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 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR 
 
 a IRovcl. 
 
 BY 
 
 AUSTIN CLARE 
 
 AUTHOR OF '*T1IE CARYKf* CARTOON," ETC 
 
 " Is the belief in an uncnnnaerable Fate — an inexorable doom pursuinj its vi';tim 
 froui/ather to son — compatible with a creed ichose God is Love ? To think so were to- 
 hoi' I a religion essentially parjan, for all its thin veil (f Christianity — lilce that wltich 
 in Brittany baptized the heathen laenhirs, and built a Calvary over the place uhere 
 hitman victims had been'offcred to the rifthless gods of the old xvorld — chanrjinj the 
 name, but keepiny the nature. Fate may seon strong, but God and Love are stronger 
 than Fate." 
 
 5n Z\ncc IDolumcs. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 LONDON: 
 TINSLEY BROTHERS, 8, CATHERINE STREET, STRAND, 
 
 1832. 
 
 [All r'Kjhfx n' serve d.'l
 
 C5 
 CO 
 
 
 ID 
 
 ?ro Clarob^ll, 
 
 ALL THOSE, WHETHER NEAR OR FAR, 
 
 WHO CALL IT H03IE, 
 
 I hViaU tj)is, 
 
 MY FIRST FRUITS IN THE NOVEL FIELD.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 " Good wine needs no bush," says Chaucer ; and a 
 story fit for anything- should tell its own tale without 
 much introduction. Whether this be bad or good 
 remains to be seen ; it is the materials, not the 
 story itself, which I wish to introduce. These were 
 in part gathered during- a visit to Brittany— tha^ 
 province where romance and superstition linger, 
 perhaps, more lovingly than in any other corner of 
 Nineteenth Century Europe,— but for some I am 
 indebted to other sources. 
 
 Monsieur Emile Souvestre, in his charming- 
 chronicles of his native province : — Les Dcrnkrs 
 Bretons, Le Foyer Brctm, En Bretagne^ &c. — has 
 furnished me with many an interesting particular 
 concerning manners, customs, legends, and character : 
 Mr. Tom Taylor's notes to Ballads and SoJh^s of 
 Brittany have supplied others ; and in one or other 
 of these works will be found the translations of 
 Breton poems which have been introduced into the 
 story. The curious superstition which gives its name 
 to the novel, namely, that which, among other weird 
 attributes,' ascribe that of paternity to the mysterious
 
 Menhir, is alluded to in Bradshaw's JIandhook of 
 Brittany. Tales have been told of children who have 
 j^rown up under the withering- imputation of mingled 
 human and demon parentag^e. Why not, then, tell 
 one about a reputed Child of the Menhir? To this 
 story, accordingly, I now leave the Reader.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK I.-THE LITTLE (lUEST OE GOD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON CARNAC PLAIN t 
 
 CHAPTER IL 
 
 SAINT CHRISTOPHER 11 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 ANTONN COMORRE'S QUIVER . . . 21 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE shepherds' HOLIDAY 27 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TWO LITTLE SHEPHERDS AND A SHEPHERDESS . 40 
 
 CHAPTER Vr. 
 
 FOSTER-BROTHERS 45 
 
 CHAPTER Vir. 
 
 KEEPING HIS EASTER . . .... 4$^ 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. 
 
 THE DAY OF THE DEAD .... 56- 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 " MY FATHER " . . . . . . 68-
 
 xu CONTENTS. 
 
 BOOK II.-THE PILLAAVER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ARISTOCRATIC 85- 
 
 CHAPTER ir. 
 
 THE CHEVALIER DE KERDEC'h .... 92- 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 "it haunts me like A phantom" . . . 101 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 down-trodden 112" 
 
 CHAP'i'ER V. 
 
 A STROKE OF BUSINESS . . . . 121 
 
 CHAPTKR VL 
 
 SAINT-SAMSON lol 
 
 cnAn'KK \'ii. 
 
 A DARK HOUR . ir>3;
 
 CONTENTS. x'm 
 
 BOOK IIl.-THE OUTCAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 POORER THAN POOR . . .159 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 
 A TERRIBLE RUMOUR .... 169 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 
 HAUNTED AND HUNTED . . 176 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TIRED OUT . 181 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ••THE HUSKS THAT THE SWINE DID EAT'"' . . 185 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MILLER ... . 193 
 
 CHAPTER VH. 
 
 SEEN IN THE MOONLK'.HT .... 201 
 
 CHAia^ER VIII. 
 
 A SON OF ROHAN - i 1
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 mu Itttie ®ucst of
 
 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 BOOK I.— THE LITTLE GUEST OF GOD. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ON CARNAC PLAIN. 
 
 " Voit-on chez vous les loups-garous 
 
 Roder dans les bruyeres ? 
 
 Voit-on la nait errer sans bruit 
 
 Les lavandieres? 
 
 Voit-on parmi les ajones blonds 
 
 Les Korigans danser en ronds ? 
 
 Entend-on crier les ressorts 
 
 Du sombre chariot des morts ? 
 Voit-on les noirs metihirs se dresser sur vos landes 1 
 Avez-vous des dolmens au gigantasque aspect ?" 
 
 — Les deux Brctaijnes. 
 
 A WILD moon shone on a wild scene. Above, great black 
 cloud masses drifted across the sky, now shutting out her 
 light, now catching her rays, and scattering, as it were, loose 
 silver as they tossed them one to the other, mingled with 
 thin flights of tiny snow-flakes, which went fluttering across 
 the wind-swept spaces of the air. Below, in the moments 
 of brightness, was revealed a scene no less weird than that 
 above. 
 
 VOL. r. B
 
 2 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR, 
 
 Stretching north, east, west, as far as the eye could reach, 
 was a great brown moor, storm-blown and dreary as imagina- 
 tion could picture, hemmed in towards the south by a hoary 
 line, dimly suggestive of a distant shore, from whence the 
 dull thud of beating waves sounded, pulse-like, in the silence. 
 
 And what are those dim forms of gigantic stature which 
 occupy the moor ? 
 
 Whole armies of them stand there, row on row, circle on 
 circle, battalion on battalion, like soldiers on the watch for 
 an enemy. But never did mortal warriors stand so still ; 
 never were mortal forms so grim, so cold, so rigid; never 
 was mortal patience so dumb and untiring. For this spectral 
 army has stood there for centuries — nay, for cycles of centu- 
 ries, waiting for an enemy which never comes, or else has 
 come and gone, and may perchance come again from the 
 dim womb of the future. Generations of men and women 
 have lived, and loved, and died around, and are but as 
 mushroom crops to these hoary giants, whose origin no 
 one rightly knows, but is content to call them simply 
 menhirs and dol7?ie7is/'' and to speak of them in whispers 
 round winter fires, half wondering, half in awe ; for this is one 
 of the haunted regions of Breton story — the far-famed plain 
 of Carnac. If you were to ask one of the natives who had 
 brought these giant stones, he would probably tell you that 
 they were the soldiers who were pursuing Saint Corneille, 
 patron of the parish, and who were petrified for their 
 
 * Menhirs, lit., long stones. Dolmans, stone tables.
 
 ON CARNAC PLAIN. 5 
 
 sacrilege. Another would cross himself and answer that 
 they were set there by Guillom Coz — that is to say, " Old 
 William," one of the many popular names for the Devil in 
 Brittany. A third, of softer faith, might reply that Madame 
 la Vierge had carried them there in her apron ; while a 
 fourth would aver that it was none of these, but simply the 
 korigans (pixies), who had built with them their ball-room,, 
 or general place of assembly ; that is, if the stones did not 
 come there of their own accord, which he for one was by no 
 means prepared to deny. 
 
 As for antiquarians, opinions differ with them almost as 
 widely, and though each may stoutly maintain his own 
 opinion, few agree as to whether the menhirs and dolmans 
 were temples, altars, and objects of adoration to the priests 
 of a long-vanished religion, or have served as tombstones 
 to some ancient burying-place or antique battle-field. 
 
 Be this as it may, the Bretons look on Carnac and its 
 pillars as haunted ground, and few will adventure them- 
 selves within the giant lines and circles after nightfall, or 
 will pass them by in the waning day, without first signing 
 themselves with the Holy Cross. Matelinn Gourven 
 (though he had little reputation for peculiar reverence in the 
 country around, and though his profession led him across 
 the most desolate regions at all hours of the day) felt a 
 strange thrill pass over him as he came in sight of the stony 
 outposts ; and his hand, though not too clean in any 
 s<ense, mechanically traced the sign on breast and brow.
 
 4 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 His was a figure often to be seen, especially on the 
 highways and byways of the country. He wore the wide 
 baggy trousers confined below the knee, called bragoit-braz^ 
 the loose vest, and the broad slouching hat, which is the 
 old costume of Brittany. But the breeches were soiled 
 and torn, the vest faded and threadbare, and the hat 
 browned and bent by constant exposure to the weather. 
 Not less browned and rugged was the dark, keen-eyed 
 face, looking out from the shaggy locks of hair which fell 
 upon his shoulders. And there was a hard, cunning look 
 about the thin lips, which must have clung to them even 
 when they whined for bread, in the name of all the saints, 
 at the doors of the farmhouses ; for as his staff and wallet 
 testified, Matelinn Gourven was a professional beggar, or 
 kiaskervara (seeker of bread), as the name is in Brittany. 
 
 The superstition which clung about the place would have 
 made even Matelinn prefer not to pass that way so late ; 
 but unfortunately he had been stopped too long by the 
 attractions of the cider at a wayside inn, and the night had 
 fallen upon him before he could reach the village on the 
 other side of the plain. 
 
 With heart beating a little faster, he neared the outposts, 
 passed some dozens of the giant sentinels without hearing 
 or seeing anything peculiar, and was beginning to con- 
 gratulate himself on his bravery, when suddenly he stopped 
 short as though he had been shot, and the cold dew broke 
 •out on his swarthy brow.
 
 ON CARNAC PLAIN. 5 
 
 What was that ? Surely something moved beneath that 
 tall menhir in the centre of the line ? Surely something 
 very like a human wail mingled with the moaning of the 
 wind. Was it a korigan 9 If so, more were sure to appear 
 before long ; and Matelinn felt his limbs tremble as he 
 thought how they would force him into their magic circle 
 and compel him to dance with them till cock-crow. But, 
 no ; it was too large for a korigan. A momentary relief 
 crept into the soul of the klaskervara, only to vanish again, 
 as a still more horrible fear, suggested by the flutter of a 
 white garment caught by a puff of eddying wind, took 
 possession of him. It was a kannerez-noz. Yes, without 
 doubt it was that ; and the white linen was his own winding 
 sheet, which the phantom washerwoman of the night was 
 hanging out to dry. Horrors ! And was this he, Matelinn 
 Gourven, who had dared to laugh that very afternoon over 
 his cider at a comrade's story of how an ancestor of his had 
 met the kanncrez-noz in returning from a Pardon/'' and 
 having been drawn into helping to wring out her linen, had 
 been twisted to death himself! Oh! if the saints would 
 only protect him, and aid him to escape unhurt this time, 
 he would never be so profane as to mock at kamierez-noz 
 or korigan again. 
 
 Meanwhile the wailing voice still continued, and the 
 flutter, flutter of the white linen could be seen every time 
 
 * A Pardon is a combination of religious festival and fair, so called because the 
 saint whose day is celebrated has certain indulgences attached to his shrine for the 
 benefit of pilgrims.
 
 € A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 the moon shone out. MateHnn would fain have fled ; that 
 he felt utterly unable to follow his wishes was, of course, 
 due to enchantment — there could be no doubt about that. 
 Suddenly, another voice, shriller and more piercing even 
 than the first, joined in the wail, and well-nigh froze the 
 blood in the creeping veins of the klaskervara. In an 
 agony of terror he fell on his knees, and appealed to all the 
 saints in the Breton Calendar whose names he could 
 remember. 
 
 " Oh, Saint Martin ! Saint Gueoroc ! Saint Corentin ! Saint 
 Vouga ! Saint Koledok ! protect me ! Save me from 
 Mesdames les Kanncrez-noz^ and Messieurs les Korigans^ 
 and I will vow a taper — yes, a taper of the best wax — to the 
 shrine of Sainte-Anne D'Aurez !" 
 
 His trembling lips had only uttered this prayer half- 
 loud, but, nevertheless, it seemed to have attracted the 
 attention of the nocturnal washerwoman, or washer- 
 women, if, indeed, as the klaskervara suspected, there 
 was more than one in his neighbourhood. The wailing 
 stopped. Could he have given offence in that quarter by 
 his prayer to the Saints ? The idea sent the cold dew 
 again to his brow. And yet he had been so careful to 
 speak respectfully of them ! 
 
 For a moment there was dead silence among the spectral 
 stones. Only the night wind sobbed and whispered to the 
 withered grass and dead heather which grew at their feet . 
 then the first voice was lifted again in a tone of infinite
 
 ON CARNAC PLAIN. 7 
 
 sadness, and this time, Matelinn fancied that it was 
 
 pronouncing words. He listened, fully believing that in 
 
 the pauses of the wind he should be able to distinguish the 
 
 traditional chant of the kannerez-iioz: — 
 
 " Qaen na zui Kristen salver, 
 Rede goelc'hi hon licer 
 Didan an earc'h ag an aer."" 
 
 The wind lulled for a moment, and words came indeed 
 to the ear of the klaskervara, but not the words he 
 expected. Surely they were not Breton words at all ? They 
 reminded him of something he had heard in his better days, 
 when he had gone regularly to Church. He listened more 
 keenly still, and with a strange wonder recognised the De 
 profundus. A kaniierez-rwz in prayer ! This was some- 
 thing he had never heard of. A doubt dawned slowly on 
 him as the passionate, agonising voice repeated a suppli- 
 cation, which surely is, as it were, the essential oil of 
 misery, drained and wrung out to the very dregs. Nowhere 
 else does anguish speak in words like these, whose very 
 fewness shows the utter depth from which the cry ascends. 
 
 As she prayed, the figure raised herself from the shadow 
 and fell forward on her knees into the moonlight ; and then 
 Matelinn saw the face — white, drawn, exhausted of all that 
 is pleasant in life ; and yet, surely — no, it was not the face 
 of the dead ! Matelinn came a little nearer. The figure 
 
 * If no Christian cojne to save us, 
 We muht ever bleach our shroud 
 Under the snow and the wind.
 
 8 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 sa^Y him, gave a gasping start, and fell down beneath the 
 shadow of the menhir. 
 
 *' In the name of all the saints, what are you ?" asked the 
 klaskervara, unable to keep silence any longer, especially 
 now that his superstitious fears were lessening. 
 
 There was no answer, only a voice — it seemed to be that 
 of a child — cried out of the darkness. 
 
 At the voice, the figure, crouching below the menhir, 
 raised itself slightly, and stretched out its hands ; it seemed 
 to struggle for speech ! 
 
 " What ails you ?" asked Matelinn, who, now ascertaining 
 that the apparition was human — a woman apparently, in 
 the last stage of exhaustion — had quite recovered his 
 composure. 
 
 He bent over her, and a start seemed to go through his 
 wiry frame, as he saw her features nearer. She opened her 
 failing eyes, and a strange, wild look distended them, as 
 they fell on Matelinn's face. 
 
 " You ! " 
 
 " You ! " 
 
 The pronoun, pronounced in Breton by the woman and 
 the man, broke for a moment the voiceless silence of the 
 great lone waste ; then it closed again as suddenly, and 
 nothing spoke but the wind. 
 
 Those two, and God only besides, knew what strange 
 recognition had taken place among the menhirs. 
 
 A fatal exhaustion seemed to be creeping over the
 
 ON CARNAC PLAIN, 9 
 
 woman \ but again she roused herself at the voice beside 
 her, stooped to one side, and, by a supreme effort, clasped 
 what seemed to be a little brown bundle in her arms, and 
 held it towards the klaskervara. 
 
 ** For God's sake— at least— the child ! " 
 
 The death-rattle half choked the last word ! The look ot 
 supplication faded from the eyes ; — they glazed slowly, and 
 the head fell back against the stone pillar. The little brown 
 bundle rolled upon the grass ! 
 
 Matelinn stood watching. Presently he bent down 
 again, and, seeing that all was over, moved the body where 
 fuller light could fall upon it. A gleam, as of gold, flashed 
 from under the broad white linen collar which covered the 
 shoulders and the upper part of the breast. The hand of 
 the klaskervara felt there, and drew out a gold cross, the 
 usual heirloom of every Bretonne, not absolutely poor. 
 Then he searched further, detached the rosary, and closely 
 scanned the pale limp hands which were fast stiffening in 
 death ; but every finger was ringless. 
 
 The clothes he examined, but there was nothing worth 
 taking there ; all were too deeply signed with poverty. For 
 a moment his eyes lingered on the long brown hair, which 
 had fallen from under the white winged cap worn by the 
 dead woman. He took it between his fingers, as though to 
 feel its texture \ but it seemed to send a shudder through 
 him, for he let it drop suddenly, lifted the body in his 
 arms, and walked slowly to one of the dolmans, or stone
 
 10 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 grottos, which lay within the outposts. Within this he laid 
 the dead, and returned to the tall menhir. The little brown 
 bundle still lay there, but there was no cry now. It was 
 nestling close to the giant stone, asleep or dead, Matelinn 
 could not tell which. But there was no time to ascertain 
 now; the clouds were gathering more thickly about the 
 moon, and the snowflakes, which before had been but as 
 feathers scattered occasionally, were beginning to fall more 
 steadily. Taking the foundling of the menhir up in his 
 arms, the klaskervara grasped his staff and struck across 
 the moor.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SAINT CHRISTOPHER. 
 
 "One touch of nature makes the whole world \Cm."—S]Lakespeare. 
 
 ^' Dead, dead ! Oh ! my little innocent— my little white 
 flower — how art thou sleeping under the cold sod — my little 
 sweet heart, my angel child ? Dost think it very cruel in 
 thy mother to leave thee there, baby ? Oh ! God, that it 
 should be so ! His place was on my bosom, my sweet 
 darling — there, there in my arms, so warm, so soft — can it 
 be that thou art here no longer ? — that I shall never see 
 thy smile again, nor kiss thy lips ? What have I done that 
 God should take my only one — my first-born, my very 
 heart's life ? What have I said ? Oh ! blessed Virgin, 
 help me ! Do not let my wicked words be heard up there ! 
 Mother of God ! thou didst lose thy Son j thou knowest — 
 thou only knowest how hard it is ! " 
 
 The mother let her head drop on her knees and rocked 
 herself backwards and forwards, in grief that would 
 not be comforted. And yet comfort seemed there in 
 plenty. 
 
 The fire burnt warm and bright in the great open fire- 
 place of the Breton farm-kitchen. There were marks of
 
 12 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 worldly comfort and well-being on every side ; the hand- 
 some dark oak presses and chairs, the rafters laden with 
 provisions, the antique silver drinking cups on the shelf, 
 which must have come down from father to son — all 
 showed that the inhabitants were people of substance, and 
 that not of yesterday. 
 
 Ninorc'h Comorre was, indeed, one of the richest fer- 
 mih'cs in the district; but the cradle by her side was 
 empty, and she only thought of that. Outside, the wind 
 blew drearily across the plains ; homeless wanderers were 
 there who would have given their right hands for the 
 shelter of a roof, for the shade of the clustering trees, for 
 the screen of mantling ivy which clung round Ninorc'h's 
 window, and tapped, tapped, like restless fingers, against 
 the panes. On the sea, scarce a mile from the sheltered 
 farmstead, fishermen tossed in their frail boats, wet with 
 spray, chilled with the wind, and prayed to God in the 
 touching Breton phrase : — 
 
 " My God protect me ! my boat is so small and Thy 
 sea is so great !" 
 
 Ninorc'h, sitting securely by the warm fire-side, seemed 
 worthy of envy to many. The sailors' and fishermen's wives, 
 trudging past her door with heavy hearts for their men at 
 sea, compared her lot with theirs, and sighed, poor hearts, 
 little knowing. But she only thought of the empty cradle 
 and of the little new-made grave in the village church- 
 yard.
 
 SAINT CHRISTOPHER. 13 
 
 Nor was she alone. The comfort did not all come from 
 dumb objects ; it was not all ^r^^//^r(?-comfort — human 
 consolation was hers, too. 
 
 Antonn Comorre stood beside his wife, with his hand on 
 her shoulder and a distressed look on his honest face; from 
 time to time putting in a word as it occurred to him ; and, 
 if his less sensitive man's heart could not feel the death of 
 the infant of days so deeply as the mother did, at least he 
 lamented it very sincerely, and truly compassionated his 
 wife. 
 
 But Ninorc'h only thought of the empty cradle. 
 
 " Cheer up, little wife," said Antonn, at last, a new 
 aspect of the case dawning upon him. 
 
 *' Cheer up, it's the first, certainly, but maybe it'll not be 
 the last. Eh, little wife ! Truly, it's sad, sad indeed, and 
 inconvenient, too — a fall ten days before Madame la 
 Comtesse can come with the child thou wert to nurse for her. 
 Hey ! Ninorc'h, I hadn't thought of that ! Truly, I don't 
 wonder thou takest on more than common. It's not only 
 the loss of the child, it's the loss of the foster-son as well, 
 and that means the loss of what would have well made up 
 for the bad harvest. Hey! Ninorc'h, is there no child thou 
 could'st get in the village, just to keep the place of the 
 young Count ready for him till he comes to take it himself? 
 Think, Ninorc'h, is there no one ? Madame la Comtesse 
 was set on having thee, and no one else, to nourish the little 
 monsieur, and think if thou hadst to refuse, after all."
 
 14 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 Poor Ninorc'h, she only sobbed the more at this. 
 Antonn was cruel — cruel even to think of any loss but just 
 that of the little angel himself; and yet Antonn, honest 
 fellow, had not meant it so. Rich as he was accounted 
 among the farmers of Carnac, he would have seemed poor 
 enough to many of his brethren of the spade in England ; 
 and the bad harvest of last autumn, not to mention the 
 rates and taxes, which grew heavier every year, had pinched 
 him more sorely than Ninorc'h knew. And so she sat and 
 sobbed, and thought him cruel and unfeeling ; and he, 
 feeling the loss of his first-born all the time, stood by and 
 looked into the fire, chewing the cud of bitter thought, and 
 wishing that women were more reasonable. And the snow 
 drove past the windows in wild white wreaths, and the wind 
 tossed the branches of the trees, and the ivy tapped, tapped 
 against the panes— tapped, so that Antonn and Ninorc'h 
 did not hear how, among it all, Fate came and tapped at 
 their door. 
 
 Presently, however, Fate, or whoever the pe«rsonage out- 
 side might be, became impatient, and a heavy rap which 
 could not be mistaken, sounded on the oak panels. 
 Antonn moved towards the door, drew the bolts and 
 opened it. A figure, white with snow from head to foot, 
 stood there. 
 
 "In the name of God and the saints!" he said, "a 
 night's lodging and a morsel of food !" 
 
 " Welcome," responded Antonn,'with the Breton hospi-
 
 SAINT CHRISTOPHER. 15 
 
 tality for "the guests of God," as in their speech they 
 name the poor and homeless. 
 
