riton ancestors of Roche crossed in
their shallow boats. Yet he was as hopelessly un-French as a Welshman of
the hills is to this day un-English. His dark face, shy as a wild
animal's, his peat-brown eyes, and the rare, strangely-sweet smile which
once in a way strayed up into them; his creased brown hands always
trying to tie an imaginary cord; the tobacco pouched in his brown cheek;
his improperly-buttoned blue trousers; his silence eternal as the stars
themselves; his habit of climbing trees--all marked him out as no true
Frenchman. Indeed, that habit of climbing trees caused every soul who
saw him to wonder if he ought to be at large: monkeys alone pursue this
pastime. And yet,--surely one might understand that trees were for Roche
the masts of his far-off fishing barque, each hand-grip on the branch of
plane or pine-tree solace to his overmastering hunger for the sea. Up
there he would cling, or stand with hands in pockets, and look out, far
over the valley and the yellowish-grey-pink of the pan-tiled town-roofs,
a mile away, far into the mountains where snow melted not, far over this
foreign land of '_midi trois quarts_,' to an imagined Breton coast and
the seas that roll from there to Cape Breton where the cod are. Since he
never spoke unless spoken to--no, not once--it was impossible for his
landsmen comrades to realise why he got up those trees, and they would
summon each other to observe this '_phenomene_,' this human
ourang-outang, who had not their habit of keeping firm earth beneath
their feet. They understood his other eccentricities better. For
instance, he could not stay still even at his meals, but must get up and
slip out, because he chewed tobacco, and, since the hospital regulations
forbade his spitting on the floor, he must naturally go and spit
outside. For '_ces types-la_' to chew and drink was--life! To the
presence of tobacco in the cheek and the absence of drink from the
stomach they attributed all his un-French ways, save just that one
mysterious one of climbing trees.

And Gray--though only one-fourth English--how utterly British was that
'arrogant civilian,' as the '_poilus_' called him. Even his clothes,
somehow, were British--no one knew who had given them to him; his short
grey workman's jacket, brown dingy trousers, muffler and checked cap;
his long, idle walk, his absolute _sans-gene_, regardless of any one but
himself; his tall, loose figure, with a sort of grace lurking somewhere
in i