or evil, while the road remained.
Coming as an alien from unknown scenes, the one thing in the country
that spoke of change, yet itself more lasting than any, it seemed to be
ever pursuing some secret purpose: persistent, relentless: a very
Nemesis of a road.

On either side of it were barren "dunes," grudgingly covered by
straggling heather and gorse, and to the South, at a little distance,
rolled the dark-blue sea.

On the edge of the dune, near to a cluster of sweet-scented pines, stood
two or three cottages built of grey stone, after the Breton manner, with
high-pitched roofs of dove-coloured slate, and arched stone doorways,
around which scratched pigs and hens, on equal terms with barefooted
children. One of the cottages had "Buvette" inscribed over it in large,
white letters, and a bench outside under a little awning; and opposite
to this, a rough pathway led out of the road over the waste land to a
hamlet on the dune, of which the grey, clustering cottages, crowning a
rising ground about half a mile off, stood distinct against the opal sky
of early evening.

Framed in the stone doorway of the Buvette, was the figure of a girl in
a snow-white coiffe, of which the lappets waved in the wind, a short
blue skirt, and sabots. She had a curious, inexpressive face, with the
patient look of a dumb creature, and an odd little curl in her upper
lip, which, with her mute expression, made her seem to be continually
deprecating disapproval. She stood shading her eyes from the slanting
sunbeams, as she looked up the road to the West. A little before her,
out on the road, stood two other women, elderly, both white-capped, one
leaning on a stick: they addressed brief sentences to one another now
and again, in the disconnected manner of those who are expecting
something: and they also stood looking up the road to the West.

And not they only, but a group of peasants belonging to the hamlet on
the hill; free-stepping, strong-limbed Breton women, returning from the
cliffs with bundles of dried sea-weed on their backs: a woman and two
young lads from the furthermost cottage, with hoes in their hands, who
had stepped out on to the road from their work of weeding the sorry
piece of ground they had fenced in from the dune, and which yielded, at
the best, more stones than vegetables: a couple of fishermen, who were
tramping along the road with a basket of mackerel: and even old lame
Jacques, who had risen from the bench on which he