 The snow-covered wanderer entered promptly, never 
 doubting his welcome ; bent his head towards the woman 
 by the hearth, and uttered the customary salutation : — 
 
 " May God bless all those who are here !" 
 
 *' And yourself," responded Antonn, making a sign to 
 the wanderer to seat himself by the fire. But the latter 
 stood still in the middle of the floor, hesitating. 
 
 " Madame," he said, looking at Ninorc'h, " for the 
 sake of the blessed Saint Nicholas, patron of boys, have 
 pity on this infant ! I commend him to your charity. 
 Though, indeed, whether it be boy or maid, it passes me 
 to say." 
 
 Ninorc'h raised her head, and fixed her hungry eyes on 
 the little brown bundle, powdered with white, which the 
 seeker of bread held out towards her. There was a struggle 
 in the mother's heart ; pity and jealousy strove there. Why 
 should another woman's child be alive while hers was dead ? 
 — hers so loved, so cherished, taken in spite of her love ! — 
 this, a beggar's brat, left, in spite of what, most probably, 
 was anything but love 1 The bitter question woke and tried 
 to close her heart against the little guest of God who stood 
 at its door and knocked. But pity conquered. The little 
 face, which was all that could be seen of the child, looked 
 so white, so pinched, so deathlike ; yes, in that latter 
 quality, it looked so like what her baby did when, the last
 
 16 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 struggle over, it lay lifeless in her arms. Good God ! could 
 it be so, indeed ? 
 
 Ninorc'h sprang up. 
 
 *' Holy Virgin !" she exclaimed in a broken voice, " Give 
 it to me. Does it yet live ?" 
 
 With trembling fingers she unrolled the brown covering, 
 a woman's cloak of the coarse material worn by peasants? 
 and sat down again by the fire, chafing the rigid limbs in 
 her warm fingers. 
 
 Antonn looked well pleased. 
 
 " Hey, Matelinn Gourven," he said, presently, turning to 
 his guest, "So it's you, man? Name of Saint Corneille ! I 
 did not recognise you, such an old man had the snow made 
 of you ! Nothing like the fire for making one young again 
 when it's only of that sort of hoar hairs there is question ! 
 Faith of a Christian, you looked venerable, man — venerable 
 as the good Dom" Clemencz himself; and that you'll never 
 be, Matelinn Gourven, should you live to the age of the 
 holy Noah !" 
 
 " Vertuz,-\ but that's a hard speech to a Christian, 
 Antonn Comorre ! What would you have, then ? A 
 seeker of bread must live. Holy Virgin ! but it's a hard 
 life — a hard life ; and, if it were not for the goodness of the 
 Christians " 
 
 "There, there, Matelinn ! that'll do; we know the rest, 
 
 * Dom, dominus. Old title lor a parish priest, 
 t Vertue ! A Breton exclamation.
 
 SAINT CHRISTOPHER. 17 
 
 my good Matelinn; and betwixt old acquaintances, one 
 dispenses with ceremony — Hey? But, see! the child is 
 coming round. Verily, a fine boy, if somewhat elfish- 
 looking. Thine own, Matelinn?" (changing to the familiar 
 pronoun, as a twinkle of fun lit in his dark, grey eye). 
 " Hey, then, I did not know tlioa hadst married ; and 
 Madame Matelinn Gourven^ — hast left her behind ?" 
 
 The face of the klaskervara darkened, and his hand 
 involuntarily sought the beggar's staff which he had 
 deposited beside him. But he checked himself, and the 
 pious look which stood him in such good stead with 
 the charitably-disposed, came back into his sharp little 
 eyes. 
 
 '-'Jest not against Holy Charity," he said, in a reprov- 
 ing voice, " A foundling, Antonn Comorre ! A foundling ! 
 Would you have had me to leave the innocent to die 
 amongst the menhirs? — to die, or something worse? May 
 the Saints protect us!" He crossed himself, and Ninorc'h 
 looked up, shuddering. 
 
 *' Amongst the menhirs?" she repeated, in a lo'.v voice. 
 " Holy Virgin ! if it should be a poiilhicaul " * 
 
 Antonn smiled. 
 
 "No, no, goodwife; human enoug'i, met'iinks, by the 
 
 way he cries. Hark! one would almost fancy " He 
 
 stopped in time the reference to the dead babe, which 
 would have re-opened the tear f )i!nt he was so ghd to see 
 
 * Elf. 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 closed, for the moment at least, by this new claim on his 
 wife's cape. 
 
 "Ay, ay, human enough, I'll vouch; but try the holy- 
 water, if thou hast any misgivings — nothing uncanny '11 
 stand that. So, so ! Best to be on the safe side — Hey, 
 Mdtclinn? No offence to you." 
 
 Ninorc'h dipped her fingers in the little holy water basin 
 which hung below the image of the Virgin on the cottage 
 wall, and signed the child on breast and brow, holding her 
 breath the while in fear what might come of it. But 
 not'iing came ; nothing but a grave, sweet smile on the 
 baby lips. Nothing happened more terrible than the 
 holding out of baby arms towards her who had warmed 
 it back to life. 
 
 Ninorc'h could not withstand that. She bent over the 
 foundling lying in her lap, pressed her lips where the cross 
 was still wet on the young brow, answering the cooing 
 sounds, with which the infant greeted her caresses, by those 
 inarticulate syllables of love which mothers use. Then — 
 Antonn saw it with joy, though he was discreet enough to 
 refrain from remark— the childless mother opened her 
 bosom, drew to it the head of the motherless babe, and 
 bending hers till the two almost touched, let fall a rain of 
 tears on the short, soft curls — tears, warm and soft and 
 gentle ; as different from the bitter drops, wrung from her 
 by her bereavement, as are April showers from the storm- 
 gusts of November ! It was as though those baby lips, those
 
 SAINT CHRISTOPHER, 19 
 
 blessed tears were drawing from heart and brain the aching 
 trouble, the dull, hard pain, the rebelliousness of sorrow 
 which had lodged there, and which all other comfort had 
 seemed powerless to relieve ! It was to poor Ninorc'h as if 
 a cloud so black, so heavy as even to hide from her the 
 Saviour's face, had passed away, and truly — "whoso 
 receiveth one such little child in My name, receiveth 
 Me." 
 
 *'A Child of the Menhir!— nameless, base-born !— ay, so it 
 may be," murmured Antonn, reflectively, "but it's a blessed 
 messenger to poor Ninorc'h — aGodsend, as Dom Clemengz 
 would say — ay, that's what it is ! And come in the nick of 
 time, thanks be to our patron Saint Corneille, who has 
 granted my wish the moment 'twas out of my mouth. The 
 Holy Virgin be praised ! we'll not have to refuse the little 
 monsieur now !" 
 
 "Antonn!" said Ninorc'h, aside to her husband next 
 morning, as she saw the klaskervara stuffing into his wallet 
 the crusts of black bread and hunch of goat's-milk cheese 
 she had bestowed on him as a parting gift. " Antonn," she 
 repeated, holding the child very close, and looking up with 
 her wistful eyes, " we have food enough for three — is it 
 not so?" 
 
 " Ay, little wife, and for four, too, God willing. Thou 
 would'st keep the child — is it not so, Ninorc'h ? " 
 
 " Ah, yes ; for has he not come to me as the Holy Babe 
 to the blessed Saint Christopher? 'Twas God sent him to
 
 20 A CHILD 01 THE MENHIR. 
 
 us, Antonn ; my lieart tells me so ; and I'd fain, fain, keep 
 him for my own." 
 
 "So? Well, then, in God's name, if Matelinn (lourven 
 be willing." 
 
 Nor did the klaskervara say them nay.
 
 CHAPTER IIL 
 
 ANTONN COISIORRE's QUIVER. 
 
 " Clillilron, uy, forsooth, 
 They brinq their own love with them when they come." 
 
 Jean Ingklow,— " Sapper at the M'dl.'^ 
 
 "Verily Antonn and Ninorc'h Comorre did well to take 
 in the little Christophe, Ah, yes, 'tis very true what good 
 Dom Clemengz is wont to preach. Holy Charity is its 
 own reAvard — in that case at least." 
 
 So said the gossips of Carnac as they passed by Antonn's 
 little farm, and saw the children playing on the daisied 
 grass before the door ; and Antonn echoed their words^ 
 though with a half sigh. 
 
 " Ay, wife, 'tis well we made the little lad our own, for 
 1 fear me there comes not another, at least " 
 
 He looked at the group and broke off with another 
 sigh, and the tears came into Ninorc'h's gentle eyes, as 
 they followed her husband's. 
 
 And yet it was as fair a group as you could well see. 
 There were four children there now. Tallest and 
 strongest among them was Christophe, the Child of the 
 jMenhir (for "Christophe" had Ninorc'h caused him to be
 
 ^ A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 baptized, in accordance with her idea that he had been 
 sent to her as was the Christ-child to St. Christopher). 
 
 In the quiet, healthy atmosphere of the little farm at 
 Carnac, the thin, elfish-looking infant which came to its 
 door in the cold and storm of a winter's night twelve 
 years ago, had flourished and grown into a boy, unusually 
 large for one of his age and race. Yet he had the true 
 Ereton characteristics, though those perhaps of the 
 Leonard, rather than of the inhabitant of the country 
 round Carnac. The dark grey eyes which looked out 
 from the black locks hanging about his face were solemn 
 and dreamy, and yet full of a strange fire, which, though 
 not easily provoked, would sometimes flash out in a 
 manner that would frighten his more careless-natured play- 
 fellows. 
 
 His face was unusually long and dark of complexion, 
 which perhaps accounted for the melancholy expression 
 which always struck a stranger; for Christophe led too 
 healthy and happy a life to have any cause for sadness. 
 There was a tender look about the full red mouth, a 
 gentleness, which almost belied the proud bearing of the 
 head, the square set of the shoulders and broad strength of 
 chest. Already the boy was a wrestler of fame among his 
 comrades; but it was not always that he would put forth 
 his power, and he liked better to sit with Antonn's sheep 
 and Antonn's children on the solitary plain of Carnac, than 
 to join in the rough sports of the village lads.
 
 ANTONN COMORRE'S QUIVER. 23 
 
 One comrade of his own age he had, dearly-loved as a 
 brother, though so different from himself. This was the 
 second child in the household group, still a frequent 
 dweller at Carnac, though nominally he had done with the 
 care of his foster-parents, and was supposed to be pursuing 
 his studies at Rennes. This lad was Aymon de Kerdec'h, 
 " the little Count," as he was generally called, who had fed 
 at the same breast and had grown up with the Child of the 
 Menhir. 
 
 A true little aristocrat was he — slight, dark, delicate- 
 featured, with little imperious ways about him, which 
 showed that easy and sweet tempered as he was, he did 
 not forget that the De Kerdec'hs were wont, as well as 
 the family of Kermavan,'' to boast that ''J/, le bon Dieu 
 seul est de plus vieilie mason. His foster parents, however, 
 had no cause to complain of his haughtiness ; he never 
 showed it towards them except in the most occasional 
 flashes. They were fond and proud of him as a child of 
 their own, and his easy good-nature, and bright sunny 
 temper made him a great favourite with the other children 
 of the house. 
 
 Poor little Mao ! No fine strength was his, no bright 
 intelligence. The only brother of the infant under the 
 green churchyard sod, the only other son who had been 
 born to Antonn and Ninorc'h, was a poor innocent — 
 
 * The motto of the seigneurs of Kermavan, who are Leonards, is ^'Les Kermavan, 
 et Diev, avant.
 
 '2i A CHILD OF l^HE MENHIR. 
 
 harmless, guileless enough, but still " an innocent," such 
 as there are but too many by Breton firesides. Alas ! poor 
 mother ! 
 
 Yet she had another child. " God has been good to 
 me," she was wont to murmur when she looked on her 
 little daughter, " very good to me, for has He not given me 
 Genofa 1" 
 
 A lovely child was this ; a child who, as she passed, 
 drew the eyes of the village after her, with that look which 
 is like a benison, and which was mostly followed bv a 
 murmured " God bless her sweet face." Truly a sweet 
 face; fair among so many dark; daintily fair, though rather 
 witli the quiet, delicate beauty of the lily of the valley, than 
 the bright piquancy of the wild rose. Yet it was not the 
 beauty of fragility which distinguished Genofa. Dainty 
 white as she was, with just the palest rose tint upon the 
 soft, round cheek, the blue eyes were nevertheless full of 
 health ; the long yellow locks were soft and lustrous as 
 the blossoms of the brootn; the slight, graceful figure 
 as supple as the slender twigs on which these blossoms 
 swung under the touch of the summer wind. Every- 
 thing about Genofa was gentle and subdued — her move- 
 ments, her voice, her very happiness — were set in a 
 softer key than those of most village maidens; and yet 
 only to look in her face was to gain an impression of the 
 most tranquil content. She was a dreamy, impressionable 
 little being in her peculiar way ; sensitive beyond common
 
 ANTONN COMORRE'S QUIVER. 25 
 
 to the touch of that mysterious world which we will call 
 nature. The wind had a voice for her, the sunshine a 
 smile, to which her sensitive feelings would open like a 
 flower ; but when the icy storms of winter swept over 
 Carnac, when the darkness of a thunderstorm brooded 
 over the earth, she would shiver and grow pale, as if at the 
 touch of an evil thing. No Breton child believed more 
 firmly in the spirits and goblins widi which popular 
 superstition peoples the Druid circles, the graveyards, hills, 
 and waters, than did Genofa. None drank in more 
 eagerly or learnt more readily the legends, tales, and 
 ballads of the province, of which old Mere Guenedon was 
 a living repository, than she. Dom Clemen^z might reason 
 with her as he liked, nothing would hinder her from 
 having her own ideas about the spirit world, from feeling an 
 awed kindness towards the benevolent teiiz;'' and dreading 
 the spiteful korigans and the treacherous groach, and 
 mary-vwrgan. And yet Dom Clemen^z himself acknow- 
 ledged that a more devout child, as regarded her religious 
 feelings, was not to be found among all his pupils, 
 except perhaps Bernez Guenedon, her cousin, who was being 
 educated for the Church ; but then he was almost a second 
 Saint Timothy, or rather Saint Corneille, which is almost 
 more, so far as the people of Carnac are concerned. How 
 proud was the good father of this lad — his best pupil, who 
 outstripped even himself in zeal for the Cluirch ! Never had 
 
 * Breton elves of (i) the fields (2) the laudcs (3) the \vati;rs.
 
 26 J CHILD OF THE MENHIR, 
 
 a more satisfactory kloiirek been sent to the seminary from 
 their village before. " Surely," thought all the inhabitants, 
 " he will bring a blessing on his native place ; for is he not 
 the best thing in Carnac ? and have we not lent him to the 
 Lord ?" 
 
 But Bernez Guenedon, young saint though he un- 
 doubtedly was, could not be counted as belonging to 
 Antonn Comorre's quiver, and therefore his introduction 
 must wait.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE shepherds' HOLIDAY. 
 
 " Shepherds ! tell me, tell me have you seen 
 My Flora pass this way ? " — Old Song. 
 
 Golden sunshine — the rich, mellow sunshine of autumn — 
 flooded the plain of Carnac. The solemn lines of menhirs 
 and peulvens" had lost half their mystic solemnity under the 
 glad light of day, and looked pale, bare likenesses of their 
 awful selves ; like ghosts which have been surprised by the 
 crowing of the cock before they could reach their shelter 
 and vanish decently. Like these., they had lost all their 
 terrors with the darkness, and seemed rather to shrink from 
 the light, than did the things of light shrink from them. A 
 flock of sheep bleated around their cold grey feet, or lay 
 peacefully chewing the cud where their tall shadows fell. 
 Little blue gentians, purple heather, golden gorse, and sweet 
 wild thyme gemmed the short springy turf which hid — who 
 can tell what awful mysteries ? — bones of slain, grim remains 
 of human slaughter, or gruesome heathen sacrifice ; perhaps 
 even something worse than these — from the eyes of men. 
 AVell, let them rest, 'tis best such things are covered. Here 
 
 ••• Peulvens— single stones, similar to menhirs, set up on end.
 
 2S A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 and there in the lower hollows, a deep pool of water laughed 
 in the low sunshine, and the far sea-line twinkled like a 
 girdle of sapphires, set between with tiny diamonds. A sky, 
 blue as the gentions, spanned overhead, where tiny fleecy 
 cloudlets wandered peacefully as the flocks below ; distant 
 lines of menhirs rose tall and grey against the blue haze of 
 the far horizon ; the drowsy hum of insects filled the still 
 warm air, and children's merry voices rippled in between. 
 
 A perfect autumn day, indeed. The little herdsmen 
 could not have had a l)etter one for their yearly holiday ; 
 for this was the Shepherds' Holiday, the annual fete of the 
 children who have tended the flocks during the spring and 
 summer; a sort of juvenile Saint Valentine's Day, when 
 each little shepherd chooses his tiny shepherdess for the 
 coming year. 
 
 It was, indeed, a pretty sight to see troops of little boys 
 and girls, {^^^ older than twelve, for at that age the liule 
 shepherds are trusted with the goad, and promoted from 
 the passive watching of the flocks and herds to the active 
 and more manly employment of driving oxen ; and the 
 little shepherdesses have to go home and spin, and bake, 
 and make themselves more actively useful. jNIany of the 
 parents had come to take a day's holiday in the sunshine 
 with their little ones, and good store of Brittany cheese, 
 cakes, and fruit, had been eaten among the broom, the 
 heather, and the little blue gentions, while old Grandpere 
 C/ucncdon's (|uavcring voice intoned the Kentd ar J'ugale,
 
 THE SHEPHERDS' HOLIDAY. 29 
 
 or children's lesson, whose versified precepts the little 
 herdsmen heard year by year, with, I am afraid, about as 
 much attention as they paid to the sough of the soft wind 
 among the bent and the broom bushes. 
 
 Now, however, the lesson was over, old Perik Guenedon 
 had found a mossy stone against which to rest his bowed 
 back and snow-white head, and was dreaming — of what ? 
 Perhaps of the Shepherds' Holiday seventy years ago, 
 when he chose Barbaik Rion, the old wife, who now sat by 
 him with her hand in his, to be his little shepherdess. 
 Seventy years ago ! And since then how often had they 
 kept the Shepherds' Holiday with their children and 
 children's children, and watched them dance, as the young 
 ones were doing now, around that tall menhir ! There w^as 
 their daughter, Ninorc'h Comorre, knitting placidly, 
 gossipping mildly with the mothers of the village ; old 
 Perik remembered when she was the belle among the little 
 shepherdesses, and had been chosen by — who was it? 
 Not his son-in-law Antonn ? No, these juvenile pairings 
 did not always foreshadow the real ones; no, no. Who 
 was it? Ah, yes, 'twas the little Count of Coetmor, he who 
 died ten years later, leaving the De Kerdec'hs sole heirs of 
 the old castle and lands. 
 
 And, apropos, was not Ninorc'h's little daughter Genofa 
 dancing hand in hand with the Child of the Menhir and the 
 little Count of to-day — he was now heir of Coetmor? 
 " Well, well, they're but children now, so no harm's done,"
 
 30 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 murmured old Perik, sleepily. Then he wondered, still 
 more sleepily, what had become of his own especial home 
 grandchildren, his son's children, Bernez and Yvonne. 
 Bernez, to be sure, was almost a young man, and a kloarek 
 to boot ; he would be above dancing with the little 
 herdsmen. " But Yvonne, the sweetest maid in Carnac, to 
 my thinking, though most folks won't look at her when 
 Genofa's by. Where is Yvonne ?" 
 
 Here, however, old Perik's drowsiness overcame his 
 curiosity, and he fell fast asleep. 
 
 x\nd where was Yvonne ? 
 
 Apart from the gay throng of merry children, in the very 
 centre of the sacred stones, with her shoulder hah resting 
 against one of the side supports of a dolman smaller than 
 most of its fellows, sat a tall girl of about thirteen. She 
 wore the holiday costume of her parish, a facsimile in 
 miniature of her mother's dress. The picturesque white 
 cap just showed the glossy line oi dark brown hair which 
 crowned the smooth open brow, - and set off the warm tints 
 of the olive complexion and dark kindly eyes. The well- 
 formed, somewhat massive chin, was propped with a hand 
 which had evidently known work already, and the red 
 lips — they were rather wide it must be confessed — were 
 just apart, so as to show the strong, white teeth within. 
 The snowy chemisette and black velvet bodice with its rows 
 of hoUday embroidery, fitted tight to a figure which 
 promised to be that of a nobly-formed woman some day
 
 THE SHEPHERDS ' HO LI DA Y. 31 
 
 But old Perik was right — Yvonne Guenedon was wont 
 to be overlooked, somehow, when her cousin Genofa 
 was by. 
 
 Not, however, by her brother Bernez ; those two were 
 well-nigh inseparable whenever the young twenty-year-old 
 kloarek was at home from his college at Saint Brienc. He 
 would fain have had her follow in his footsteps so far as 
 was possible for a girl to do, and look forward to the grey 
 habit of the Sceurs de la Sagesse, or the white one of Les 
 Sceurs Blanches. But, with aged grandparents at home, 
 Yvonne could scarcely be spared, even if she were certain 
 of having " a vocation,'^ and on this point the girl, though 
 she would not breathe it to Bernez, knowing his strong 
 ideas on the subject, was more than doubtful. Indeed, she 
 often felt inclined to thank the saints that she had no choice 
 in the matter ; for had not Bernez said more than once that 
 in his opinion all who were truly spiritually-minded vmst 
 have "^ vocation^'' and that a want of it showed that the 
 world was put first and heaven second. Yvonne could not 
 have borne that this adored brother should say that of her, 
 and yet no child enjoyed a Pardon more than she did ; 
 none took greater pride in her household work ; and oh ! 
 was it so very wrong to love the dear, beautiful world, 
 especially on such a day as this ? 
 
 Thus sat Yvonne Guenedon, half meditating on these 
 things, half looking up at and listening to her brother, as, 
 with eyes fixed on the sinking sun and hands clasped round
 
 32 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 his knees, he sat on the table-stone of the old heathen 
 world and repeated the " Canticle of Paradise." 
 
 He was a lad to be remarked even among a set so 
 remarkable as the kloareks of Brittany. A peasant that 
 was, a priest that is to be, the kloarek is, as it were, a being 
 above all others in process of transformation. Taken from 
 the plough at an age when boyhood is not yet over, he 
 exchanges the active life of the farm, the song of birds, the 
 free fresh air which blows over his native fields, for the 
 close study, the confined atmosphere of the university ; 
 where, the home-purse being probably but a scanty one, he 
 has to buy learning, as it were, with the price of bread. 
 From a rough, healthy boy, whose body has outgrown his 
 mind, the kloarek becomes a tall thin lad, whose black, 
 semi-priestly habit (when such a dress can be afforded) 
 enhances the pallor of his thoughtful face and studious 
 brow, round which the hair has already been cut short by 
 anticipation, though the long locks behind show that the 
 priestly vows are yet unspoken. Mind has distanced body. 
 
 At home he is no longer treated with the old rough 
 cordiality as one of the family; old friends and neighbours 
 show him grave respect — the light word, the jest is hushed in 
 his presence. He is an offering, set apart, dedicated to God. 
 
