with
the cape finished off with fish-hooks for carrying old china, brown
paper parcels and headless images; and as the invention was not yet
patented, the loss was serious. H.C. lamented openly.

"I only hope," he said, "that the man who has taken it will put it on
inside out, and that all the fish-hooks will stick into him." The most
revengeful saying his gentle mind had ever uttered.

"C'est encore le chat!" screamed Catherine, who was leaning out of a
first-floor window of the salle a manger, quite undaunted by Madame
Hellard's reproving "Voyons, voyons, Catherine!"

But Catherine was loyal, for all her mild sarcasm, and we knew that if
ever the delinquent turned up again he would have a mauvais quart
d'heure at her hands, whilst M. Hellard would certainly enforce
restitution.

Some months later on, at a subsequent visit we paid to Morlaix, we asked
after the fate of the macintosh and its borrower.

"Ah, monsieur," cried our host, sadly, "his punishment was even greater
than we could have wished; two months afterwards the poor fellow died of
la grippe."

But to return. We started for St. Thegonnec. It was a longish drive; the
road undulated a good deal, and the horse seemed to think that whether
going up hill or down a funereal pace was the correct thing. It took us
half our time to rouse our sleepy driver to a sense of his duty. At last
we tried a severe threat. "If you are not back again by table d'hote
time, you shall have no pourboire," we said, in solemn and determined
tones. The effect was excellent. We had no more trouble, but the
unfortunate horse had a great deal of whip.

There was very little to notice in the country we passed through. The
most conspicuous objects were the large stone crucifixes erected here
and there by the roadside or where two roads met: ancient and beautiful;
and throwing, as we have remarked, a religious tone and atmosphere over
the country. It was wonderfully picturesque to see, as we occasionally
did, a Brittany peasant kneeling at the foot of one of these old
crosses, the pure white Brittany cap standing out conspicuously against
the dark grey stone: a figure wrapped in devotion, apparently lost to
the sense of all outward things. It all adds a charm to one's wanderings
in Brittany.

St. Thegonnec at last, announced some time before we reached it by its
remarkable church, which is very visible in the flatness of the
surrounding country. The small town numbers some three t