is keen gray eyes again reverted to the
page he knew by heart. The look evidently carried some significance,
for the gray-haired old sea-dog in front of me cocked his blue eye to
his partner--they were both in from a rough night's fishing--and
muttered:

"It will be a short mass."

"_Ben sur_," whispered back the other from behind his leathery hand.
"The wind's from the northeast. It will blow a gale before sundown." And
he nodded toward the swaying tree-tops.

With this, the one with the blue eyes straightened back in the wooden
pew and folded his short, knotty arms in attention; the muscles of his
broad shoulders showing under his thick seaman's jersey, the collar
encircling his corded, stocky neck deep-seamed by a thousand winds and
seas. The gestures of these two old craftsmen of the sea, who had worked
so long together, were strangely similar. When they knelt I could see
the straw sticking from the heels of their four wooden sabots and the
rolled-up bottoms of their patched sail-cloth trousers.

As the mass ended the old woman in the white cap coughed gently, the
cure closed his book, stepped from the chancel, patted the child's head
in passing, strode rapidly to the sacristy, and closed the door behind
him.

I followed the handful of worshippers out into the sunlight and down the
hill. As I passed the two old fishermen I heard the one with the blue
eyes say to his mate with the leathery hand:

"_Allons, viens t'en!_ What if we went to the cafe after that dog's
night of a sea?"

"I don't say no," returned his partner; then he winked at me and pointed
to the sky.

"I know," I said. "It's what I've been waiting for."

I kept on down the crooked hill to the public square where nothing ever
happens save the arrival of the toy train and the yearly fete, and
deciding the two old salts were right after their "dog's night" (and it
had blown a gale), wheeled to the left and followed them to the tiniest
of cafes kept by stout, cheery Madame Vinet. It has a box of a kitchen
through which you pass into a little square room with just space enough
for four tables; or you may go through the kitchen into a snug garden
gay in geraniums and find a sheltered table beneath a rickety arbour.

"Ah, _mais_, it was bad enough!" grinned the one with the leathery hand
as he drained his thimbleful of applejack and, Norman-like, tossed the
last drop on the floor of the snug room.

"Bad enough! It was a sea, I tell you, monsieur,