 Many a kloarek has turned back to his old life, appalled 
 at the change— at the hard struggle for learning; at the. 
 harder one to keep life in on the pittance that remains 
 after fees have been paid and books bought ; at that,
 
 2 HE SHEPHERDS' HOLIDAY. 33 
 
 hardest of all, with the natural affections. Many have thus 
 put their hand to the plough and have turned back. 
 
 Bernez Guenedon never would. So he said himself; so 
 said all who knew him. The home-purse was but small ; 
 the lad's way had been a hard and thorny one ; but 
 hitherto he had never felt one doubt, one regret. The 
 stern dark face, with its deep eyes full of subdued fire, 
 was ever set towards the heavenly Jerusalem ; the resolute 
 mouth, which, grave as it was, could still, in such moments 
 as this, wear the soft expression of melting tenderness, had 
 never uttered a word of self-pity for the hard and lonely 
 path which the feet had chosen. 
 
 The following extracts from the Breton poem of " The 
 Canticle of Paradise," wliich Bernez was reciting, are a 
 rough translation into English from the French version, 
 given by M. Emile Souvestre, in his '^Deniiers Bretons " : — 
 
 "'When I look at Heaven'" — so those lips were murmuring, 
 now, — "* I say to myself: There is my country ! and 
 fain would I fly there like a white dove ! 
 
 " ' But, alas ! I shall still remain here till the hour of death, 
 a prisoner under the flesh which is so heavy to my 
 soul ! 
 
 " * When comes the hour of death, — oh ! what joy ! 
 
 Then shall I see Jesus, my true spouse. 
 
 '"And as soon as my chains are broken, I will rise into the 
 air like a lark. ^ 
 
 " I will pass near the moon to go and rest in the glory ot 
 Heaven, I shall be upheld by the sun and the stars." 
 
 VOL. I. 1 1
 
 U A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 There was an intense fervour in the lad's voice, as he 
 repeated, in musical cadence, the Breton words ; and his 
 face shone in the sunset glory, as though, beyond the fair 
 colours of the west, his eyes could behold the celestial 
 vision. A moment he paused, the rapt look still in his 
 eyes, and clear on the evening air came the children's 
 voices singing the shepherds' call : — 
 
 " 'Disjil vintin hapa zaviz evit kas ma zaout er 7fiez, 
 Eklevigvadouz O ka?ia, hag he anaiz dioch he moez; '"^^ 
 
 " 'And I will sing with joy in my tomb: — My chain is 
 broken — now freedom, freedom for eternity ! ' " 
 
 murmured the kloarek, as though the sound of singing had 
 touched him with its associations. Again came the 
 children's ringing voices, louder than before : — 
 
 " ' There I heard my sweetheart singing, singing on the mountain side, 
 And I made a song to sing to her across the valley wide.'" 
 
 " * I shall be received in the palace of the Trinity, in the 
 midst of honours and delicious songs, and Jesus will 
 place on my head a crown of light. 
 
 " 'And He will sing : Bodies which have been blest as 
 yours has been, are a treasure hidden in holy ground. 
 
 ** ' You are in My court as the roots of white rose-trees, of 
 lilies and of hawthorns in the corner of a garden ; 
 the rose-trees and the hawthorns and the lilies shed 
 their blossom in its season, and again bud forth. 
 
 "As I rose on Sunday morning to drive the kine to lea, 
 There I heard my sweetheart singing, by the voice I knew 'twas she." 
 —Rhymrd Trav«lation/rorn Tom Taylor's "Songs and Lt(icnds of Brittany.
 
 THE SHEPHERDS' HOLIDAY. 35 
 
 ' 'For a few sufferings, for a short disquietude, what a 
 a price, my God, shall I receive.' " 
 
 Again the kloarek paused, and the children took up the 
 strain : — 
 
 " ' Like golden blossoms of the broom, or wild rose sweet and small, 
 Like wild rose in a heath-brake, shone my fair above them all ! 
 All the time the Mass was serving I had only eyes for her, 
 And the more I gazed upon her, the more love my heart did stir.' " 
 
 They broke otf with a laugh, and merry cries of " Not 
 yet ! not yet ! The shepherdesses are not yet chosen. 
 Hey, then, Christophe, Jan, Pierrot, who is thy wild rose ? 
 And thine, lad ? And thine ? " 
 
 But Bernez murmured as one who heard not : — 
 
 " ' Oh ! how fair will be my part ! I dream of it, I love it beforehand, 
 Oh ! mjr heart ! This thought consoles thee in all thy afflictions.' " 
 
 And thus, in that strange interchange of response between 
 the singers of an earthly love and of a heavenly rapture, the 
 praises of Paradise closed the strain. 
 
 Yvonne's eyes filled with tears ; a strange disquietude 
 awoke in her heart. The rapt face above her, the thin 
 hands folded as if in prayer, seemed all unconscious of her 
 presence. She had left them all for Bernez, and her 
 brother seemed so far, so very far removed from her. 
 
 She heard the voices of her companions coming from all 
 parts of the plain as they dispersed to play their parts in the 
 Shepherds' Idyll. Now the boys were calling the maidens^ 
 each litde herdsman naming the shepherdess whom he 
 desired to choose : — 
 
 ''All, kel all, he I all, ke!"
 
 36 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 (A warning, conle !) She heard the voices sounding 
 clear and sweet on the evening air; then, when attention 
 was supposed to have been sufficiently gained, came the 
 special call, with the addition of the favoured name : — 
 
 *'Genofa! Z.-/" (hear). 
 
 "Nonnina! Zt'/" 
 
 *'Margaridd; Z<^/" 
 
 ^Genofa! Z^/" 
 
 ^'Rozenne! Le V 
 
 ''Genofa! Ur' 
 
 Yes, Genofa's name came the oftenest. 
 
 Then there was a pause. The boys were waiting for 
 their answer. Laughter, sweet treble laughter, rippled a 
 little, and then the maidens responded as pleased them. 
 
 *' Neann-ked-de / " (I won't come !) or 
 
 " Me ia 1 ie!" (I come ; yes). 
 
 Then there was more laughter, and the little shepherds 
 called again to their coy shepherdesses, or ran to meet 
 those who were kind. And 
 
 "Nonina! Lc!'' 
 
 '* Genofa ! Lc! " rang again through the air. 
 
 ]5ut it was never " Yvonne ! Lc ! " 
 
 Had they forgotten her? Did no one want her? 
 
 A little sad, disappointed feeling came into the girl's 
 heart, the tears rose to her eyes. She had given them all 
 up to sit with Bernez, and even Bernez did not want her ! 
 Nobody wanted her, and everybody seemed to want
 
 THE SHEPHERDS' HOLIDAY. 37 
 
 Genofa. Yes, there was her name again from another part 
 of the plain. 
 
 " Genofa ! Let Le! Le ! Genofa ! "— 
 
 A tear dropped, she could not help it, though the dark 
 eyelashes winked hard to keep it in. And yet there was 
 no jealousy in the child's heart ; it was much too sweet a 
 little heart for that, sweet and sound to the core, as the 
 best Normandy pippin in her father's garden. No, it was 
 not jealousy, only disappointment ; for might not someone 
 have called her — just one — for, after all everybody could not 
 have Genofa. 
 
 Hark ! surely that was her name. Yes, there it was at 
 last! 
 
 " Yvonne ! Le I Lei Yvonne ! " 
 
 A flush of pleasure mounted to the child's face \ her heart 
 beat. She put her finger to her lips as if to enforce silence, 
 and listened breathlessly. 
 
 " Yvonne ! Yvonne ! LeJ " 
 
 " Me ia, Christophe, ie ! " 
 
 She sprang up, a radiant smile on her parted lips ; went 
 forward a step or two, so as to escape the tall menhir which 
 barred her view, and shaded her eyes with her hand. But 
 soon the smile vanished, a look of disappointment and 
 disgust took Its place, and the child returned hastily to her 
 hiding-place beside the dolman. 
 
 What had she seen ? Alas ! not her favourite playfellow, 
 Chistophe, but Honarn, the son of Perr Kabik, the hump-
 
 38 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 backed tailor, who, if not exactly humpbacked himself, 
 inclined that way, and was much looked down upon by the 
 other village children for his simple, awkward ways. 
 
 " Honarn," muttered Yvonne, with disappointed con- 
 tempt. " Ah, yes, he for example ! I suppose he wants me 
 because he can't get anyone else. Well, he may look for 
 me long enough — that one ! " 
 
 " Yvonne ! little one ; what, here still ? Thou shouldst 
 not have stayed away from the sport because of me, little 
 sister. Ah ! Yvonne, no fear that I should be lonely. I 
 have had companions thou knowest not of Yes, yes ! it 
 was a vision of glory that comes not often. Ah ! child, 
 couldst thou but have seen it, how hollow would have 
 seemed to thee all earthly joy. But come, 'tis late; we 
 must be going homewards. No, not to-night, little one," 
 as Yvonne slipped her arm in his, as if to walk with him 
 " I would fain be alone, and there are the old grandparents, 
 and thy shepherd, sister — where is he?" 
 
 But though Bernez put the question, he did not wait for 
 an answer. 
 
 Again the tears rose, as Yvonne stood watching her 
 brother's figure grow gradually smaller on the sunny heath. 
 Did no one want her? Ah, yes, the old grandfather, he 
 would want an arm home. Yvonne turned and left the 
 Druid lines, humming softly to herself a verse of the 
 shepherd's song which the children were singing on their 
 homeward way.
 
 THE SHEPHERDS' HOLIDAY. 39 
 
 " Grandfather ! " 
 
 She bent over the old man, who had fallen asleep, and 
 kissed his withered cheek. 
 
 *' Grandfather ! come home." 
 
 "What! Yvonne, little one? Where is thy little 
 shepherd, child?" 
 
 " Why, here he is, grandfather, if thou wilt have me for 
 a shepherdess !" 
 
 She put her hand through his arm, and laid her soft 
 cheek tenderly against it. 
 
 " Wilt have me, grandfather ? " 
 
 " Have thee, my sweet ? Ay, w^hat else ? But what 
 were all the lads thinking of, to leave thee, Yvonne ? God 
 bless the child, there's none like her — no, not one." 
 
 And so the pair went home together.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 TWO LITTLE SHEPHERDS AND A SHEPHERDESS. 
 
 " She was twelve years old — my darling, 
 And I was twelve likewise !" 
 
 —Breton Ballad. 
 
 And Genota? Why, Z//^?/ litile maid went home with a 
 shepherd on each side of her, and two voices to sing her 
 praises as she went. Very demurely the pretty child 
 stepped over the heath, refusing to favour either her 
 cavahers above the other. Each had cried " Ze, Genofa ! " 
 and to both had she answered, \^' Neann-ked-de'' and 
 then went on humming softly to herself as she picked the 
 blue gentians for the Virgin's shrine at home. Presently, 
 however, the two shepherds had sought her out ; and the 
 big, solemn Christophe, and the handsome, fiery little 
 Count, had well-nigh quarrelled as to who should have her 
 as his shepherdess. 
 
 " Choose me, Genofa," said little Aymon, " Father gives 
 me a louis every month, and I'll buy thee — oh ! lots of 
 things !" 
 
 " Take me, Genofa," said the Child ot the Menhir ; 
 '' M. le Comte is not here always, and I am. No one shall 
 tease thee about the crooked horns of thy old black cow
 
 TWO LITTLE SHEPHERDS. 41 
 
 when I'm by, Genofa ; and thou shalt have the best 
 pasturage for thy sheep, and 
 
 " Yes, yes, Christophe, I know. See, I'll take you both ; 
 that'll be best." 
 
 "No, no, Genofa, I want thee all to myself; I don't 
 want just half a shepherdess." 
 
 The little spice of coquetry which lurked under Genofa's 
 quiet ways broke forth at this. An arch smile curled her 
 cherry lips. She curtsied lowly. 
 
 "Half a shepherdess! So that's what I am! Thank 
 you kindly, j\I. le Comte. Come, Christophe, is half a 
 shepherdess enough for thee ? " 
 
 The dark, grave boy came forward eagerly, but Aymon 
 was not to be baulked. 
 
 " Fie, then, Genofa ! But never mind, little friend I 
 Half such a shepherdess is better than the whole of any 
 other in the village ; so I '11 e'en take my share." 
 
 Then the two lads wove a golden broom-crown for the 
 little maiden's yellow hair, and carried her off between 
 them, as a prize, envied by all. And the two boys sang 
 in alternate lines the Ann Alike, the time-honoured song 
 which generations of little Breton herdsmen have sung on 
 like occasions ; only, whenever the verse would allow of it, 
 they substituted the name of Genofa for the Mac'haidic ot 
 the original composer : — 
 
 " ' As I rose on Sunday morning to drive the kine to lea, 
 I heard my sweetheart singing — by the voice I knew 'twas she ; 
 I heard my sweetheart singing, singing gay on the hill-side. 
 And I made a song to sing with her, across the valley wide.
 
 42 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " ' The first time I set eyes on Genofa, my sweet May, 
 'Twas at her first Communion upon an Easter Day, 
 In the parish church at Foesnant, 'mong her mates in age and size ; 
 She was twelve j'ears old, my darling — and I was twelve likewise.' " 
 
 "Ah, no! you're both out there!" laughed Genofa, 
 softly ; "for I'm only ten, and I haven't made my First 
 Communion yet ! " 
 
 But the boys put their hands over her mouth, and went 
 on : — 
 
 " ' Like golden blossoms of the broom, or wild rose sweet and small, 
 Like wild-rose in a heath-brake, shone my fair among them all ; 
 All the time the Mass was serving I had only eyes for her. 
 And the more I gazed upon her, the more love my heart did stir, 
 
 " I've a full-fruited apple-tree in my mother's orchard-ground. 
 It has green turf about it, and an arbour built around ; 
 When my sweet May, my best belov'd, deigns to come and visit me, 
 We will sit, I and my sweet, in the shadow of that tree. 
 
 " ' I'll pull for her the apple that has the rosiest skin, 
 Tie her a posy, with my flower, a marigold, therein — 
 A marigold all withered, as for-pined my cheek you see, 
 For not one tender kiss of love have I j'et had from thee.' " 
 
 Genofa immediately struck in with the maiden's part, 
 singing the words which had evidently been originally 
 intended for an older shepherdess than she was, with a 
 frank simplicity, free from any shyness about their meaning. 
 Like the song of a little linnet in the hedge-row, her 
 childish treble sounded on the quiet evening air, while the 
 three pairs of feet tramped to the time of the tune : — 
 
 " ' Now hold thy peace, my sweetheart, and soon ; and sing no mo' ; 
 Folk will hear you through the valley, as their way to Mass they go. 
 Another time, when on the heath we meet, and there's none to see. 
 One little tender love-kiss I will give you — or two, maybe.' "
 
 TJFO LITTLE SHEPHERDS. 43 
 
 And to think this is the last pleasant holiday I shall have 
 to spend here for ever so long — ever so long ! " sighed the 
 little Count. 
 
 " To think that I shall have to go home to-morrow, and 
 then to that horrid school ! Ah, bah ! Christophe, I wish I 
 were like you ; I wish I had no home but Carnac Heath ! " 
 The Child of the Menhir winced, and his dark face 
 darkened. Aymon de Kerdec'h's innocent speech had in it 
 an unintentional sting to which the foundling was very 
 sensitive. No home ! no name ! To a Breton, with all the 
 clinging veneration for birthplace and father's house, which 
 is so strong in the race, the want was very bitter ; and 
 though, through the kindness of his foster-parents, the boy 
 had had little cause to feel it, the sore was still there, and a 
 chance word would make it smart. 
 
 ''Whatever will you do without me, Genofa?" continued 
 Aymon, sentimentally, as they entered the hollow lane 
 which led into the village, where the sunset light fell 
 through the reddening leaves overhead and chequered the 
 path at their feet. 
 
 " Now do say that thou wilt miss me a little — ihoit at 
 least?" 
 
 "There'll be Christophe still," answered Genofa, de- 
 murely, smiling on her other cavalier. 
 
 " He'll be there to help me with the cows and sheep, 
 and he can keep them together better than you. Monsieur." 
 '* 'Yon,' Gerofa ! " returned the boy, half pettishly.
 
 44 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " Since when have I become ^ you ? ' That 's no pronoun 
 for me, little foster-sister ! " 
 
 " Yes, but it is. Monsieur Aymon. Mother says that 
 we're growing up "—(the little maiden drew herself up as 
 she spoke). Yes, growing up, and we're to remember that 
 you'll be a grand gentleman some day." 
 
 " Yes, Genofa, dear, and then 
 
 But a butterfly flew in between, and the little shep- 
 herdess started in pursuit. Butterflies were more to her 
 still than shepherd cavaliers, even though one was the 
 direct heir of the old house of De Kerdec'h. 
 
 And so the boys and girls came trooping in, two and two 
 or the most part, from their holiday on the heath, talking, 
 laughing, and singing the An?i Jlike, gay and careless as 
 the birds. 
 
 Old Perik Guenedon and his little granddaughter came 
 last, as happy a pair, now that the little disappointment 
 was over, as any of them ; he talking of Shepherds' Holidays 
 long ago ; she listening, and laughing at jests long since 
 spoken — sports long since played. 
 
 As they passed the old hawthorn tree, which stood, red- 
 fruited, before the tailor's door, Yvonne turned her head ; 
 and there, leaning against the gnarled trunk, was Honarn, 
 the tailor's son, all alone and sad. Their eyes met, and 
 there were tears in his. 
 
 Poor boy, and so nobody had wanted him either, ii t 
 even an old grandfather 1
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 FO STE R-B ROTH ERS. 
 
 The wren alwaj-s loves ilie thatched roof where he was reared, and the voice of his 
 brothers." — Breton Proverb. 
 
 " And thou wilt not forget me, Christophe, dear brother? 
 Thou wilt not forget me when I'm away grinding over the 
 books ; no, not if they keep me away from Carnac as long 
 as they say they will this time ? " 
 
 The foster-brothers were going down the hollow lane 
 together to meet the diligence, their arms round each 
 other's necks, their feet marching together. 
 
 " Forget you, Monsieur Aymon ? No, no ; that'll never 
 be" — the boy's voice shook with earnestness — "I'll never 
 forget you, never ! But oh ! Monsieur Aymon, it'll be yoic 
 that'll find it hard to remember ! Perhaps when we meet 
 again you'll be a great gentleman, and you'll not care to 
 remember us — me, a simple peasant ! " 
 
 The small hand of the little aristocrat pressed the broad 
 shoulder of the son of the soil, on wdiich it rested ; a soft 
 dewy look came into the bright, dark eyes, and there was 
 almost a caress in the voice which ansAvered, in the old 
 words of the Breton proverb : —
 
 46 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " ' Ar laoueanik a gaj- atao ar totien pe leach e voile ganet 
 ag ar monez etis hretideicr ' * and what brother have I 
 dearer than thee, Christophe?" 
 
 " The good God bless you, Monsieur Aymon, for that !" 
 answered the young peasant, fervently; "the good God 
 reward you for saying that to one who has no brothers ! " 
 
 " I did think they would have let us make our First 
 Communion together," continued the little Count, " but 
 we'll remember each other on the day, Christophe — won't 
 we?" 
 
 "And — and when I grow up I mean often to live at 
 Chateau Coetmor; and I'll make everybody in the village 
 happy j and I'll do anything for you that you want, 
 Christophe, and ■ " 
 
 But in the midst of all the eager promises, the diligence 
 arrived, and in it the grave, ceremonious man-servant sent 
 by M. le Comte de Kerdec'h to escort his son, who looked 
 on with raised eyebrows as he saw his young master 
 embrace the peasant boy ; and, when the horses were again 
 on their way, read the young aristocrat a most respectful 
 lecture on the breach of les convenances of which he 
 had been guilty. 
 
 But Christophe did not hear it. With his wide beaver 
 doffed, and the wind fanning his dark brow, he stood 
 watching the diligence till it was out of sight, and then 
 
 * " The wren always loves the thatched roof where he was reared, and the voice 
 of his bsothers."
 
 FOSTER-BROTHERS. 47 
 
 " 'What brother have I dearer than thee, Christophe?' " 
 he murmured, dweUing on the words in that loving way 
 which shows how deep they have sunk, "Ay, may the good 
 God bless him for that ! There's nothing that I wouldn't do 
 for him after to-day, so help me God ! " 
 
 The last words were spoken with solemn reverence, 
 almost like the taking of a vow ; then the boy drew his 
 hand across his eyes, as though to brush away the film of 
 emotion which had risen to dim them. 
 
 Little Count Aymon de Kerdec'h, as he sat in the 
 diligence and listened carelessly to the serious exhortation 
 of the grave domestic, little knew the fervour of devotion 
 which those few gracious words, so easily spoken, had 
 kindled for him in the heart of the foundling.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 KEEPING HIS EASTER. 
 
 *' Decked like an altar before them there stood the green earth, and above it 
 Heaven opened itself, as of old, before Stephen ; they saw there, 
 Radient in glory, the Father, and on His right hand the Redeemer. 
 Under them hear they the clang of harpstrings, and angels from gold clouds 
 Beckon to them like brothers, and fan with their pinions of purple." 
 
 —Longfellow. 
 
 The day of the First Communion, which ought to be a 
 milestone in every individual life, is most especiaHy so 
 considered by the young Breton. Ask a boy or girl their 
 age in that most devout of provinces, whose inhabitants 
 speak of each other, not as people, but as Chrisiians, and 
 they will reckon, not by birthdays, but by the number of 
 Easter Communions which they have celebrated. It is 
 not " I am fifteen or sixteen," but ^^J'ai fait trois 
 Faqties," or whatever number the years since the Con- 
 firmation ]J)ay may have allowed of. For those who know 
 Brittany, it is almost needless to add, that a Breton v^ho 
 does not yearly make his Paques is considered too much of 
 a black sheep well-nigh, to need reckoning at all. 
 
 It was the evening of Easter Day. Vespers were over, 
 and the greater part of the village had turned out in 
 holiday costume to rove the lanes where the first green
 
 KEEPING HIS EASTER. 49 
 
 leaves were all a-flutter overhead, and pluck the pale 
 primroses, or to smell the breeze, sweet with the golden 
 blossoms of the gorse, as it swept over the great wild 
 heaths which lie round Carnac hamlet. 
 
 One figure only lingered by the Church door, which at 
 Carnac is in the centre of the village, apart from the sunny 
 sheltered corner reserved for the grave-yard. This solitary 
 figure, sitting, half-hidden, on the stone bench within the 
 great door-way was Christophe, the Child of the Menhir. 
 To him it was as the first day of the first year; for the 
 first time in his young life he had knelt before the altar, 
 with friends, neighbours, and adopted kinsfolk ; and the 
 boy, who had never known the ties of blood on earth, had, 
 through those sacred mysteries, been received into the 
 closest fellowship with the great family in heaven and 
 earth, who are all called after one Great ISTame. 
 
 He knew it by the grave kiss with which his foster- 
 parents turned to greet him, as they crossed the home- 
 threshold together ; by the hand which each raised to bless 
 him. He was now their son, not only by fostering care 
 and by Baptism, where Antonn and Ninorc'h Comorre had 
 stood for him at the Font, but by another spiritual tie 
 which lies very close to the deep Breton heart — they had 
 made their Paqiies together. Henceforth all in Carnac 
 received the foundling as, in a manner, their kinsman. 
 
