half-drunk.
Groups of girls in their nun-like white caps. Old granite houses
sheltering these seething crowds; antiquated roofs telling of their
struggles, through many centuries, against the western winds, the mist,
and the rain; and relating, too, many stories of love and adventure that
had passed under their protection.

And floating over all was a deep religious sentiment, a feeling of
bygone days, with respect for ancient veneration and the symbols that
protect it, and for the white, immaculate Virgin. Side by side with the
taverns rose the church, its deep sombre portals thrown open, and steps
strewn with flowers, with its perfume of incense, its lighted tapers,
and the votive offerings of sailors hung all over the sacred arch. And
side by side also with the happy girls were the sweethearts of dead
sailors, and the widows of the shipwrecked fishers, quitting the
chapel of the dead in their long mourning shawls and their smooth tiny
_coiffes_; with eyes downward bent, noiselessly they passed through the
midst of this clamouring life, like a sombre warning. And close to all
was the everlasting sea, the huge nurse and devourer of these vigorous
generations, become fierce and agitated as if to take part in the fete.

Gaud had but a confused impression of all these things together. Excited
and merry, yet with her heart aching, she felt a sort of anguish seize
her at the idea that this country had now become her own again. On the
market-place, where there were games and acrobats, she walked up and
down with her friends, who named and pointed out to her from time
to time the young men of Paimpol or Ploubazlanec. A group of these
"Icelanders" were standing before the singers of "_complaintes_," (songs
of woe) with their backs turned towards them. And directly Gaud was
struck with one of them, tall as a giant, with huge shoulders almost too
broad; but she had simply said, perhaps with a touch of mockery: "There
is one who is tall, to say the least!" And the sentence implied beneath
this was: "What an incumbrance he'll be to the woman he marries, a
husband of that size!"

He had turned round as if he had heard her, and had given her a quick
glance from top to toe, seeming to say: "Who is this girl who wear