 The heart of the boy was very full; his soul was too 
 overflowing with the thoughts and feelings which had been 
 
 VOL. I. E
 
 50 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR ^ 
 
 summoned there by the sacred act of the morning, to join 
 his companions in their merry hoHday-making ; the first 
 impressions were too deep, too fresh for him to bear 
 that the little waves of laughter and light-hearted talk 
 should sweep over them, and thus perhaps efface them 
 from his soul. 
 
 Beautiful beyond the things of earth are those first pure 
 aspirations of early dedication — the first-fruits of the soul 
 offered to its Creator. 
 
 But, alas ! the Holy Sign is oftener traced in the soft, 
 yielding sand, where the lightest ripple will wash it out, 
 than cut in the enduring rock, from which, though the beat 
 of many a stormy tide may rob it of its first sharp outline, 
 yet has no created wave the power to efface it. 
 
 Well, let us, at least, on the day of its tracing, guard it 
 even from the innocent ripple of the world. Too soon 
 must the tide be faced; let us not go to meet it 
 
 Thus Christophe sat in the shadow of the village church, 
 and mused of high things to be done in the strength of 
 that morning's meat. 
 
 So rapt was the boy in heavenly aspirations that he did 
 not notice how a shadow fell across the ray of sunlight which 
 lay outside the great church door, and started violently as a 
 hand was laid upon his shoulder ; and looking up he saw 
 the grave face of Bernez Guenedon before him — the tall, 
 thin figure, in black, semi-priestly garments, standing in the 
 doorway, between him and the evening sky.
 
 KEEPING HIS EASTER. 51 
 
 '' Bernez !" 
 
 "Yes," returned the kloiirek, in answer to his exclamation 
 of surprise, — 
 
 " We have some days vacation at the college. I could 
 not get away till yesterday, I walked over from Auray^ 
 and have just been to our house, but not finding anyone in 
 except the old grandparents, who were asleep on each side 
 of the fire, I thought to pass the time in church." 
 
 Saying this, Bernez dipt his finger in the holy-water 
 basin, signed himself, knelt for a moment in prayer, and then 
 returning, sat down by Christophe on the old stone bench. 
 
 "Lad," he said, softly, "why art not with the rest?" 
 
 Christophe hesitated a moment, then answered, simply, 
 "I made my First Communion only this morning." 
 
 " It is well," returned the kloiirek, in the same hushed 
 voice. After a pause he added, quoting from "The Canticle 
 of Paradise," with merely a change of tense : 
 
 " ' The gate of Paradise has been opened for me to enter ; 
 the holy men and women have come to take my hand ! 
 
 " ' I have been received into the palace of the Trinity in 
 the midst of honours and of songs exceeding sweet, and 
 Jesus has placed on my head a crown of light ! ' Is it not 
 so, my Christophe ? Ah, yes ! I know it, I know it ! 
 Have not I, too, known a First Communion day ? " 
 
 The look of spiritual exultation which always transformed 
 the stern, dark face of the kloiirek whenever it came there, 
 burnt in his eyes as he spoke. Christophe's shy reserve
 
 o2 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 melted before it. His heart, already full of soft emotions, 
 rose to meet the comprehending sympathy. He laid his 
 strong brown hand on the thin fingers of the kloarek. 
 
 *' Oh, Bernez," he said, in a whisper, "it is just like that. 
 But — it does not seem enough. Is it not all receiving — no 
 giving? One wants — " He stopped. The peasant felt 
 unable to express a meaning too deep for the common 
 words of his every-day life. But the kloarek understood. 
 
 " ' What shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits 
 that He hath done unto me?'" he said, in that thrilling 
 tone which his mobile voice could assume at will. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Thou would'st offer something in return ?" 
 
 " Oh, yes ! If there were anything — " he paused in 
 strong emotion. 
 
 " ^ Here we offer and present unto Thee ourselves, our 
 souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy and lively 
 sacrifice unto Thee,' " returned the kloarek, in the same 
 thrilling tone, quoting from the Holy Office. 
 
 " Christophe, lad, that is what I have done ; I have laid 
 down everything at His feet, and — I am happy !" 
 
 His eyes shone as he added the last words in a dreamy 
 ^one, as if to himself. 
 
 " Christophe, lad," he continued, presently, and his dark 
 keen eyes were fixed so searchingly on the boy's face that 
 an uneasy feeling awoke in the breast of the latter \ 
 ■" Christophe, lad, art ready to do ^/laf — to offer thyself, soul
 
 KEEPING HIS EASTER. 5^ 
 
 and body, as a whole burnt offering ? Lad, can it be that 
 in thee I find a brother ? " 
 
 The feeling of uneasiness grew in the lad's heart. 
 
 "What?" he faltered. 
 
 The kloJirek bent still nearer, as though he would read 
 the very soul of his young companion. 
 
 " Be a priest ! " 
 
 Christophe started. So intense was the tone which 
 Bernez had thrown in these three words, that in the 
 stillness they seemed to pierce the listener like a dart. 
 
 " A priest ! I was not thinking of that. I meant — 
 Bernez, how could I be ? I have no vocation." 
 
 The boy was greatly startled, greatly troubled ; but the 
 kloarek did not heed it. He rose. 
 
 " He that loveth aught earthly more than Christ, is not 
 worthy to be His disciple," he said, coldly. " No 
 vocation ! Yes, that is what they all say, and yet " — (his 
 tone warmed), " Lad, I should have thought that if anyone 
 were marked out for the holy calling, it would have been 
 thou ! Without father, without mother, without earthly ties 
 whatsoever ; no one to claim thy service but God and the 
 brethren. Even in a worldly point of view, it would give 
 thee a position — a standing. But, no; it is unworthy to 
 speak of that. Lad, lad, think ; art sure the good God has 
 not called thee ?" He stood before Christophe, and again 
 fixed on him the searching look which sent a superstitious 
 tremor through the lad's whole being.
 
 54 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR 
 
 ''Had God called him ? Could it be that it was indeed 
 his duty ? The lad's heart, taken by surprise, and greatly 
 troubled, began to question itself. 
 
 Bernez, in his black cassock, stood there waiting. All 
 was very still, so still that Christophe seemed to hear the 
 sound of question and answer within him. But it was all 
 sound, all confusion. Bernez had come to trouble his 
 pure and happy dream ; the heavenly images were broken, 
 as in water ruffled by a storm. Suddenly a distant sound 
 of laughter rippled the quiet evening air. Merry voices 
 spoke \ then, clear above the rest, rose a girl's fresh voice, 
 singing snatches from the soiie of the " Poor Clerk ": — 
 
 " Oh I to what shall I liken her, that a wrong it shall not be ? 
 To the pretty little white rose, that is called Rose-Marie ? 
 The pearl of girls ; the lily when among the flowers it grows, 
 The lily newly opened, among flowers about to close." 
 
 The voice broke off — there was more laughing. Then 
 another voice took up the song at another place. It was a 
 man's voice this time : — 
 
 " Ah, me 1 my stars are froward ; 'gainst nature is my stale ; 
 Since in this world I came I've dreed a dark aud dismal fate : 
 I have no living kin nor friends, mother or father dear ; 
 There is no Christian on earth to wish me happy here!" 
 
 Christophe started. Strange, were not these almost the 
 words of Bernez ? 
 
 But before he could think of it Genofa danced up the 
 village street, crowned with primroses, with her little apron 
 
 ^ " Ballads and Songs of Brittany."
 
 KEEPING HIS EASTER. 55 
 
 full to overflowing of the same sweet blossoms, leading the 
 band of holiday makers. How fair she looked with the last 
 sunbeams touching her golden hair, and her sweet child's 
 face radiant with quiet happiness ! 
 
 " Christophe ! Christophe ! " she exclaimed, catching 
 sight of the boy who had risen to his feet, "Why did'st not 
 come? Where hast thou been all this time? See, do 
 help me to carry all these." 
 
 She held out her sweet yellow burden towards him, and 
 the boy gathered it up. 
 
 " I have no living kin nor friends, ?nother 7ior father 
 dear:' 
 
 Yes, that was true enough. But was there not Genofa ? 
 His dear little foster-sister, Genofa ? 
 
 And with the sight of Genofa and the primroses, all the 
 puzzling thoughts about vocation fled away. 
 
 After all, he was but a boy yet, and there was plenty of 
 time to think. 
 
 But Bernez stole into the empty church and prayed.
 
 CHAPTER VIIL 
 
 THE DAY OF THE DEAD. 
 
 " Then the forms of the departed 
 Enter at the open door ; 
 The beloved, the true-hearted, 
 Come to visit me once more ! " 
 
 — Longfelloiv. 
 
 The black month'' came, the melancholy month in 
 which they celebrate the Festival of the Dead ; when, as the 
 Breton proverb says, " the leaves are less thick upon the 
 ground than are the souls of the departed in the air." 
 
 It was All Souls' Day, and Nature, as well as all the 
 inhabitants of Carnac, had clothed herself in mourning for 
 the occasion. The first black frost of the year had nipped 
 the last blossom in the cottage garden, and bound the 
 earth with its iron fetters. The leaden sky lowered heavily, 
 and a dreary, cutting wind whistled in the trees, sending the 
 dead leaves down in showers upon the graves, and moaning 
 as it swept over the stiffened blades of grass which grew 
 there. 
 
 All day long the death bell tolled, and the people went 
 softly, with grave sad faces, each one remembering his dead, 
 each one thinking on some dear one who had gone before. 
 
 * So the Bretons call November.
 
 THE DA V OF THE DEAD. 57 
 
 Even the very children hushed their voices as they made 
 up their Httle offerings of flowers for grandmother's grave, 
 or to place on the tiny green hillock, under which lay a 
 baby brother or sister, scarce remembered except in the 
 prayer said morning and evening at mother's knee. 
 
 The bell for vespers was ringing slowly and dolefully 
 from the belfry of Carnac Church ; the black-robed people 
 of the village were all in the cemetery, bending over the 
 graves, placing flowers there, and filling with holy-water the 
 little receptacles made for this purpose. Some were down 
 on their knees, praying calmly over bones long since dry ; 
 others were almost prostrate beside a new-made grave, 
 watering the withered sod with bitter tears ; while others 
 again knelt at the Reliqiiaii-e^ where, according to a strange 
 Breton custom, were rows of little wooden niches, each 
 containing a skull, over which could be read the name 
 which it had borne in life. 
 
 In one corner, half kneehng, half leaning upon his staff", 
 was old Perik Guenedon, looking, not without satisfaction, 
 at a moss-grown cross inscribed with the names of genera- 
 tions of his family, and at a little wooden box, something 
 like a dog-kennel, and evidently just out of the joiner's 
 hand, in which he had but that morning placed the bones 
 of his first-born son, who had died as a little child full fifty 
 years ago.* 
 
 * It is a curious custom at Carnac, and some other places in Brittanj-, to exhume 
 the bones of relatives when they have been dead about fifty years, and put them, 
 enclosed in little boxes, on the graves of those more recently buried.
 
 58 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 "Yes, thanks be to God and the Saints ! all that is left 
 on earth of my poor Bernez now rests above the bones of 
 his mother!" said old Perik to a friend who stood near. 
 
 "It is not many parents who live long enough to do 
 that for their children, and not every one who can spend so 
 much on their dead. Holy Virgin ! how I have had to 
 save to get it done, now food is so dear and taxes so high 
 But it is worth it to bring them together on the same spot of 
 sacred ground, as I hope we shall all meet in Paradise one 
 day. The Saints grant that some one may do as much for 
 rae when viy time comes, neighbour! Poor dear old 
 wife, and thou my little son Bernez, the knowledge of 
 what has been done this day will ease your souls in 
 Purgatory — I know it will !" 
 
 So old Perik maundered on, as he looked with ever- 
 increasing satisfaction at his little wooden box, and com- 
 pared it with some resting on other graves. 
 
 " Little Bernez has got the finest in all the cemetery I 
 do believe," was his concluding remark, and the thought 
 seemed to comfort him greatly. 
 
 Under a weeping willow, whose last yellow leaves were 
 showered at every blast upon her white-capped head, knelt 
 Ninorc'h, carefully clearing the dead flowers from the tiny 
 green grave of her lost baby. Not till every blade of grass 
 which grew there had been stroked into order by her 
 fingers, and a long ivy-tendril twined round the little wooden 
 cross, did the mother rise, and then it was only to throw
 
 THE DAY OF THE DEAD. 59 
 
 away the weeds. She soon knelt again, and with folded 
 hands prayed long and earnestly. Tender words were 
 whispered by her lips, gentle supplications to the Mother 
 Maid, who, like her, had known what it is to love a child, 
 mingled with soft words addressed to her little angel in 
 Heaven, who had died without spot of sin — all fresh from 
 baptism — that he would pray for little Mao, his brother 
 innocent upon earth, and for all at home. This yearly 
 commemoration was very sweet to Ninorc'h ; it seemed to 
 bring her into such close communion with her baby, that 
 sometimes she v/as tempted to believe that the wind 
 whispering in the willow leaves was the voice of her little 
 one answering her from Heaven. Nor did anyone notice 
 her. All there seemed to have their special grave, which 
 absorbed all their attention ; some even had many, and 
 scrupulously divided their prayers, that none of the absent 
 might feel themselves neglected. Even Yvonne and Genofa 
 had each their grave ; the former had lost her grand- 
 mother in the harvest-time, and her tears, scarcely dried 
 from the first agony of parting, flowed afresh as she knelt ; 
 while Genofa laid her little offering of autumn flowers on 
 the small mound which covered the body of a girl friend 
 who had been very dear to her. Only Christophe had no 
 one there. He had come with his foster-mother and sister 
 to carry their offerings for them, and now stood unnoticed 
 and alone by the gate, leaning on the topmast rail, and 
 watching all the village as it went and came ; the dead for
 
 60 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 once, on this one day of the year, occupying all the thoughts 
 and attention of the living. 
 
 No one noticed Christophe ; he was alive, and there were 
 no thoughts to spare for him on the Day of the Dead. And 
 yet the boy was more to be pitied than many who wept and 
 prayed by the long green graves. 
 
 He had no grave, none belonging to him lay in this holy 
 plot of ground to be tended and cared for. All the village 
 had their ties with the other world; their kinsfolk and 
 friends lay here in their midst, and could be visited and 
 prayed for at any moment. His were — where? He alone 
 v/as bound by no ties of kmdred to this peaceful spot — the 
 village mourned together ; he was as a soul shut out. 
 Where were they — father, mother, kin ? Had he any, or 
 was he only what the village called him — a Child of the 
 Menhir — nameless ! — never to be claimed? 
 
 Tears gathered in the boy's eyes. What of that ? 
 
 The wind dried them. No one noticed. 
 
 " I have no livinj kin nor friends, mother nor father dear! 
 There is no Christian on earth to wish me happy here !" 
 
 The trees, as they rustled drearily, seemed to whisper the 
 words to him. They seemed made for him. 
 
 But was there really no one on earth to " wish him 
 happy ? " 
 
 He looked at his foster-relations. They were all absorbed 
 in their dead. All were very kind to him. Yes, but he was 
 not of their kin, and perhaps some day — who could tell ? —
 
 THE DAY OF THE DEAD. 01 
 
 they might tire of him. There was no tie of blood to bind 
 them to him. He had heard the neighbours say that once, 
 when they did not know he was by. Could it be true ? 
 
 Such thoughts as these were as the whispers of Chris- 
 tophe's bad angel. They did not often visit him, but there 
 were times, black times, when the air seemed full of them. 
 Such was All Souls' Day. He generally spent it away from 
 home to avoid a sight which called up the memory of his 
 forlorn condition ; but his foster-family did not like his 
 absence from the general commemoration, and to-day 
 Genofa had forestalled it by specially asking him to carry 
 her offerings, and there were few things he could refuse 
 Genofa. So he had come, though all the time he would 
 fain have been away. 
 
 " Would God that I had a father and mother like the 
 rest !" was the yearning prayer of the boy's heart. " Would 
 God I had, even though they lay in the grave !" The 
 words seemed to say themselves over in his heart all the 
 time of vespers, when the black-robed village people were 
 kneeling in prayer for their dead, in the parish church 
 where these had been wont to kneel in life. The same 
 thought, intense, despairing, haunted him while he walked 
 in procession with the rest round the cemetery to see Dom 
 Clemengz bless the tombs. It made him silent and moody 
 at the supper, which was eaten in awe^struck solemnity, 
 like the old Jewish Passover, to the doleful sound of the 
 death-bell, swinging heavily in the church hard by, where
 
 62 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR 
 
 the priests were singing their Masses for the Dead. But no 
 one remarked his sadness, for all were sad, or at least 
 seemed so. 
 
 After supper, Ninorc'h and Genofa re-arranged the table, 
 placed the bread and meat in order, and left the chairs 
 before each place, that the souls of the departed, set free 
 that night, and permitted to retake forms which they had 
 worn in life, might have wherewithal to regale themselves, if 
 it should please them to revisit their old home.* The fire, 
 too, was made up and replenished, for, said Ninorc'h, half 
 to herself, as she swept the hearth, " They will be a-cold, 
 poor things, this dreary night ; they will need to warm 
 their bloodless fingers ! Where will thou sit, my sweet 
 angel ? Ah, me ! that I could see thee !" She sighed, and 
 outside there came an echo to her sigh, long-drawn and 
 very dreary. Ninorc'h started, half repenting of her wish. 
 
 " Hark ! Antonn," she whispered, " what was that?" 
 
 "'Twas but the wind," answered her husband. "See, 
 Ninorc'h, it has not yet struck twelve. But, let us hasten ; 
 'tis not good to be out of bed when the midnight bell rings. 
 Who can say what we might see ?" 
 
 He crossed himself with a shudder, and the whole 
 family, following his example, retired to bed. 
 
 The fire crackled and burnt red ; the flickering flame, 
 now bringing into relief the sacred monogram, carved in 
 polished oak over the sliding door of each of the box-beds 
 
 * A Breton superstition.
 
 THE DAY OF THE DEAD. G3 
 
 which lined the walls, now making it vanish again into 
 gloom. The wind moaned among the withered foliage, 
 and tapped the ivy leaves against the windows. Twelve 
 struck from the kitchen clock, and then was taken up by 
 the deep bell of the parish church. As the last stroke died 
 away, the death knell for the departed began again to tall. 
 Shuddering fell each stroke upon the cold night air, and 
 many a heart shuddered in response. Then there was 
 silence — waiting, expectant silence. 
 
 Ninorc'h hushed her breath. 
 
 Hark ! there it was — the voice of the sonneur des ames, 
 the Death Watchman of Old Brittany : — 
 
 " Awake, O, sleepers — rise from bed ! 
 Pray unto God — pray for the dead '' 
 
 Then the mother's hands joined, and her trembling 
 lips prayed half-audibly for her little dead babe and for 
 the souls of all the family. 
 
 Scarcely was her prayer ended — scarcely had the voice 
 of the Son7ieur died away down the village street — than 
 many voices rose to take its place — voices of old men, 
 weak women, Httle children — plaintive, quavering, shrilly 
 sad, mingled with moans and sobs and wails of the wind. 
 
 First it was all murmur — confusion of sound; then, as the 
 voices became nearer, order seemed to form itself among 
 the chaos of mingling sound; and an air, with words joined 
 ' to it, came to the listening ear. It was :—
 
 64 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR 
 
 THE SONG OF THE SOULS IN PAIN.' 
 
 " ' By Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 
 
 We greet this house, its head and host, 
 Greeting and health to great and small — 
 And bid you all to praying fall. 
 
 " ' When Death knocks, with his hand so thin, 
 At midnight, asking to come in. 
 No heart but with a quake doth saj'. 
 Who is it Death would take away V 
 
 " ' And you, be not amazed, therefore. 
 If we the Dead stand at the door ; 
 'Tis Jesus bids us hither creep 
 To waken you, if chance you sleep. 
 
 " ' To wake you in this house that bide — 
 To wake you, old and young beside ; 
 If ruth, alack, live under sky, 
 For succour in God's name we crj' ! 
 
 " ' Brothers and friends and kinsmen all, 
 In God's name, hear us when we call ; 
 In God's name, pray for us — pray sore, 
 Our children, ah, they pray no more ! 
 
 " ' They that we fed upon the breast, 
 Long since to think of us have ceased : 
 They that we held to our heart's core. 
 Hold us in loving thought no more I 
 
 " ' My son, my daughter, daintily. 
 On warm soft feather-beds ye lie ; 
 Whilst I your mother, I your sire, 
 SccH-ch in the purgatory fire. 
 
 " ' All soft and still and warm ye lie, 
 The poor souls toss in agony : 
 Ye draw your breaths in quiet sleep. 
 Poor souls in pain their watching keep. 
 
 * From " Ballads and Songs of Brittany."
 
 THE DAY OF THE DEAD. 
 
 A white shroud and fi\-e planks for l:)ed — 
 A sack of straw beneath the head ; 
 And over it five feet of clay, 
 Are all Earth's goods we take away. 
 
 We lie in fire and anguish-sweat, — 
 Fire over head, fire under feet : 
 Fire all above, fire all below — 
 Pray for the souls that writhe in woe ! 
 
 Aforetime when on earth we moved, 
 Parents we had and friends that loved ; 
 But now that we are dead and gone, 
 Parents and lovers we have none ! 
 
 Succour, in God's name, you that niaj" : 
 Unto the Blessed Virgin pray, 
 A drop of her dear milk to shed. 
 One drop on poor souls sore bestead I 
 
 Up from your beds, and speedilie, 
 And throw yourselves on bended knee ! 
 Save those whose ailments sore make lame, 
 Or Death already calls by name 1" 
 
 It is impossible to render the inexpressible sadness ot 
 this lament. Though the family at the farm had heard 
 it year by year — though they knew that the melancholy 
 voices were those of the wandering beggars, who always- 
 crowded to the hamlets for the yearly commemoration — yet. 
 they could not divest themselves of the shuddering feeling 
 that it was, indeed, the souls of their dead who were pleading 
 for their prayers. Indeed, Breton superstition clings to the 
 belief that the departed really come ; that it is really they 
 who knock at the doors in this midnight hour, under the 
 form of the homeless and suffering, 
 
 VOT,. I. F
 
 CO A CHILD OF THE MEXHJR. 
 
 '*I, your mother — I, your sire" — could it be, could it 
 possibly be, that the soul of a parent stood there without in 
 the cold, asking for prayers? Christophe, like the others, 
 had risen in his bed ; a strange, wild belief took possession 
 of his soul ; he seemed to feel that someone belonging to 
 him might be very near, and with pale, nervous lips he 
 repeated the Prayer for the Dead. 
 
 The voices swept on ; yet there was a sound as of foot- 
 steps on the threshold, then a knock, as from an oaken 
 staff, sounded on the door. 
 
 Ninorc'h and Genofa trembled ; but Antonn crossed the 
 floor without more than a passing heart-beat. Night of 
 the Dead though it was, he knew that the wandering 
 beggars, taking advantaf^e of the superstition concerning 
 them, would often ask for hospitality in the nam.e of the 
 departed. It might be — nay, he was almost certain it 
 could only be — one of them, and if — (the cold dew broke 
 out on Antonn's brow as the thought struck him) — if it 
 should be a soul — well, then, the good God who had sent 
 it, keep him from harm ! Whereupon Antonn reached the 
 door, and, in a tolerably firm voice, challenged the visitor : 
 
 ** In God's name, who knocks ? " 
 
 " In God's name. Christian, and for the sake of the dead, 
 let me in, or I perish with cold and hunger !" 
 
 *' A human voice by the sound, the saints be praised ! 
 Well, then, in God's name " — and crossing himself thrice, 
 Antonn opened tlie door.
 
 THE DAY OF THE DEAD. 67 
 
 " Matelinn Gourven !" 
 
 "The same, as you see, friend Antonn Comorre," 
 answered the klaskervara, for he it was. 
 
 " Why, it is years since I set eyes on you ! I heard — " 
 Antonn lowered his voice and stepped back a little as his 
 visitor entered — " they ^/^ say in the parishes that — that — " 
 
 " That I was dead! Well, what of that ? Nay, never 
 fear, Antonn ; I'm in the body yet, wretched though it be. 
 Ay, ay, man, folks will talk ; but Matelinn Gourven's not 
 dead yet. Be a good Christian, though, Antonn ; let me 
 have bite and sup, and sleep my sleep out liere by the fire 
 before you ask me any more questions, .I'm as famished and 
 weary as the souls in pain. There, there, Pax Vobiscum^ as 
 the priests say, Go rest, and peace be witli you all ! Sure, 
 every bite and sup 1 eat at your tabl-e ihis night will be 
 counted as a day less for your dead in purgatory. There, 
 goodnight, gentlemen and ladies, and the company. Sleep 
 well, I'll not forget you in my prayers."
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 'my father!" 
 
 " Now, saj-, what is thy heart's desire ? 
 'Tis thine, whate'er thou may'st require. 
 
 " Oh ! Thou that madest Earth and Heaven, 
 A bitter cup to me is given !" 
 
 —Ballads and Songs of Brittany. 
 
 " And so, Antonn, that's the boy — the Child of the 
 Menhir — eh ? " Matelinn chuckled. 
 
 " Well, well, I see thou'st done bravely by him, and I 
 thank thee, friend. I shall have reason to be proud of 
 my lad — I see that." 
 
 ^^ T/iy lad?" Antonn Comorre had felt a movement of 
 indignation at the ^''thou " addressed to him by the beggar ; 
 but there was that in his speech which made him forget the 
 familiarity — nay, use it in return. 
 
 " Ay, my lad, friend Antonn. What dost think? Should 
 I have insulted thee by placing him in thy family if he had 
 been a nameless brat — a mere foundling ?" 
 
 *' Xot even this last audacity could draw Antonn from 
 the troubled surprise and bewilderment which had fallen 
 upon him. 
 
 " Come, come, Matelinn Gourven, no more of this
 
 '' MY FATHERr 69 
 
 jesting ! Why, you told me when you brought the child 
 here that he was none of yours ; and when you have seen 
 him since — how long is it ago ? No matter, you never 
 claimed him even then !" 
 
 The klaskervara chuckled, as at a good joke. 
 '' Well, then, friend Antonn, what of that ? How should 
 we get on in the world, we poor soldiers of the ragged 
 regiment, if it were not for our little innocent stratagems ? 
 Airs fair in love and war, thou knowest, friend Antonn. 
 Come, now, don't accuse me of telling thee lies. I never 
 said he wasn't mine. I said I found him, and so I did — a 
 poor little starving thing at the foot of the menhir down by 
 the little Saint-Michel there ; and if I hadn't had pity on 
 him, he'd have died there as his mother did. So, so! that's 
 all the thanks I get ! Never scowl at me like that, lad ! 
 Come, my son — come and embrace thy father !" 
 It was the morning after the Day of the Dead. 
 The cold grey November daylight had come back to the 
 world, chasing the shadows before it; and the ghostly 
 beings, who had haunted all hearts and minds on the 
 preceding evening, had, all but those most recently lost, 
 retreated again into the background of memory. For- 
 gotten ? No; those whom we have dearly loved in life 
 can never be wholly that ; rather laid aside reverently in 
 the depths of the heart wiih otlier sacred dormant memories 
 which will not bear the common light and handling of 
 every day, as we shut up the tokens which they have left
 
 70 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 with our greatest treasures, and lay sweet sprigs of lavender 
 in between. 
 
 Neglected? Ah ! no, ye lost and dead, not that ! 
 
 Would ye, who love us best, wish to lie so on our 
 memories, so in our thoughts, that the torn void there left 
 when your living presence was uprooted, should fester 
 ever? — that our eyes should weep so with constant looking 
 at your empty places — that they became all too dim for 
 daily work ? 
 
 That can I never believe. Rather would ye that we 
 should embalm your memory in our inmost thouglits, 
 and hold it there — not to freeze us, not to pain — but to 
 warm, to soften, to encourage ; to be remembered, not so 
 much before men as before God. 
 
 Rudely did the klaskervara break in upon the folding 
 up of these tender memories. Tlie rough anxieties of life 
 sadly bruised the sacred thouglits of the otlier world wliich 
 still lingered in every heart on Antonn's farm. Ninorc'h 
 and Antonn had been gently grieving over the memory of 
 their little dead son in Paradise. Now a living one, adopted 
 in his stead, loved, as the tiny infant had not had time to 
 be, was about to be snatched from them. They sat mute, 
 half-stunned, too much taken by surprise almost to question 
 the truth of wliat had just been announced to them. 
 
 As for the boy, lie had stopped suddenly in crossing the 
 room, and stood tliere, as though paralysed by the words 
 he had heard. White, trembling, aghast he stood, trying to
 
 ''MY father:' 71 
 
 understand — sickening, as the meaning of tlie words 
 dawned upon him. 
 
 " My son !" the title struck him like a blow. 
 
 Son ! Son to Matelinn Gourven, the beggar, the seeker 
 of bread, the subsister on public charity, to whom the good 
 wives flung their brown crasts and cheese-rinds as they did 
 to the pigs ! Matelinn Gourven, with his beggar's wallet 
 and long stafif, witli his filthy clothes and grimy face, with a 
 countenance which spoke of a soul within, more filthy and 
 grimy still ! Matelinn Gourven, at whom the village boys 
 jeered as a sly cheat, who had no need to beg at all were it 
 not for his laziness. Matelinn Gourven, at whom, when, 
 as a little boy, he saw him last, he had himself pointed the 
 finger, and, in allusion to the goat-keeping village of which 
 he was popularly believed to be a native, had screamed 
 with the rest 
 
 " Porscorif— Bridre 
 Goats' flesh, Bee ! " 
 
 This his father \ — This ! this! 
 
 " Would to God I had a father and moiher ! " The wish 
 had been in his mind so strongly all the day before that it 
 had been as a prayer. Was (lod answering it — and thus ? 
 If this man were his father, what must his moiher have 
 been? The question brought a strong shudder. Matelinn 
 had said she was dead. Well, let her rest, 'twas better so ; 
 enough to have such a father, and alive 1 Yes, alive 
 Better the dumb, cold stone after which they named him
 
 72 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 than this. Better to have remained the unknown Child of 
 the Menhir all his life. 
 
 These thoughts flashed, like scathing lightning, through 
 the boy's mind, in the momentary pause during which he 
 faced the man who claimed him as a son, without further 
 speech on either side. 
 
 Matelinn Gourven had said, " Come, my son, embrace 
 thy father !" and then had stopped as though expectant, 
 the leer in his little grey eyes, the sarcastic smile on his thin 
 lips spreading gradually over all his face, he read, while 
 as in an open book, the horror, disgust and repugnance on 
 the countenance of the boy. 
 
 " So, so, youngster," he said at last, in that level, acid 
 tone, which, like the thin scum on foul water, hides, while it 
 indicates, something worse beneath. *' So, youngster, thou 
 dost not seem so delighted as might have been expected to 
 find thy father ! Don't be shy, boy ; thou and I will know 
 
 each other better ere long, and then by-the-by, what 
 
 do they call thee ? I did not attend the christening, but 
 doubtless our good friends here saw to that. I knew them 
 to be good Christians when I placed thee with them. Eh, 
 friend Antonn? 
 
 This last speech was almost too much for the honest 
 Breton farmer. He shook himself from his stupifaction, 
 and brought his right hand dowai on his knee with a 
 resolute smack. 
 
 " Enough of this, Matelinn Gourven," he said. You've
 
 ''MY FATHERr 73 
 
 had bite and sup, and night's lodging too, and you're 
 welcome to it j I was never tlie man to grudge what I gave 
 to God's poor \ but don't begin to pay me back in any of 
 your evil coin. It's time I went a-field, and the good wife 
 wants the kitchen fire. Take thy wallet, and trudge." 
 
 "Ay, ay, friend Antonn, I'm ready whenever the boy is. 
 Come, lad, make thy farewells, and pay thy thanks to these 
 good people." 
 
 " What ! You mean to take him ? " 
 
 "Ay!" 
 
 " And why, in the name of our holy St. Corneille, if he 
 be thy son, this sudden claiming of him ? Heaven send me 
 patience ! 'Tis all a riddle to me." 
 
 " A riddle easily read then, friend Antonn. Stay, and 
 I'll give thee the word of the enigma. 'Tis a short one — 
 piilaiucr/' Thou knowest what that means — eh, my 
 friend ?" 
 
 Antonn stamped. 
 
 " If I know what it means ? You've come to insult me, 
 then, Matelinn Gourven, for example ? There're no rags 
 here !" 
 
 "Ah, ha! wait a bit; I'll come back later," laughed 
 Matelinn, using the customary sarcasm of the di^niissed 
 rag-merchant, in reply to Antonn's words. 
 
 " But come, Antonn Comorre, don't excite thyself so 
 much ; 'tis bad for the heart, not to mention the soul — least 
 
 * A Rag Merchant.
 
 74 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 of all the digestion. See, then, ihis is how it is. My 
 brother, the piHaiver, is just dead — the Saints rest liis 
 soul! — and he's left me his horse and panniers, his donkey, 
 and all his little business. Now, as a simple klaskervara I 
 was better unincumbered, and I was loth to take my boy 
 from you, knowing he was useful ; but now it's a little 
 different. I want liim to help me with the business, and 
 it's a good prospect for him — a good prospect. Hin ?" 
 
 " A good prospect ! Take your good prospects to the 
 Horned Angel,'^ and begone !" 
 
 Antonn shook his fist, and grew crimson witli rage. 
 
 " See, rascal of a klaskervara, you bring your beggar's 
 brat to me and fool me with a story of holy charity, and 
 then, when he is up and become as mine own, you come 
 and steal him, and pay me with impudence ! I'll tell you 
 
 what, Matelinn Gourven, if Heavens ! What have I 
 
 said? Never look at me like that, Christrphe, my boy! 
 Thou knowest thou'st been welcome for thine own sake, 
 and ril stand by thee always ; but if he l^e thy father, why 
 
 then Come, Ninorc'h, my wife, don't take on so ! 
 
 Heaven send me patience, for I'm at the end of mine own, 
 and Old Williamf's running away with my tongue ! " 
 
 Poor Antonn wiped his brow and sat down helplessly. 
 Ninorc'h rose, went to the boy, who still stood in the 
 middle of the iloor, took his hand, and leaning her head 
 
 * One of the Breton names for the Evil One. 
 t Another Breton appellation for the same.
 
 "J/F FATHERr 75 
 
 on his shoulder, broke into sobs, which were echoed by tlie 
 innocent in the chimney-corner. 
 
 Christophe took no notice of any of them. His foster- 
 mother's tears dropped upon his hand — he did not seem 
 to feel tliem. His foster-father fumed, and uttered little 
 Breton exclamations (which will not bear translating) in a 
 low, growling tone ; the klaskervara sat, calmly munching 
 the remains of his breakfast, waiting for the storm to sub- 
 side. Christophe stood there and paid no heed. The boy 
 was trembling with suppressed emotion of various kinds. 
 Every word of the foregoing conversation had struck him 
 as so many blows — blows dealt on one who is already half- 
 stunned j two utterances had been as dagger-thrusts. 
 
 The ^^ my son " of the klaskervara. " Your beggar's brat^^^ 
 spoken in heat by Antonn Comorre. 
 
 '* Beggar's brat ! " This^ then, was what they held him — 
 they on whose love he had so long rested ! Now was he an 
 outcast indeed. Oh ! it was hard — hard ! Beggar's brat ! 
 How the name stung him ! Well, if they called him so, let 
 him be so, indeed. He would not stay to shame their 
 honest dwelling ; he would go with this man who claimed 
 him. 
 
 Indignant pride braced tlie heart, torn and bleeding with 
 sorrow and dismay. Gently disengaging himself from his 
 foster-mother, the boy moved forward and stood before 
 Antonn Comorre. 
 
 "Good-bye," he said, in a low, constrained voice —
 
 76 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR, 
 
 " Good-bye, and may God reward you for what you have 
 
 done for " the word seemed to stick in his throat, but 
 
 he resolutely brought it out,— *' the beggar's brat !" 
 
 Antonn Comorre looked up, and a sob shook his hardy 
 frame. 
 
 " No, no, my boy — my son (for thou ai't my foster-son, 
 Christophe, wlioever else may claim thee) ; do not let us 
 part like this. Perhaps it's all a tale. Stay, I'll consult 
 Dom Clemencz -he's a wise man; though if this he thy 
 
 father, why then lad, lad : but it'll go hard to part with 
 
 ihee : " 
 
 The Breton respect for the rights of a father over his son, 
 struggled with intense reluctance to let the boy, whom he 
 ■ud come to look on as his son, go — and with such a man ! 
 Antonn Comorre gazed at the boy with a wistful, puzzled 
 expression. The question raised was too knotty for him. 
 
 But Christophe cut the knot. He turned to the klas- 
 kervara, whom before lie had resolutely ignored. "Tell 
 me, have you spoken truili ?" he asked briefly. 
 
 Matelinn looked up from his breakfast and nodded — his 
 mouth was too busy for words. 
 
 " Well then, I will go," continued the boy, again address- 
 ing his foster-f-ither, and speaking in the same constrained 
 tone. " It is better so. God bless you all ! Good-bye, 
 mother ; don't forget me quite, and don't let Genofa for- 
 get me. rd have liked to say good bye^ only she's out, 
 and I can't wait."
 
 "J/y FATIIERr 77 
 
 There was a catch of the breath, as at some inward pain ; 
 but the dark face was perfectly calm, and the firmly set lips 
 which kissed the weeping Ninorc'h did not even tremble. 
 
 Ninorc'h looked up at their touch — a dumb, pleading look 
 on the white, quivering features, which was beyond all 
 words. So might a mother sheep look after the lamb 
 which is being carried away from her. 
 
 It touched Christophe to the quick, and nearly broke 
 down the proud reserve. He put out his hand, then drew 
 it back hastily, and turned again to the klaskervara. " Let 
 us go," he said, and without waiting for a reply, left the 
 house. 
 
 '' So, so, the young rascal's in a liurry," said Matelinn, 
 with a regretful look at the eatables which still remained 
 on the table. 
 
 " I did'nt think he'd have been quite so keen. However, 
 blood's thicker than water, when all's said and done, and 
 you have my thanks, good friends, for all you've done for 
 him. The saints keep you." And shouldering his walkt, 
 the ex-klaskervara took his leave, unsped. 
 
 IMeanwhile Christophe strode down the hollow lane away 
 from the farm-house, looking neither to right nor left ; not 
 daring to think, lest the horror of what had come, and was 
 coming upon him, should rush in upon his soul, and sweep 
 away his resolution before it was fully carried out. 
 
 He dared not realize what had happened ; he dared not 
 take his eyes from the ground, lest the sight of the well-
 
 78 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 known land-marks— of the little robin piping up there among 
 the withered leaves of the elm-trees — of the old mossy 
 well round the corner— sliould bring down the tears 
 which throbbed behind his eye-balls. Fain would 
 he have shut his ears to the robin's song, to the 
 bubbling of the water, which sounded louder and 
 louder as he neared the corner of the lane ; but he could 
 not. Yet they hurt him. "Stop and think," they seemed 
 to say, — " will you leave us without a look, Christophe ? " 
 
 ''Chrktophe!'' 
 
 It was neither robin nor water which uttered his name 
 this time, but the tone was just as sweet. 
 
 The boy looked up with a start, and there beside the old 
 well, with one brown pitcher full at her feet, and the other 
 filling at the spout, round which the mosses clustered and 
 the red leaves fell, was Genofa. 
 
 "Christophe! what's the matter? Where are you 
 going?" 
 
 He stopped and stared at her without a word. 
 
 "Christophe," went on the little maiden, presently, 
 "Don't be cross. Come, I want you to help me home 
 with the pitchers." 
 
 " I can't." 
 
 " Why ? — They're so heavy ! " 
 
 "Genofa— Oh, Genofa!" 
 
 " Christoi)he, in the name of Heaven, what's the matter?" 
 The child was startled at the tone of the voice, at t-he
 
 ^'J/y I^ATHERr 79 
 
 look on the pale face of her playfellow. She forgot her 
 pitcher, and let the water fill it and overflow its brown sides. 
 
 " I'm going away." 
 
 " Where ?— " Why ? " 
 
 "Where? — I don't know. Why? — Because my father 
 wants me." 
 
 He gulped over the word. 
 
 "Father? Never! He wouldn't want thee to go, 
 Christophe, I know he wouldn't. It's a joke — that's what it 
 is, and I don't like such jokes, Christophe." 
 
 "A joke. Would to God it were ! " 
 
 " But I don't understand. leather hasn't sent thee away 
 — I'm sure of that." 
 
 I wasn't speaking oi thy father, Genofa, but of uiinc.''^ 
 
 " Thine ! But, Christophe, thou hast no " 
 
 She stopped. 
 
 " But they say I have." 
 
 "Who?— The Menhir? Christophe, dear Christophe! 
 don't look like that ! " 
 
 Tears sprang to the pretty eyes; the red lips quivered. 
 Christophe could not bear it any longer. He felt his eyes 
 clouding, his lips trembling also, and he would not cry— no 
 he would not. 
 
 " Good-bye,, little sister," he said, stooping down to kiss 
 the child's smooth brow, " Don't forget rae ! " 
 
 '* But, Christophe, is it true ? Has thy father come ? Is 
 he some one grand — a viscount, perhaps ? — a baron ? Oh
 
 80 A CHILD OF THE MENHUZ. 
 
 Christophe, is he like tlie father we used to make stories 
 about when we were little, — dost remember ? Is he " 
 
 She paused and turned her head to listen. There were 
 sounds round the corner of the lane— the tread of animals, 
 the heavy footfall of a man, the cracking of a switch, and a 
 rough voice scolding, swearing. Christophe turned his 
 head also. 
 
 Round tlie corner came the klaskervara — or rather the 
 piilawer, as he now styled himself — leading by the bridle an 
 old pack-horse, lean, raw-boned, jaded by travel and blows 
 and burdens; and, urged on by stripes from his switch, 
 rough words and oaths, a little brown donkey in front, with 
 a pair of panniers slung across its back. Driver and 
 animals were alike — dirty and ill-kept ; the latter added old 
 age and starvation to the evils which they shared in 
 common with their master. Well for them that they did 
 not share the low cunning and cruel look which was the 
 ordinary expression of his face when free from observation. 
 
 '' That is my father, Genofa." 
 
 " That: Oh, Christophe ! " 
 
 " Hush !— Good-bye, little sister 1 " 
 
 He stooped again to kiss lier, but started with a shiver, 
 as the pillawer's rough voice ceased its oaths for a moment 
 to address him. 
 
 " So here thou art, boy ? I thought thou'st given me 
 
 the slip. If thou hadst, by " (here an apostrophe came 
 
 in, very different to the pious ones which the good wives of
 
 ''MY FATHERr 81 
 
 the country were accustomed to hear from the lips of 
 
 Matelinn Gourven) " if thou hadst and I'd caught thee 
 
 again, I'd have made this switch and thy shoulders well 
 acquainted, my son — so I would ! Come, look sharp ! — 
 take the donkey's bridle, and trudge." 
 
 Christophers dark face grew a shade paler, his eyebrows 
 contracted as with pain ; but without a word he took the 
 bridle, and the strange pair went down the lane together. 
 
 Genofa watched them till they ware out of sight, too 
 much struck with astonishment to move or speak ; then, 
 when even the sound of their footsteps had almost died 
 away on the calm autumn air, she threw her little apron 
 over her face and burst out crying. 
 
 VOL. ].
 
 BOOK II. 
 
 %\\( itUatoer
 
 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR, 
 
 BOOK II.— THE PILLAWER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ARISTOCRATIC. 
 
 " on the left. 
 
 The well-born, on the right the merest niob, 
 To treat as equals ! — 'tis anarchical." 
 
 E. B. Bkowning — Arirnra Laioh. 
 
 The Chdtedu de Kerdec'li stands among the poplars and 
 apple orchards of Nortli Brittany. Trees hedge it in on 
 every side, yet not so thickly as to exclude the warm sun- 
 beams which slide between the leafage in summer time and 
 the brown network or branches in winter, to bask on its 
 strong grey walls and little pointed turrets ; for the san 
 seems to love the gentle southern slope where the Comtes 
 de Kerdec'h have built then- home. Little is left of the 
 castle now ; i: is more than half unroofed, and the black 
 touch of fire may still be seen upon the stones which would 
 not burn. But in 1788 it was still in all its glory. The 
 long avenue of smooth-boled beeches which led up to the
 
 $j6 a child of the menhir. 
 
 entrance gate was well kept, and free from the grass and 
 weeds which carpet it now ; the stone griffins of Kerdec'h 
 still guarded the great stone pillars of the gate itself, and 
 the flower-garden and tennis-court within, winter though it 
 was, were not untended. 
 
 The wintry sun liad sunk, round and red, behind the 
 leafless woods and hedgerows ; the windows of the chateau, 
 which looked west, were just losing its ruddy glow, and 
 the sun-sparkles wxre dying out of the light snow-powder 
 upon coping and pinnacle, to give place to the moon- 
 sparkles whicli would soon be lit tliere by the great white 
 orb, whose silver rim was already appearing over against 
 the sunset. Through the windows of the long withdrawing- 
 room anyone standing outside might have seen a valet de 
 diamhre moving up and down, toucliing turn by turn, Avith 
 a point of fire, the white wax candles which branched 
 from the wall, while another bore in the beechen log which 
 was to serve for the evening's fuel. 
 
 Madame la Comtesse was standing beside the window- 
 looking down the avenue, with the red glow of the dying 
 west on lier pale face and powdered hair, while Made- 
 moiselle Renee de Kerdec'h, her daughter, kneeled before 
 the fire, playing with a small silken-eared spaniel. 
 
 " There they are !" exclaimed Madame, presently, waving 
 her hand till the deep lace rufiles fell back and showed her 
 wliite arm to tlie elbow. " See, Renee, how well Aymon 
 looks ! Ciel, liow he is grown ; thou wilt hardly knoAv him
 
 ARISTOCRATIC. 87 
 
 again — thou ! Say, dearest, how long is it since thou hast 
 seen him ? Thou wast at thy convent last time he was 
 here.'"' 
 
 "Ah! Afaman, I know not," returned the young lady, 
 forsaking Finet to join her mother at the window. "But 
 truly he is grown, one would not say I was two years 
 older than he ! Ah ! they have seen us ; father waves his 
 hand, and Aymon is kissing his finger-tips," and Rente 
 nodded and waved energetically in return. 
 
 " There they are round the corner — I hear their horses' 
 hoofs on the stone pavement of the court. Maman, may 
 I go to the door?" 
 
 "But, certainly, little one — see, I will go with tliee. 
 Ah, but it is good to see them come safely home ! 
 Saying which, Madame la Comtesse de Kerdec'h swept her 
 ricji velvet skirts in the wake of her daughter across the 
 salon and over the marble pavement of the entrance hall. 
 
 If Mademoiselle's quicker movements gained her the 
 first kiss of father and brother, the greetings received by 
 Madame were not less warm, and it was she who hung upon 
 her husband's arm and looked up into the finely-moulded, 
 aristocratic face, with the delicate eyebrows and hair, just 
 beginning to be powdered by age, which belonged to the 
 Comte de Kerdec'h. By the tender look in hers, it would 
 seem that she loved that face ; and yet to most eyes there 
 was a hardness, a sternness in it, as of one who would press 
 on to the mark, set for attainment by the owner's will, without
 
 83 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 much ruth tor what the feet must trample to reach it : an 
 unbending Draco, who would cirry out a severe law to the 
 very last letter. 
 
 " M. le Comte is very just," was a common comment on 
 him, but it was hardly said in praise; and if few could 
 blame, few seemed to love him. There was one thing 
 wliicli. as some said, could warp tliis fine-drawn juscice 
 beyond the hard straight line which divides it from tyranny, 
 and that was a breath on the proud name he bore. Touch 
 that, were it but by a whisper, and the punishment might 
 be more than just ; not only the pound of flesh, but the 
 blood with it. Yet withal the De Kerdec'hs did not stand 
 ill among the landlords of th'^ir day, and not a few among 
 the peasants on their estates would have given their right 
 hands for Madame. 
 
 "Ah! Raoul, how good it is to see tliee back !" mur- 
 mured tlie little (Jountess, looking fondly up in her 
 husband's face with her soft dark eyes. " It seems so 
 long since we parted, and the weather has been so dreary 
 — ah ! so dreary." 
 
 She shivered a little, and a grave smile dawned on his 
 severe countenance. 
 
 '' So dreary ? Ah ! not to-day, at any rate ; the sun on 
 the snov/ I. as been almost too brilliant. Things look 
 brighter here in our Brittany than they do in Paris, I can 
 tell thee, little wife." 
 
 " Ah ! yes, tell me about Paris. I used to tliink it must
 
 A R IS TO CRA TIC. bO 
 
 be nice there in winter time. I remember when you 
 took me there, just after we were married, Raoul ; it was 
 not winter then, but ah ! how beautiful it was and how 
 bright ! Blanche de Flochic, who was my friend as a girl, 
 married a gentleman of the Court, and I used to envy her 
 
 a little ah ! now, don't look so grave, it was before I 
 
 knew thee, my friend !" 
 
 " Did I look grave, Glauda? Well, I was not thinking 
 of that ; but there are sad things to be seen and heard 
 in Paris now-a-days. We in the country are far better off 
 — far better, even when it is dreary weather, as thou sayest, 
 little wife. But we will talk furiher afterwards. There's 
 Aymon — the lad's starving; we have pushed on too quickly, 
 since the diligence set us down, to tliink of eating." 
 
 " To get home the faster ? Ah ! my friend, that was 
 good ! But come, you shall have your reward. Supper's 
 served, and it is a good one — I saw to that." 
 
 ''And how is Renaud?" asked the Comte, presently, 
 when, having removed his travelling-dress, and satisfied the 
 first pangs of hunger, he was able to think a little about 
 other things of less pressing moment. 
 
 *' Eenaud ? Oh, much as usual ! He has not left his 
 room since we parted from thee, dear friend." 
 
 " Not left his room ? How is that ? Henri should have 
 seen to it; it is not good for him to be cooped up like 
 that." 
 
 "Alas ! dear friend, but when the mind "
 
 90 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 The Count's brow contracted. 
 
 " Hush. Glauda," he said, putting up his hand, '' It 
 pains me to hear this strange illness spoken of like that. 
 
 There is hope — there must be ! Heaven Knows " he 
 
 stopped in agitation. 
 
 Madame de Kerdec'h looked up quickly. 
 
 "Ah, yes, dear Raoul, everyone knows — everyone 
 admires. If ever man had a devoted brother it is Renaud. 
 Alas ! poor soul, if devotion could save him, he has it and 
 plenty." 
 
 The Count averted his face. 
 
 "Enough," he said, "we will adjourn to his room after 
 supper. I consulted a famous physician in Paris, and he 
 particularly recommends cheerful society and conversation. 
 Well, Aymon, my son, hast satisfied the wolf?" 
 
 ^Mademoiselle Renee started. 
 
 " The wolf, dear Father?" 
 
 " Ay, mademoiselle, the wolf! Didst ever see a boy eat 
 like that before? Thou hadst none such in thy convent, 
 I'll be bound." 
 
 Aymon laughed. 
 
 And she never had such a day's journey as icc liave liad, 
 I'll be bound. Hu-n ! I can guess now how those poor 
 canaille feel whom we saw in Paris, swaying by the cord at 
 the bakers' doors, waiting their turn to be served with 
 pennywortlis of bread." 
 
 " How was iliat, Aymon ?"
 
 ARISTOCRATIC. 91 
 
 '•How was that, sister? Yes, yes, you in the convent 
 kn Av little enough how it t^els to be starving, I'll warrant. 
 Fast-days? Yes, yes, I know — a little fish instead of a 
 great deal of meat, tliat's all it is wuh you. No, sister, 
 those I'aris people's fasting is quite another matter." 
 
 " Well, since we liave broken our fast so well, we will go 
 to your uncle's room, children," said the Count, rising from 
 table. *' Come, Renee, don't look so grave; thou art too 
 tender-hearted, little one. It is sad enough about ihe 
 Paris people, witliout doubt; but they are sadly tumultuous 
 and impertinent, sometimes; and if they were to be too 
 well-fed, who knows wliere their insolence might stop. 
 Fancy an old dame shaking her fist at her jNIajesty's 
 carriage-window one day. Ah! I thought that would bring 
 back the colour, little one." 
 
 ^r. de Kerdec'li rose, took a wax light, and went upstairs, 
 followed by his family.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE CHEVALIER DE KERDEC'h. 
 
 iWf^H, Forgetfulness 
 
 First Spirit. Of what — of whom— and why V 
 Man. Of that which is within me; read it there— 
 Ye know it, and I cannot litter it! 
 
 — BvKuN.— )fa.ifrcd. 
 
 After traversing several passages, tlie Count stopped at a 
 door in the west wing of the chateau, before wliich hung a 
 tapestry curtain. This he pushed aside, put up his hand to 
 knock, withdrew it, and remained listening. 
 
 Music was coming from within — the strange wild music 
 of the Breton national instrument — the biniou, a species of 
 bagpipes. Presently this ceased, and a voice began to sing 
 some words to an odd, wailing chant — monotonous, yet 
 with a strange ring of bitterness in it, rising at times to a 
 sharp agony. It was a man's voice that sang — a voice 
 which would have been a fine one but for occasional 
 discords, wliich sliowed that it was not quite under the 
 singer's control. 
 
 The words of the chant were Breton, and may be roughly 
 translated thus : — 
 
 *' •' Like a flowery field o'er which the bitter herbs have 
 crept, is my soul o'erwhelmed with anguish.
 
 THE CHEVALIER DE KERDEC H. 03 
 
 " ' y[y sorrow is continual \ I diink my grief with eyery 
 breath,- and am as the dove, reft of her mate. 
 
 •' ' My loving lieart broke in two parts when I learnt this 
 news : some of my friends told me 
 That slanderers wert busy in culling a bouquet for 
 me and my heart's beloved. 
 
 " 'A bouquet to separate us, my sweet mistress and me; 
 a bouquet composed of four flowers : 
 Grief, melancholy, sorrovr of spirit, and care. 
 
 O, miserable calumniators I ' " 
 
 Here M. de Kerdec'h knocked, and the voice broke off. 
 An elderly man-servant came to the door and opened it. 
 " M. le Comte is then returned ?" he said, respectfully. 
 " Yes. Can M. Renaud receive us this evening ?" 
 " Certainly. Enter messieurs et mesdamesr 
 He opened the door, spoke for a moment in a low^ voice to 
 the occupant of the room, and retired into the background. 
 There were wax lights burning here, as in the salon down- 
 stairs. Thick curtains were drawn before the windows, 
 and a wood fire crackled merrily ; a white French poodle 
 lay before it, his frilled paws spread out to the warmth, 
 his little pink nose resting upon them, his small pinkish 
 eyes blinking at his master, who sat in a high-backed chair 
 with his face turned from the door. He was a younger 
 man than his brother the Count ; tall and massive in 
 figure, but with a stoop of the shoulders which bespoke ill- 
 health. The hands, long and blue-veined, VN-ere fingering
 
 01 A CHILD OF THE MENHUi. 
 
 the chanters of the biniou ; the pale, blue eyes were half- 
 closed in dreamy fashion, their long dark lashes almost 
 resting on the white cheek. The mouth was weak, the 
 forehead high, but not broad, and the hair which shaded it, 
 in odd incongruity with the still youthful face, was white as 
 suoAv. Such was the Chevalier Renaud de Kerdec'h, only 
 brother of the Count. 
 
 " Good evening, Renaud," said the latter, taking the pale 
 hand in cheery fashion, and trying hard to smooth 
 out the crimp of pain which came to his brow at 
 the sight of the invalid \ " Good evening, brother ; I hope 
 I see thee well ?" 
 
 " Well, well," said the Chevalier, " as usual, brother, as 
 usual — no otherwise. Be seated, madame, and made- 
 moiselle, and you ?" He looked up with a questioning, 
 
 puzzled expression. 
 
 "Aymon, dear brother," said the Comtesse, gently, 
 ** Don't you remember our son Aymon? There, my son 
 embrace thy uncle." 
 
 Aymon obeyed in silence. The Chevalier nodded two 
 or three times, waved his hand towards the chairs, and 
 then went on in his uncertain voice : — 
 
 "I was trying over something. Will you pardon me a 
 moment if I go on ? It might slij) from me else ; things 
 do so evade me now-a-days. I don't know how it is, but 
 all feels so loose and slippery hereP 
 
 The long-fingered, transparent hand went up to the pale
 
 THE CHEVALIER BE KERDEC'H. 95 
 
 brow, which knit slightly, as though its owner were seeking 
 for some truant thought. 
 
 "What was it — what was it?" he murmured, as if 
 speaking to himself — " as usual, 'tis gone — gone — gone ! 
 
 Henri " his voice took a sharp, querulous tone, as he 
 
 turned to address the valet, who was waiting in the back- 
 ground. " Henri, come here, tell me what it was, quick !" 
 
 The man took up the biniou which his master had laid 
 aside, and replaced it in his hands ; then he bent down 
 and whispered a word. The Chevalier's face cleared. 
 
 " Ah ! yes, yes,'' he murmured, as he fingered the pipes. 
 " Yes, yes, that was it ; — yes, yes." 
 
 He filled the bag, played over again the same wild, 
 melancholy air which had been interrupted by the entrance 
 of his visitors ; then, keeping the pipes still on his knee, he 
 continued the melody with his voice, repeating the last 
 three words which had been on his lips when he was 
 disturbed : — 
 
 '' O miserable calumniators ! wherever ye go does 
 suffering follow you. Compared to you the plague 
 is sweet. 
 
 " Your goading words would move the very stones to 
 rise and gnaw each other. 
 
 " But thou whom I love, oh ! be faithful, and I will be 
 so. Be faithful, and wicked tongues will have no 
 power to part us. 
 
 " Our hearts are like a rock in the wide sea when storm- 
 winds rage.
 
 9C A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " The corner-stone of love has been laid betwixt us, 
 
 God be thanked ! 
 "Thou ait wise, my sweetlieart ; and thou knovvest, to 
 
 conquer, one must know how to fight." 
 
 ''Ah, mon Dieul'' 
 
 The singer's voice quavered and broke. He covered his 
 face, gave a long shuddering sigh, and rocked himself to 
 and fro on his chair, as if in pain. M. de Kerdec'h turned 
 away his head ; half rose, then sat down again, and looked 
 appealingly at the valet. The latter made a little sign in 
 indication of his master, and put his finger to his lips. 
 
 A painful constraint fell on the little party — none dared 
 speak or move. Presently, however, the Chevalier's mood 
 seemed to alter ; his face lighted as quickly as it had 
 clouded ; he took his hands from his eyes, and turned to 
 his visitors with a smile. 
 
 "What do you think of it?" he asked. "Not bad, 
 is it?" 
 
 "Bad? No, indeed, it is beautiful," returned the 
 Countess, with a kind smile, seeing that her husband made 
 no remark. " Our Breton melodies are always beautiful, 
 and I like the words, too ; only this sane is a little too sad. 
 Is it not, Monsieur ino7i heau-frenT 
 
 " Yes, it is sad," answered the Chevalier, meditatively ; 
 "but what would you have, sister? Winter weather is 
 not the time for roses ; and when it is winter Jiere and 
 here (he laid his hand on heart and brow), can you expect
 
 THE CHEVALIER DE KERDECH. 97 
 
 a merry measure or gay words ? Ah, no, sister, never 
 again — never again." 
 
 He turned and looked into the fire with a sigh. 
 
 *' Did you make it, uncle ?" asked Renee, presently, 
 lifting her little briglit, dark face, in which the fire, 
 before which she was seated, with the poodle's head 
 on her knees, had made the blush-roses bloom like 
 damask ones. 
 
 " What a question, Renee !" broke in Aymon, roused out 
 of the constraint from which he had suffered ever since he 
 came into his uncle's ro©m ; for, to the healthy lad whose 
 childhood had been passed with pleasant companions on 
 the wind-swept Carnac heath, this shut-in room, with its 
 dainty luxuries and hushed stillness, suited to the invalid 
 life passed there, was anything but congenial. 
 
 " What a question 1" he exclaimed, in a voice that made 
 the invalid start. "Hast thou never heard it before? 
 Why, it is old Pere Guenedon's favourite sdm ; and Tailor 
 Kabik — you should all have heard how^ he used to sing it 
 when he came in to the farm to do a day's work for the foster- 
 parents ! 'Twas enough to make a cow laugh to hear liim 
 howl out, "O miserable calumniators ! " as he drove the 
 needle through the cloth, sitting cross-legged on the tabJe 
 with his hump sticking up above his liead ; and he always 
 made his " loving heart break in two parts " when he cut 
 out a patch with tlie big shears. Oh ! but ///<?/ was woilh 
 hearing, it w^as ! And then Christophe, too, lie used to sing 
 
 VOL. 1. H
 
 98 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR, 
 
 it sometimes, when — well, when the mists were on him — j ou 
 know. Oh ! yes, it's not tlie first time by many a hundred 
 that sone has been sung." 
 
 A puzzled, troubled look liad stolen over the Che- 
 valier's face as his nephew spoke. His dreamy blue 
 eyes fixed themselves earnestly on the boy; then the brow 
 knit, and the pale fingers clasped and unclasped each 
 other uneasily. 
 
 "Is it," he began hurriedly, as Aymon ceased, " A it, then, 
 one of the old sones ? I couldn't tell whether I had heard 
 
 it before, or whether " he paused a moment, then went 
 
 on, in a low, confidential voice, turning to Madame de 
 Kerdec'h — " It suited so well, you know, sister, that I half 
 thought — I did, indeed, I almost believed that I had com- 
 posed it. I used to be reckoned a poet once, madame; 
 I don't know whether you are aware of it? It was before 
 — before — what was it?" The former searching look 
 came back to his eyes, and his liand went up to his 
 head. 
 
 "Excuse me," he continued, presently, " I pray you all 
 kindly to excuse me, my memory is not what it was." A 
 wuntry smile flickered on the delicate features, as the 
 invalid bowed with a higli-bred courtesy, so piteous from 
 one in his condition that it brought tears to the kindly eyes 
 of the Countess, and caused Monsieur de Kerdec'h to turn 
 away with a stifled groan. Again that painful silence fell, 
 and every one was thankful when Madame de Kerdec'h
 
 THE CHEVALIER DE KERDECH. 9& 
 
 reminded her husband that they had not yet heard all the 
 news from Paris. 
 
 " Didn't I tell you," said the Count, seizing almost eagerly 
 on his wife's suggestion, " Didn't I tell you the great news? 
 No ! Renaud, this should interest thee, I think ; in former 
 times it used to be one of thy dreams that the lower orders 
 should be allowed a voice in public affairs. Well, thou 
 wilt have thy wish, brother; Necker has decided to 
 assemble the States-General. 
 
 "The States-General!" A sudden flash of intelligence 
 illumined the hazy face of the invalid. " Mon Bieu^ can it 
 be ? At last, at last, after years, the people will be heard ! 
 Old Miorcec will be glad ; better times will be coming for 
 them, and then — perhaps — But no, it is too late, too late 1 
 Alas ! alas ! 
 
 The light died from his eyes, and his head sank upon 
 his breast with a heavy sigh. 
 
 "Yes," continued M. de Kerdec'h, with a visible effort^ 
 " there has been a second Convention of Notables as- 
 sembled to settle some preliminaries j the elections are to 
 begin in January, and then " 
 
 " Then 7i>haf, dear Raoul ?" asked the Countess, seeing 
 that her husband paused and turned his head abstractedly 
 towards the door. 
 
 " Then probably the deluge, which a certain great 
 lady, whose name I do not care to mention before my 
 little Renee there, foretold was to follow upon the follies
 
 100 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 of her days. If it were not disloyal to criticise our 
 good king's judgment, I should say it was worse than folly 
 to give the people the rein now ; they are ready to break 
 out the moment the curb is loosened. Yes, Renaud is 
 
 right; it is So, I tJio2ig]it I was not mistaken. What is 
 
 it, sirrah ? Why do you stand out there knocking with a 
 glove of velvet ? Can't you come in ? "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 "it haunts me like a phantom." 
 
 " There stands a spectre in your hall.' 
 
 —Tennyson—" Lady Clara Vere cle Vere."^ 
 
 The door opened slowly, and the hoary head of the old 
 butler was pushed in. He had been in the family since 
 boyhood, and had known the present seigneur as a baby 
 and yet he shared in the common awe. 
 
 "Monsieur," he began, half pompously, half timidly^ 
 " Monsieur " 
 
 "Well?" answered M. de Kerdec'h, impatiently, "What 
 is it?" 
 
 " I said that Monsieur was occupied, that he could not 
 be disturbed ; I did indeed ; but " 
 
 The old man hesitated. 
 
 " Ca/i'f you speak out, — who is it wants me? If you said 
 I was not to be disturbed, why on earth do you come and 
 do it ! " exclaimed the seigneur, sharply, the suppressed 
 suffering, which the sight of his brother's pitiable state 
 evidently caused him, venting itself on the old servant. 
 
 "A thousand pardons. Monsieur," answered the latter, 
 advancing a step with a deprecating bow; "indeed I did
 
 102 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 not wish to disturb your lordship, but the fellow 7i<02dd 
 have me go ; he said you were sure to see him if you knew 
 — though I'm sure I don't know — such an ill-conditioned 
 canaille as he is ! " 
 
 " Did he give his name ? " 
 
 " He did not; but — IMonsieur will pardon me if I repeat 
 his beggar's language? He said he had once done Monsieur 
 a service, that Monsieur would remember one night in the 
 white month," and " 
 
 A strange 'expression, which almost seemed to denote 
 fear, came over the firm, delicate features of the Count \ 
 but he recovered himself in a moment, turned towards his 
 brother to see if he were listening, satisfied himself that, so 
 far, the attention of the invalid had not been attracted, 
 then rose hastily and went to the door. 
 
 '■'• Did the fellow say anything more, Antonn?" he asked, 
 in a low voice, with his back to the room and one hand on 
 the half-open door. 
 
 ** No, Monsieur." 
 
 '' What is he like ? " 
 
 " Like ? Monsieur may well ask that, before he consents 
 to see such a rascally-looking fellow, — if, indeed, he be 
 good enough to see him at all ! If Monsieur will permit me 
 to say as much, if /were in Monsieur's place, I " 
 
 " Enough ! Please to remember that you are valet, and I 
 am seigneur, and, as there is not much chance of our 
 
 * 'l"he r.reton name for January.
 
 "/r HA UNTS ME LIKE A PHANTOMr 1U3 
 
 changing places, you need not trouble to say what you 
 would do if you were in mine. Noiv^ will you tell me what 
 the man is like ? " 
 
 The old butler reddened at the sarcasm, but he trembled 
 also, and, with another bow, answered shortly — 
 
 " A short, big-boned fellow, Monsieur, with dark, straight 
 locks, sharp eyes, lantliorn jaws, and a cunning look about 
 him altogether; though he's smooth-tongued enough; he 
 looks as though he could be impudent; and, as for his 
 clothes, they're as ragged as " 
 
 ''A klaskervara?" asked the Count, interrupting him hastily. 
 
 " No, a pillawer ; Monsieur will excuse me for men- 
 tioning such a thing before him." 
 
 " A pillawer ? " The Count repeated the word slowly, 
 as though it did not fit in with some image, which had 
 evidently been called up in his mind by the above 
 description. " A pillawer ? Are you sure ? " 
 
 '' Monsieur may well ask that," replied the old butler, 
 indignantly. " The impudence of such a fellow to come 
 here — here to Chateau Kerdec'h ! It's scarcely credible. 
 But it's true, Monsieur, for he actually had the face to 
 ask the scullery-maid if she had any rags ! I'd have 
 slammed the door on his beggar's nose, if I'd been she."^ 
 
 " Hush, Antonn, not so loud ; you will disturb M. 
 le Chevalier and the ladies. Show the fellow into the 
 yellow cabinet. 1 will see him directly." 
 
 * It is considered an insult to a I'reton household to be asked for rags
 
 104 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " Monsieur is very good," answered the old servant, 
 with a look of surprise j he paused a moment, as if about 
 to say something more ; but a glance at his master's face 
 checked him, and he merely bowed and withdrew. 
 
 "Why should Monsieur see such a good-for-nothing? 
 He is not generally so ready to see such scum, solilo- 
 quised he, as he went reluctantly to carry the message. 
 
 "A pillawer?" muttered the Count, as he closed the 
 door and returned into the room. "Strange, He was 
 certainly a klaskervara, that one, and these bread-seekers 
 do not often change their condition. Can it be the 
 same, I wonder ? Parbleu ! it is unpleasant enough, but 
 I suppose I must see him." 
 
 " What is it, Raoul, my friend ? " asked the Countess, in 
 her soft voice, as her husband came back to the fire. 
 
 "Nothing, sweetheart, nothing," he returned, carelessly, 
 " only some peasant fellow who asks to speak with me — 
 come to beg, I suppose ! " 
 
 "But thou wilt not see him to-night, my friend? It is 
 late, and thou art tired. See, Raoul, we will send him 
 this " (she drew a small coin from an embroidered bag 
 which hung at her side). " Shall Aymon take it, my 
 friend ? Here, Aymon, and tell them to give him some 
 bread ; perhaps the poor fellow is starving, like the Paris 
 people." 
 
 The Count made a quick motion to stop the boy. 
 
 " No," he said, hastily, " I will go myself. Good night.
 
 ''IT HAUNTS ME LIKE A PHANTOMS 105 
 
 brother ; and do not wait for me, Glauda. Thou art right, 
 I aui tired, and will go straight to bed when this little 
 affair is seen to. Good night, sweetheart ; good night, 
 children ; sleep well, and don't dream of the Paris people, 
 little Renee." 
 
 He was gone before they could make another objection. 
 
 " How good he is," said the Countess, with a soft little 
 sigh, " how just ! There are not many seigneurs who 
 would disturb themselves for a peasant like that. Imitate 
 thy father, Aymon, my son ; thou couldst not have a better 
 example." 
 
 Meanwhile, grumbling to himself at what he considered 
 the unnecessary courtesy shown to one who had so insulted 
 the De Kerdec'hs as to ask for rags at their door, old 
 Antonn slowly descended to the lower regions. It is 
 certainly hard to go back to a man, carrying a message 
 which shows him to be in the right and you in the wrong, 
 after haughtily and scornfully assuring him of the impossi- 
 bility of such a contingency. And yet this is what the old 
 retainer — who had only been induced to carry the rag- 
 merchant's message by the certainty which he felt that it 
 would be in vain — now had to do. It must be confessed, 
 however, that he fulfilled his humiliating mission with the 
 greatest possible dignity. 
 
 " Tonyk^' he said, pompously, indicating the pillawer, 
 who still stood at the back door, while he addressed a 
 young lackey in the most careless tone at his command,
 
 100 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " show that fellow into the yellow cabinet ; M. le Comte 
 deigns to say that he will see him at his leisure." 
 
 " JVIiru'-iu !" exclaimed the lackey, who had been 
 passing the time in a little friendly chaff with the pretty 
 scullery-maid about the application which she had received 
 for rags, " So the master will see him, after all ! Well, well, 
 there's nothing like impudence. He wouldn't see my old 
 mother the other day, though, when she called about a 
 little reduction in her rent. Ay, ay; he's very j'list, is 
 M. le Comte. I should like to know what this one wants, 
 though ; dost think he's come to ask for thy hand, 
 Frangeza? He's of opinion thou hast a fair dowry, eh? 
 of rags .? Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " Hold thy tongue, great-mouth ! " " exclaimed Antonn, 
 crossly. '' Do thy duty, and don't talk so much." 
 
 •'Yes, yes, ill-temper lun.s all along the cord from top. to 
 bottom," growled Tonyk, as he turned to obey. '' When 
 the master's put out, the lackey is not long in getting the 
 benefit, be it at first or second-hand. Come, now, 
 Mr. Pillawer, don't keep me waiting. This way ! '' 
 
 " Don't keep me waiting, indeed ! He's kept Jiie long 
 enough, and in the cold, too, — curse these aristocrats ! " 
 nmttered the pillawer between his chattering teeth, as he 
 moved out of the freezing air, and shuffled his numb feet 
 along the passage and up a stone stair. " But I'll make 
 them pay for it — for ^hat and other little debts. Yes, yes, 
 
 * Rreton (7Ucnou'c/.-— imbecile.
 
 "/r HAUNTS ME LIKE A PHANTOM:' 107 
 
 Hey ! good evening, M. le Comte," added the vender of 
 rags, finishing his soliloquy aloud, as the lackey flung open 
 the door of the yellow cabinet and ushered him in. 
 
 The Count was already there, standing with his back 
 to the fire-place, where the wax lights were lit in the sconces 
 on either side. 
 
 " He's been in a big hurry to see Monsieur the Rag Mer- 
 chant, anyhow," thought Tonyk, looking curiously at the 
 pair, as they stood facing each other. They were, indeed, a 
 strange contrast. The Count, tall, slight, and delicately 
 finished, from the proudly-carried head, with its keen, bright 
 eyes and clear-cut features, down to the small, well-shaped 
 hands and feet. Aristocrat was stamped on the whole man, 
 his very clothing looked courtly from its perfect fit and 
 sober richness of tint and texture. 
 
 The rag-merchant's apparel was, perhaps, the first thing 
 about him to catch the eye ; it was such a complete 
 advertisement of his trade — soiled, threadbare, faded, and 
 ragged to the last degree. For the rest, x\ntonn had 
 described him foirly enough ; but his thick-set frame looked 
 shorter and thicker, his big bones and loose joints more 
 awkward and clumsy beside the fine, well-knit figure ot 
 the Count. 
 
 On one point, however, the low-born, ill-looking knave 
 had the advantage over the high-bred, handsome noble- 
 man ; and this did not fail to strike the sharp eyes of 
 the lackey, as he ushered in the visitor. The pillawer,
 
 108 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 a stranger on sufferance among surroundings he must have 
 beenquite unaccustomed to, looked cool, determined, and 
 self-possessed ; while the Count, albeit on his own ground, 
 and quite aware of conferring a favour by consenting to 
 see a supplicant of low degree at an untimely hour, 
 showed a degree of nervous uneasiness very unusual 
 with him. His keen eyes dilated with an expression 
 very like dismay as they met those of the pillawer, and 
 his face grew a shade paler. 
 
 Tonyk lingered in the doorway. 
 
 '■' Enough, fellow ! " exclaimed M. de Kerdec'h ; " You 
 may go; I will send for you if I want you/' 
 
 The tone was sharp — much sharper than Tonyk was 
 accustomed to hear from his well-bred master, and it 
 nettled him, 
 
 " Fellow, indeed !" he muttered, as he shut the door. 
 *' I may go — may I ? Thanks, M. le Comte, I'll not go 
 far, in case you should want me. I may as well give the 
 old mother some idea of how the gentry receive a peasant, 
 against the time when she has the honour of an inter- 
 view — supposing that ever comes ; and — well, I think I 
 smell a rat ! " 
 
 The man made a noisy exhibition of going away, then 
 stole back on tiptoe, bent his ear to the lock and listened. 
 
 The moderate curiosity which had touched the dignified 
 butler, was a thirst with the lackey, which the slightest 
 scent of a mystery drove him to quench by the first means
 
 ''IT HAUNTS ME LIKE A PHANTOM:' 109 
 
 which came to hand. But the door was strong and the 
 coveted stream filtered out but sparsely. Only now and 
 then, when, under the excitement of conversation, the 
 voices were raised from their usually low, cautious tone, 
 could Tonyk catch anything like intelligible sentences. 
 The first thing which gave him any satisfaction came 
 from the piilawer. 
 
 " Surely," he was saying, in rather an excited tone, — 
 " surely, Monsieur is not one to grudge a man his wages 
 when he does him a good turn ? — specially when the work 
 was such as did not quite square in with conscience. The 
 priest would have made me do " 
 
 Here there came a "• Imsh!'' from the seigneur, and the 
 voices sank again. But it was not for long. 
 
 " Was paid, did you say ? " exclaimed the pillawer's 
 voice, losing its respectful tone. " Yes, but how much ? 
 And these sort of jobs require a running account — I can tell 
 you that, sir. I told you I was wanting a little advance on 
 account of losses in trade ; and yet, though I've given you 
 no trouble for I don't know how long, you refuse. Well, 
 sir, I've got a tongue In my head— please to remember 
 that." 
 
 "Peace, villain!" answered the Count, in a voice less 
 under control than before. I told you last time you'd had 
 ten times what you were promised; so take yourself off at 
 once, and let me hear no more of you." 
 
 *' Then I'll coin my words."
 
 liO A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " You dare not. You know that " 
 
 The last words were inaudible. 
 
 " I'll risk it, though," came from the rag-vendor again, in 
 a tone of such insolence that Tonyk absolutely trembled 
 for the result. 
 
 " Look here, I give you till Monday, my fine gentleman, 
 and then if I don't get the money from you, I'll get it 
 from " 
 
 "Silence, fellow!" thundered the Count, and, imme- 
 diately after, the door was thrown open, so suddenly that 
 the eavesdropper would have been discovered in the act 
 had the master been cool enough to see him before he 
 slunk away down the dark passage opposite. 
 
 *' Antonn ! Tonyk ! Jean-Baptiste ! Where are you, 
 knaves?" called the master, in a loud voice. 
 
 '• That's right, Tonyk," he continued more quietly, as the 
 eavesdropper, eager to see the end, reappeared on the 
 scene, " Show this fellow out, and af once — d'ye hear?" 
 
 "Yes, Monsieur, certainly." 
 
 ^^ All revoir^ M. le Comte," said the indomitable rag- 
 merchant, with a low bow, as he followed the lackey, — 
 " Monsieur will do me the favour to remember our little 
 arrangement for Monday ? ( Vz, ca^ mi plaisirl " 
 
 He turned again at the head of the stairs, bowed again 
 with a meaning smile and an affectation of great courtesy 
 and respect, then disappeared in the wake of Tonyk. 
 
 M. de Kerdec'h continued standiniz on the threshold of
 
 ''IT HAUNTS ME LIKE A PHANTOMr 111 
 
 the yellew cabinet with hand raised and finger pointing in 
 the direction of the staircase, till his unwelcome visitor was 
 out of sight. Then, as the footsteps died away, he let his 
 hand fall at his side, the look of angry scorn gradually died 
 from his features, his proud, firm jaw dropped, and he put 
 his hand wearily to his forehead. 
 
 "Back again," he muttered, "back again! It haunts 
 me like a phantom, and yet it is so long ago ! But I must 
 make a stand against this vampire," he continued, recover- 
 ing himself. " I will not have him come troubling me 
 thus. I will end it at once and for ever. Why should / 
 care for his threats — /, Raoul de Kerdec'h ? No, no ; let 
 him threaten ; it is time to have done with such weakness." 
 
 He lit his candle with a hand whose tremor he stilled by 
 force of will, shut the door of the yellow cabinet, and 
 mounted the stair which led to the bedrooms with a firm 
 step, and a face as proudly controlled as those of any of 
 the ancestors who looked down at him from the walls.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 DOWN -TRODDEN. 
 
 " What made those holes and rents 
 In the dock's harsh swarth leaves, bruised as to baulk 
 All hope of greenness ? 'Tis a brute must walk 
 Pashing their life out, with a brute's intents." 
 
 R. Browning— " C/u7rfe Roland." 
 
 While the Count was refreshing himself by the warm 
 home-hearth and the pillawer waiting at his door, another 
 little scene was going on in the cold' snowy world, which 
 stretched beyond the castle-gates. 
 
 Cold, indeed, it was. The red glow of sunset had 
 died out from window and sky, and an ashen grey 
 shimmer, which was neither light nor darkness, was 
 creeping over the colourless earth. What can be colder 
 and more ghostly than the moon-dawn over the snow, 
 when a thin frosty veil is falling, like impalpable gossamer, 
 between earth and sky? 
 
 Cold, indeed, they seemed to feel it, those three figures 
 moving slowly along the lane outside the gates of Chateau 
 Kerdec'h. A tall, powerfully-built lad came first, leading 
 a pack-horse, strongly- made, like himself; but whether 
 boy or beast were gaunter and more hungry-looking, it 
 would have been hard to say. The steed was old and
 
 DO WN-TRODDEN. 113 
 
 broken- spirited ; his leader young, with the man's high 
 birth-right of will and courage, not perhaps quite quenched 
 from eye and lip and gait ; that was about all the dif- 
 ference. The little brown donkey, which brought up the 
 rear, toiling along bravely between its panniers through 
 the snow-choked lane, in spite of hungry look and cruel 
 marks of whip and staff seaming back and shoulders, 
 looked in better case, both as to mind and body, than 
 either of them. But, then, what can exhaust the dogged 
 patience and sturdy power of endurance of the little 
 despised creature, whose rough, brown back bears the 
 cross from birth to death, and which can thrive, like the 
 merry gold-finches, on the very thistles by the way? 
 
 Rags hung on each of the trio ; they filled the donkey's 
 panniers, they piled the old horse's back, they clung, 
 scanty and fluttering, like the last brown leaves in the 
 hedge-rows, to the gaunt form of the tall lad. Now and 
 then, as the evening wind rustled these latter with its 
 faint, freezing breath, and sent them slowly tumbling on to 
 the snow at his feet, the boy would put up his hand with a 
 strong shiver, as though he feared his tattered garments 
 would share a like fate. 
 
 The cold grew more and more intense, freezing the 
 breath of the three wayfarers in a strong white rime 
 wherever it touched, wringing the colour from the boy's 
 pale lips and fingers, and trying the broken wind of the 
 poor toiling animals ; and yet they struggled along, not 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 continuously forwards — there would at least have been some 
 hope in that, hope of a warmer goal at the journey's end — 
 but backwards and forwards, up and down, as though they 
 were waiting for someone, and the cold would not let them 
 do it passively. 
 
 The daylight faded more and more, the moonlight 
 gained on it, struggled with the haze and fell through it in 
 long blue beams on to the snow. Gigantic shadows stole 
 out of their lurking places and crept alongside the light, 
 and stars began to show in the dim infinite of the wintry 
 sky. The boy looked up at them now and then, and 
 sighed heavily ; looked towards the gate which shut in the 
 long beechen avenue of the chateau, and sighed again. A 
 clock struck in the great house, a dog barked ; he drew 
 the old horde's rein, and stopped a moment to listen ; but 
 no step crunched the hard snow under the beeches. 
 
 The boy drew a long, weary breath, and moved on 
 again. The old horse stumbled as it got again into 
 motion, and wheezed painfully as it recovered its footing ; 
 the little brown donkey, as though from sympathy, uttered 
 a long, melancholy bray. 
 
 Then the boy spoke, very softly, very pitifully, to his 
 fellow-sufferers. 
 
 "Poor Loizik, poor Mylio," he said, "you're tired, 
 aren't you, poor little ones ? Ah, yes, it's very cold, very 
 cold ! " 
 
 With his disengaged hand he stroked the old horse's
 
 DO WN-TRODDEX. Il5 
 
 drooping head, seeing which the little brown donkey 
 pressed up to him and leant its small cold muzzle against 
 his arm. 
 
 " Mylio, little one, is it thou ? " murmured the boy 
 again. " Poor little friend, I wish I had something for 
 thee, I wish " 
 
 He threw his arm round the little creature's brown neck^ 
 leant his head between the long, soft ears, and a deep, 
 heavy sigh, which was almost a moan, heaved his breast. 
 But the head was quickly lifted again, and a sign sent the 
 little animal back to his place. 
 
 " There," he said, in a more determined tone, " I won't 
 wait any longer ; he can't be coming back to-night. 
 Poor beasts, I won't have you killed with cold and 
 hunger, to please him ; no, not if he were a thousand 
 times my father !" He shuddered as the word passed 
 his lips ; then, turning his face from where the Chateau 
 de Kerdec'h stood dark against the evening sky, he 
 whistled to the animals to follow him and stepped on 
 quickly down the lane. 
 
 They had left the chateau some distance behind them, 
 and the walls and towers of an old town, cresting a steep 
 hill and girt by a moonlit river, were just beginning ta 
 loom through the uncertain light, when quick steps 
 followed hard after them on the snow-covered road. 
 Neitlier boy nor animals heard the sound, the criuicJi^ 
 n-unch of their own five pair of feet prevented that ; and
 
 lie A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 it was not till a snarling '^ Sac-r-r-r-e I" a.nd the crack of 
 a heavy whip cut through the frosty air, that they turned 
 their heads to see a dark figure coming nearer and nearer 
 over the snow. 
 
 A simultaneous tremor ran through each of the three 
 wayfarers at the sight. In the beasts of burden this was 
 produced by downright terror ; but the white face of the 
 lad betrayed a mixture of feelings, among which a strong 
 disgust was the most apparent. 
 
 ^^ Halte laV* exclaimed the disagreeable voice of the new- 
 -comer ; and, at the word of command, all three stopped. 
 
 *' Ah, ha, my fine lad, /'U teach thee to go off and 
 leave thy parent in the lurch I Didn't I tell thee to wait 
 for me? Didn't I, now? Sac7'el didst think it likely 
 I would want to travel all the way in this cursed snow 
 from Kerdec'h to Dinan on Shank's Nag, when I possess 
 those two brutes ? Diahle ! I had enough of that before 
 my blessed brother (heaven rest his soul !) got out of this 
 wicked world and left me his shoes. Ho/a, now, thou 
 great mouth, answer me if thou canst, or by Saint 
 Corneille " 
 
 He raised his whip and glared at the boy ; but the latter, 
 though a full head taller than his persecutor, and, even 
 at his young age, nearly as strong-looking, stood dumb 
 and white, as though struck by that inexplicable spell 
 which holds a poor animal helpless before a serpent's eye. 
 
 "Speak, then, thou imbecile! why didst not wait?"
 
 D WN- TR ODDEN. 1 1 7 
 
 "I did,'' faltered the boy. "I stayed far longer than 
 you told me ; but when I saw the poor animals " 
 
 '•Curse the animals, and thee, too!" exclaimed the 
 man, with an oath ; then, as though he had only been 
 waiting to force an answer before letting loose his passion, 
 he struck at the little donkey with his saboted foot and 
 sent the long lash of his heavy whip curling indiscrimately 
 round the boy and the old horse he was leading. 
 " There ! take that, and get along with you for a set of 
 useless beasts !" he said, savagely. " We'll never get into 
 Dinan to-night at this rate." 
 
 The little donkey took the kick quietly enough — poor 
 beast, it was used to such ! — it did no more than give out 
 a sobbing pant, and struggle forward as far out of its tor- 
 mentor's reach as the narrow track would allow. The 
 old horse too, though the blow fell on a place where the 
 bone had worn through the skin of its shoulder, causing 
 it to utter a scream of pain, attempted no retaliation. It 
 remained for the spirit of the human being to resent 
 the insult and injustice, more stinging even than the 
 cruel lash. 
 
 Wroth, even more for the poor animals than for him- 
 self, the lad faced round, white and trembling, raised 
 his clenched fist, and, with his dark eyes flashing fire, 
 took a step towards the angry man. 
 
 The latter drew back, and a quick change passed over 
 his mean features.
 
 lis A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " What 1 Christoplie I " he said, in an ahered voice. 
 *' What I wouldst strike thy father ? " 
 
 " The boy's hand fell immediately^, the fire died out of 
 his eyes, the proud defiance from his attitude, and he 
 stepped back to the horse's head, without a word. 
 
 "A//o/isI'^ said the master, as though satisfied with 
 his victory. *' Forward ! march ! Mylio here looks the 
 fresher of the two beasts ; he shall have the honour of 
 carrying me ! " 
 
 He laughed disagreeably at his own joke, vaulted on 
 to the little donkey behind the panniers, and, with 
 legs dangling down nearly to the snow, rode on, quite 
 indifferent to the way in which the animal laboured under 
 its double burden. With kicks from his wooden shoes 
 he forced the little creature through the snow at the side 
 of the road, and made it take the lead, while the old 
 pack-horse and his driver brought up the rear. 
 
 Poor Christophe ! it was only three years since he left 
 Carnac, and yet even Ninorc'h, his tender foster-mother, 
 would scarcely have known him now. 
 
 It was not so much the change in his outward ap- 
 pearance, great as that was ; for, from a stalwart, healthy 
 boy, he had grown into a pale, thin stripling, with a 
 frame too large for its coverings, fleshly as well as textile, 
 and a face from which cruel suffering had well - nigh 
 scored out the last traces of the careless child. Clean- 
 liness had given way to squalor, neatness to rags ; but
 
 DO WN-TRODDEN. 110 
 
 there was worse behind. The down-cast eyes, the droop- 
 ing head, the general depression of the once upright 
 figure, all betrayed a spirit which, if not yet quite 
 broken, was nearly so. Hope seemed to have vanished 
 utterly in the swamp of black despond ; and the onward 
 look, so long clung to even by those who have been 
 met by disappointment too often, when they hoped to 
 see happiness come smiling round the next turn in the 
 road of life, had given place to the downward glance, 
 which looks for nothing but to struggle through the 
 journey, and have done with it for ever more. . The 
 boy's whole being seemed to have been paralyzed, covred 
 lowered, by the fatal change which had come upon him 
 through the finding of a father. How he had longed 
 and prayed for this ! How he had envied his com- 
 panions what liad seemed such a priceless possession 1 
 Tne idea had been the day-dream of his childhood — it 
 had mingled itself with his holiest aspirations. To find 
 a father on earth, or in Paradise, had been his dearest 
 wish — the want of one, his bitterest sorrow. And now ! 
 It seemed to the boy that God had granted his prayer 
 in anger, in bitter irony, and had made of his heart's 
 desire the curse of his life. Finding his earthly father, 
 he seemed to have lost his heavenly one, for love and 
 trust were gone, and the breaking of the earthly image 
 had shattered for him the celestial prototype. Tlie 'Toly 
 idea of fatherhood had vanished, and in its place stood
 
 120 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 that of cruel, inexorable destiny, to which the boy lifted 
 his scared eyes in terror, not in love. Being a Breton, 
 the species of half - superstitious awe with which his 
 countrymen are wont to regard the idea of paternity, 
 even apart from the merits of the individual, still clung 
 to him : but it was as the Nessus shirt to Hercules, to 
 paralyze, not to warm. 
 
 Woe worth the parents who thus desecrate for God's 
 little ones the beautiful sacrament of fatherhood \ in fouling 
 its outward and visible sign, they too often blur for their 
 children the inward and spiritual image divinely reflected 
 there. Of many, indeed, it may be said that they know not 
 what they do ; but let them look to it, for of such offenders 
 it stands written that it were better for them that a mill- 
 stone were hanged about their necks, and that they were 
 drowned in the depths of the sea !
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A STROKE OF BUSINESS. 
 
 Ste. — " I thank thee for that jest ; here's a garment for't ; 
 Wit shall not go unrewarded while I am 
 King of this country." 
 
 Shakespeare.— " The Tempest." 
 
 " Ifo/d, Mr. Pillawer, is that you ? " 
 
 It was Sunday afternoon ; the bells of the various 
 churches in Dinan were jangling together for vespers ; the 
 old town was bright with holiday costumes, winter 
 sunshine, and hoar frost ; the ivy which clung to the old 
 ramparts and to Anne of Brittany's ancient castle, glittered 
 against the coping of snow ; the sky above was hard and 
 blue as /a/^ifs lazuli. But, among all this bright purity, 
 there was a speck, and a fit background for that speck. 
 The first was to be found in the squalid person of Matelinn 
 Gourven, lord of rags ; the second in the street where he 
 was oftenest to be found when in Dinan, the Rue du 
 Jerzual, emporium of tatters, rascality, bad smells, and 
 glorious picturesqueness. He was coming leisurely up this 
 ancient entrance to the high-seated town — (who could 
 toil up that steep ascent otherwise than leisurely ?) — and 
 was just nearing the old gateway, with its lamp-lit shrine.
 
 122 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 which leads to the upper town, when he received the 
 above salutation. 
 
 It came from a dapper lackey, in dark blue livery, with a 
 little battlemented tower embroidered in gold on his sleeve, 
 the cognizance, apparently, of some noble family. He was 
 strolling, leisurely also, along the street which crosses at 
 right angles the entrance to the Rue du Jerzual, and, 
 catching sight of the pillawer, paused at the corner to let 
 him come up. 
 
 ^^ Hold!"" he said again, as the rag-merchant, puffing a 
 little, stepped on to level ground — " Hola, M. le Pillawer, 
 do you want any rags to-day ? " 
 
 " Certainly, if I can get them," answered Matelinn, in 
 no wise abashed; "but, unluckily, they're all locked up 
 to-day. When finery's being flaunted, no one likes to have 
 rags to sell — so much the worse ! " 
 
 " Ha, ha !" laughed the lackey, with a glance at his own 
 spruce clothes ; " That's very true, M. le Pillawer. You 
 made a false move when you came to our place the other 
 day — why, man, we were just rigged out for the v*'inter ! 
 And to come to the very door of the Chateau for the cast- 
 offs 1 Did ye think we'd own to them there — specially the 
 women ? AVhy, Mr. Pillawer, ye're not up to your trade ! 
 ]S^ot that I'd object to do a stroke of business wiih you,"' 
 he added, lowering the already confidential voice in which 
 he had been conversing, and drawing his companion further 
 into the shadow. " I've several articles I'd not be ashamed
 
 • A STROKE OF BUSFYESS. J 23 
 
 to turn an honest penny by ; but it mubt be done under 
 the rose. I generally let old Solomon there have them (he 
 indicated an old-clothes shop hard by, with a wave of the 
 hand), but he becomes closer and closer every day, and — 
 Well, I'd rather do business with a compatriot than with a 
 Jew. Hey, M. le Pillawer?" 
 
 Matelinn's face, thoughtfully cast down in listening pose, 
 and shaded by his hand, would have been a study all this 
 time to any physiognomist who had been fortunate enough 
 to get a good view of it. Slightly puzzled it was at first, as 
 though he had not fully recognised his interlocutor ; then, 
 at the allusion to his late visit, a sharply observant look 
 came into the little grey eyes, which, as they fell upon the 
 embroidered badge, beamed with the intelligence of one 
 who catches a clue he has been feeling for. Gradually, as 
 the lackey went on, a covert satisfaction grew upon the 
 listener's face, which, on the hint at a wish to open busi- 
 ness negotiations, merged into a compound expression of 
 keen intentness: the eagerness of a trader who scents 
 profit, mingling with the still greater eagerness of the 
 intriguer who catches sight of the solution to some secret 
 enigma. 
 
 So absorbed was he in feeding his thoughts on the 
 provender just famished for them, that he did not notice 
 that this had ceased, and that the speaker was waiting for 
 an answer. 
 
 The lackey was conscious of having finished with a
 
 124 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 remarkably neat bit of flattery ; he felt he had conde- 
 scended a good deal in addressing such a brotherly phrase 
 to a pillawer, and expected that it would work propor- 
 tionately to his own advantage in the intended transaction. 
 He was not a little mortified, then, to find that the pillawer 
 made no reply, but continued in the same thoughtful 
 attitude ; his eyes on the ground, his face shaded by his 
 hand. 
 
 He waited a moment, then tapped the other on the 
 arm. 
 
 '' Hey ! Mr. Pillawer," he began, in a slightly nettled tone, 
 emphasied by a change to the less respectful pronoun. 
 
 '• Didst not hear me, man? Faith, thou art the queerest 
 sort of customer at the rag trade that / ever met. This 
 isn't the way to do business with gentlemen, I can tell thee 
 that much. 
 
 The pillawer started. 
 
 "Hey?" he said, in the hurried way of one suddenly 
 awakened from a dream, " Monsieur must pardon me for 
 the little abstraction. It was necessary that I should make 
 a small calculation before referring to Monsieur's very 
 obliging offer. It saves time, which, doubtless, with 
 Monsieur, is valuable." 
 
 He smiled slightly as he made this delicate allusion to 
 the lackey's hired services ; then glanced up quickly to see 
 if the little bit of tempting wit contained in the double ex- 
 tcu ^jr, had been bouc^ht too dearlv. But no, the exceed-
 
 A STROKE OF BUSIXESS. 125 
 
 ingly courteous form in which his words had been couched, 
 had not only completely salved the lackey's previously 
 wounded dignity, but had effectually prevented his feeling 
 the delicate sting of the pillavver's satire. 
 
 " Then it is settled," said the lackey, when an arrange- 
 ment, slightly more favourable to a customer than was the 
 usual practice of the rag-merchant to allow, had been con- 
 cluded " I will have the disused clothes of the 
 
 establishment conveyed into Dinan on Tuesday evening 
 after dark, and you will kindly return the amount in a 
 sealed packet addressed to M. Adam Tonyk. 
 
 I shall probably be engaged at that hour, and may not be 
 able to come myself, but you may trust the bearer. M. le 
 Comte returns that evening, you see, or I would certainly 
 do myself — ahem — the honour " 
 
 " M. le Comte ? Is he then absent ?" interrupted the 
 pillaw^er, with interest a little too visible. 
 
 " Absent ? Yes," answ^ered the other. " But that won't 
 matter; I'll arrange." 
 
 *' Ah ! Yes, yes ; certainly. But, that master of yours — 
 does he ride by way of Dinan ? You see, my friend, he 
 might not like to meet the little bale coming from his 
 chateau. All prejudice, of course; but, unfortunately, 
 there is a feeling against my business." 
 
 The lackey thought a moment. 
 
 " No, no," he answered, presently ; " I'll see to tliat. 
 It's quite true about his returning through Dinan. But
 
 12G A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 Madame expects him by seven o'clock, at latest, and I'll 
 not despatch the bale till after that; not that he would 
 notice it though — at least, not in the dark, I think. How- 
 ever, I agree with you, Mr. Pillawer; it's. always best to be 
 on the safe side." 
 
 " Does he ride alone ?" asked the pillawer, with apparent 
 indifference. 
 
 "Alone? Yes ; I believe so. What makes you ask?" 
 
 '• Oh, nothing. Curiosity, perhaps. The old Adam is 
 bound to be strong in an old-clothes-raan — eh, Monsieur?" 
 
 '' Ha 1 ha !" laughed the lackey, appreciating the sorry 
 joke fully to its maker's satisfaction. '* jNIonsieur is, then, 
 a wit ? Ha ! ha 1 that must be good oil to the old wheels. 
 Is it not so, Mr. Pillawer ?" 
 
 ''Well, yes; indifferently so," replied the rag-merchant. 
 '' And they need all the oil one can give them ; they do, 
 indeed. The old cart doesn't travel too quickly along the 
 road to wealth, I can tell you that, sir. Yes, yes, it's a 
 poor business, though it's an ancient inheritance, and as 
 such 02ig]it to be honourable — eh ?" 
 
 But the lackey did not catch the little joke this time ; 
 he had caught sight of something more attractive — viz., of 
 the plump figure and rosy face of his fellow seivant, Mdlle. 
 Franreza, scullery-maid at the chateau, coming along the 
 street on her way to vespers, and he did not care to chance 
 being seen by her in familiar conversation with an old- 
 clothes-man. He, therefore, took a hurried leave of his
 
 A STROKE OF BUSINESS. 127 
 
 disreputable-looking acquaintance, and hastened to leave 
 shadou- for sunshine, by quitting Matelinn Gourv^en and the 
 old archway, and going to meet bright little Franceza in 
 the main street. 
 
 Matelinn Gourven was not in such a hurry to go on his 
 way. The bells might ring for vespers long enough before 
 attracting him, unless he had some purpose to serve in 
 obeying their time-honoured call ; and there was no such 
 occasion to-day. Therefore, he stayed still under the 
 archway and meditated, forming half a thought here and 
 there into soft articulations, and letting it drop outside him, 
 as there was nobody near enough to pick it up. Being a 
 man of small education, he could always think more clearly 
 in this way ; it took from the vagueness of the process to 
 hear parts of it occasionally, and not to have it all going on 
 in the soundless dark within. 
 
 '•'So, so, he's gone away, has he? What does that mean, 
 I wonder?" Silent meditation followed for the space of 
 three minutes. 
 
 '•Won't be back till Tuesday evening ... I had 
 appoinfed Monday . . . Matelinn Gourven, it's plain 
 enough . . . -loon't see thee . . . JToji'f! Hal . . Call 
 again? . . . Lost time . . . From Dinan . . . Ha, yes. 
 Saint Samson ! . . . Stay, there's the other ; but . . . 
 Scarcely do . . . No money, probably. 
 
 Here there was a long pause, during which no words 
 dropped, the man seemed to be thinking too intently
 
 128 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 for that. He stood stock - still, with his hands in his 
 leathern belt, and his eyes fastened on no outward images, 
 yet (as the phrase is) fixed on the ground. Presently he 
 drew himself up, his eye flashed, and he rubbed his hands 
 together. 
 
 " Praised be Saint Samson !" he mui mured, piously, 
 *' May he be my aid ! Yes, yes, so be it. I'll have 
 him to myself, anyhow, and then . . . if . . . Well, 
 well, no need to arrange any more now ; we'll see how 
 things go." 
 
 The process was evidently over for the present. 
 
 The thinker shook himself, as though to free himself 
 entirely from a burden which had oppressed him ; looked 
 this way and that, to make sure he was not observed ; 
 stuck his thumbs in his leathern belt, and strolled on 
 again. 
 
 *' Christophe, lad," he said, coming presently upon a 
 boy sitting with downcast face under the leafless trees of 
 the Place Duguesclin. 
 
 "I've changed my plans; we'll do business here till 
 Tuesday evening, and then take to the tramp again. Let me 
 see — " he appeared to reflect — " eastwards, I think. 
 Hast seen to the beasts ?" 
 
 '' Yes." 
 
 The boy did not raise his eyes ; the monosyllable 
 dropped out half-sullenly, half- wearily. 
 
 " Good."
 
 A STROKE OF BUSINESS. 129 
 
 Matelinn stood a moment eyeing the lad attentively. 
 " Thou'rt pale my son," he said, presently, " it's but cold 
 comfort sitting here. See — (he took some small coins out 
 of his pouch and tossed them to the lad) — " take these to 
 Mother Lefevre's and get something to warm thee. Ca, ca^ 
 a2( 7'evoh; I'll come anon. 
 
 The words were more kindly said than usual ; the 
 thought for his son's comfort — so rare, alas ! with this 
 father — surprised and touched the desolate boy. He 
 glanced up quickly with a tear in his eye ; but the pillawer 
 had already strolled on again. The boy gathered up the 
 coins which had fallen on the snow at his feet, held them a 
 moment in his cold hand, and looked at them. The 
 gathered tear fell on the dirty copper ; but the tear was a 
 relief. It was as if this tiny ray of kindness, after weeks of 
 frost, had melted a corner of the ice which stiffened the 
 boy's heart against this man who called him son. Could it 
 be that the man was not all bad ? 
 
 '• Since he is my father," thought Christophe, rising 
 slowly and stamping his numb feet on the hard ground — 
 " since so it is, would it not be better to try and be more 
 like a son ? But oh ! my foster-father ! — oh, my mother ! 
 I would I had been content to know no parents but you I 
 
 Better the menhir, I think, than " an unconquerable 
 
 repulsion, more than the winter's cold, made him shiver 
 from head to foot ; but he checked himself. 
 
 " No," he murmured, " no, I musn't forget ; he has been 
 vor,. I. K
 
 130 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR.' 
 
 kind at last ; it was good to spare me these. Four sous ! 
 Yes, it mu8t have cost him something to part with them !" 
 In spite of his newly-formed resolve, the boy's lips curled 
 with an expression very like scorn, as he moved away from 
 under the leafless trees.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SAINT- SAM SON. 
 
 " Lost, lost I one luoment knelled the woe of years." 
 
 R. Browning.— "CfttWe Roland." 
 
 It was snowing again. The dry feathery flakes fell 
 slowly and sparsely to join their fellows on the frozen 
 ground. The sun had gone down, like a scarlet ball, 
 behind the leafless trees, and darkness was battling with 
 snow-light and moonshine for dominion over the wintry 
 world, when the little cavalcade left Dinan and turned 
 eastward. 
 
 It was Tuesday evening. To Christophe, to old 
 Loizik and little brown Alylio, this fact meant nothing, 
 except that it exchanged for them the perambulation of 
 dirty streets for the longer and rougher tramp along 
 country lanes. The dull, plodding round of daily duty 
 was the same to them, whether it fell on Tuesday, Wed- 
 nesday, Thursday, or any other day of the week. 
 
 But to the rag-merchant himself, riding silently on old 
 Loizik at the head of the little party, the day was 
 evidently a date of mark ; it mattered a good deal to him 
 that he should ride along this particular road on Tuesday
 
 132 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR 
 
 above all other days, and just at this hour and at no other. 
 This would have been evident, at least to anyone who, 
 holding the clue to some secret purpose in Matelinn's mind, 
 had taken the trouble to observe his actions. Three facts, 
 above all, might have indicated tliis. He had declined an 
 excellent opportunity for doing business, which had offered 
 itself in the town for the following day, and had refused 
 to leave Dinan in the morning, though he had been told 
 that several cottagers in a village w^hich lay on his 
 proposed route were selling their possessions and quitting 
 the neighbourhood that very afternoon. Moreover — a 
 very significant fact — he had left Dinan without the bale 
 from Chateau Kerdec'h, and an hour at least before 
 the time at which it could possibly be expected. He 
 was unusually silent and thoughtful, too, as he rode along 
 on the old pack-horse, abstaining botli from the oaths 
 and blows, to which those under him were but too well 
 accustomed. 
 
 Christophe observed this latter indication, and won- 
 dered at it a little in the languid way usual to those in 
 whom interest and expectation have been well-nigh 
 smothered under the hopeless routine of an uncongenial 
 and monotonous life. Of the other and more significant 
 facts he knew nothing, Matelinn Gourven being too 
 close a man of business to confide any more of his affairs 
 than was absolutely necessary to any one — even his 
 own son.
 
 SJ INT-SAMSON. 133 
 
 CnincJi^ crunch^ crunch — the tread of their own footsteps 
 over the frozen snow was the only sound which broke 
 the absolute silence, except for the slight wheezing of 
 the pillawer's broken-winded steed, less audible than 
 usi;^l, for there were little or no rags on his back besides 
 those which covered his rider. Tramp, tramp, tramps — 
 they had gone on like this for nearly an hour, and 
 Christophe had gone back in thought to his old home, 
 and was wandering among the little blue gentians 
 and golden furze on Carnac Heath with little Genofa, 
 while his feet plodded mechanically over the snowy roads 
 of northern Brittany, so far away ; when old Loizik, coming 
 suddenly to a halt, checked tlie whole cavalcade. 
 
 The boy starred from his sunny dream, and awoke to the 
 cold, stern reality of his present surroundings. They were 
 nearing a gate in the hedge where a rough bridle-road led 
 off by a short cut to the Chateau de Kerdec'h and the 
 country beyond. Clumps of dark fir-trees, the outposts of 
 a little black forest further back, skirted the road, and hid 
 the progress of the bridle-path, which, after the first few 
 yards, entirely lost itself among their dirk red boles and 
 snow-laden boughs. 
 
 There was a weird mystery, a weariness about the place, 
 which made Christophe shudder involuntarily as he looked 
 at it and wondered if their road led through there. He 
 expected to see the pillawer turn and order him to open 
 the gate, or else make some remark about the way they
 
 134 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 should take ; but no, Loizik stood stock-still, with his 
 rider crouching forward somewhat over his neck, looking 
 neither to right nor left. 
 
 The lad looked at them in growing astonishment ; waited 
 a minute, and was just going to hazard a question (which, 
 by the by, he had discovered before this 7vas rather a 
 hazardous experiment), when a low groan struck upon his 
 ear. 
 
 Cliristophe started, looked to this side and that — before, 
 behind ; but there was no one in sight. Yes, there was no 
 room for doubt, it must have come from the pillawer. He 
 left loose of Mylio's bridle, and went up to where the old 
 horse was standing in the road. 
 
 The rag-merchant was leaning forward on the pack- 
 saddle, his two hands grasping the pommel ; his lips were 
 firmly compressed, his face bent down ; otherwise, he 
 looked much as usual. 
 
 Again came the low groan. 
 
 " What is it ?" asked the lad, in a startled voice. 
 
 The pillawer made no answer. 
 
 " What is it, father?" he asked again, his voice trembling, 
 in spite of him, as he used the unaccustomed name. It 
 was an effort to use it ; but the effort was repaid. 
 
 The pillawer turned his head slightly. 
 
 " I am ill, my boy," he said, — "ill. This cursed cold has 
 brought on the spasms, and till they pass, I can ride no 
 further. Open tb.e gate, we will go into the wood. I
 
 > SAINT-SAMSON. 135 
 
 know a place where 'tis more sheltered ; I will sit down 
 there, and as for thee, thou shalt tether the beasts behind 
 the trees, and then look out for someone passing. I must 
 have help if thou art not to be left fatherless in the wide 
 world, poor child." 
 
 What was there about these last words to send such a 
 disagreeable thrill through the lad's blood ? He could not 
 tell. In the mouth of any other father they would have 
 been touching words ; but, somehow, it was no s) mpathetic 
 feeling which rose to meet them. There was no time for 
 self-questioning ; only the lad was conscious of this strange 
 up-rising within him, and his heart revolted against it as 
 quickly. He was horrified with himself, and the re-action 
 made him more ready to give the man the attention of a 
 son than he had ever been before. 
 
 He threw erne strong young arm around the bent form 
 on the old pack-horse, took the reins in his other hand,, 
 spoke a word or two of encouragement, whistled to the 
 donkey to follow, and moved up to the gate. 
 
 This he set open, and led the old horse carefully over 
 the rough path within, the little donkey following close by 
 all the time, as though half-afraid of being left behind in 
 the dim mysterious shades among which they were passing. 
 
 A few minutes careful advance brought them to a clump 
 of fir-trees, standing together on the edge of a sort of 
 hollow on one side of the path. From the path itself you 
 could not distinctly see the interior of this shaded hollow ;
 
 13G A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 but the rag-merchant apparently knew it well, for he made 
 a sign for Christophe to halt and to help him down from 
 old Loizik's back. Leaning agamst a tree, he directed the 
 lad to tether the beasts where they would be out of sight, 
 and yet within easy reach when wanted ; motioned to him 
 to give him his arm, and led the way v/ith faltering steps 
 among the trees to the edge of the little hollow. Here 
 Christophe saw a strange sight. 
 
 A ray of moonlight, coming from the other side where 
 the ground was more open, streamed in, like a long thread 
 of silver, among the dark blue shadows, and lit up the 
 interior of n shallow dip in the ground, lined with snow, 
 but sprinkled thickly over with brown fir-needles from the 
 trees which shaded its brim. At the bottom, and in the 
 very centre of the hollow, was one of those gigantic 
 columns, such as the lad knew so well in his early home, 
 only larger, more massive than most of those he was 
 accustomed to ; looking more imposing, more titanic, 
 perhaps from the fact that it had no companions : it was 
 quite alone — lord of the glade, solitary in this silent solitude. 
 
 Neither was it standing erect, as is generally the case 
 with menhirs, but was leaning far out of the perpendi- 
 cular, bowed with its own weight towards the ground, like 
 a giant full of years. The moonlight struck upon its tall 
 grey head, and on the oiher side stretched a long black 
 shadow, double its own height, reaching right across and 
 up the slope of the woodland hollow which formed the .
 
 SAINT-SAMSON. 137 
 
 shrine for this old-world saint : for it v/as a baptized 
 menhir, purified from its heathen uses by holy water, and 
 sanctified with a saintly name. 
 
 '* Saint-Samson," murmured the pillawer, as his son led 
 him down into the liollow. "Ay, ay, it is well." 
 
 " There, lad," he added presently, '• I will sit down 
 here where I can lean my back against the stone. And 
 now listen to me, listen carefully. Dost hear, lad?" 
 
 The voice was stronger again ; the pillawer looked more 
 like himself. The boy stood attention. 
 
 " Go thou back to the gate and wait there till thou canst 
 see a traveller coming along. (The saints will send one to 
 a poor sufferer, I know that.) But listen, eveyy traveller 
 won't do ; there be men about in these troublesome times 
 would rather mar than mend. The moon is getting up 
 nicely now, and thou canst see a good stretch of road. 
 Directly a traveller comes in sight, step up here and lell 
 me whether it be man or woman, one or many, and I will 
 give thee further directions. Now go, my son, and — 
 may it bring us a blessing ! " 
 
 The last words were added in a changed tone, with a 
 curious gurgle of the throat. 
 
 "Hasten, my son, hasten !" called the pillawer after him, 
 as the lad turned away. " Hasten, for the love of all the 
 saints. Ah, this pain !" 
 
 The lad did as he was bid. He went back to where the 
 path turned oft" from the main road, leaned his arms on the
 
 13S A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 toj) of the gate and looked earnestly and anxiously, now 
 along the way they had come, then down the short piece of 
 road which was all that was visible in the contrary 
 direction. 
 
 Taken by surprise, alarmed and softened by the sudden 
 illness of the hitherto inexhaustable pillawer, he had obeyed 
 his directions without question ; but, as he waited there in 
 the cold, white silence, it struck hira that there was some- 
 thing very strange about the entire arrangement. 
 
 Why could not he himself have helped his father to pro- 
 ceed to the next village, without waiting for the chance of 
 other assistance, which, at that time in the evening, might 
 never come ? If it were medicine he were waiting for, was 
 a traveller likely to have it ? And was a seat on the cold 
 ground a reasonable cure fur spasms, brought on by the 
 severity of the weather? 
 
 He had almost made up his mind to return to the 
 pillawer and persuade him to mount Loizik again and go 
 on slowly towards some shelter better than that of the 
 old menhir, when a slight sound in the distance made 
 him pause, and presently, from the direction of Dinan, 
 he could discern a figure on horseback, riding slowly 
 along the frozen road. 
 
 Christophe shaded his eyes with his hand, waited a 
 moment to allow of a nearer view, satisfied himself that 
 the new-comer was a man, and, so far as he could tell, 
 a gentleman too ; took in such other details as could be
 
 SAINT-SAMSON. lO.i 
 
 seen at tke distance and in the light then to be ha<1, 
 and, having done this, stepped back quickly to the hollow 
 where he had left the pillawer. 
 
 Matelinn looked up quickly as the lad came near, 
 seemed about to rise, cliecked himself, and asked in a 
 sharp, eager tone whether anyone were coming. Chris- 
 tophe answered him, was again questioned, and then, 
 the replies appearing satisfactory, was sent back to stoj) 
 the horseman and ask for help. 
 
 " Say it is for a man in mortal extremity," added the 
 pillawer in the same quick tone. " Conjure him to come 
 in the name of the blessed saints ; do not lose a moment, 
 lad, and waste no time in answering questions if he should 
 put any ; he might object, too, to helping a pillawer — 
 there arc such folk, even among Christians — more's the 
 pity ! Hurry, lad, I say, I hear the horse coming near ; 
 if he should pass — ah ! " 
 
 He half-raised himself again, and his voice, though 
 low-pitched, became strangely hurried and eager as he 
 concluded. Christophe thought that he must be in great 
 suffering, and his voice also had a quick, appealing tone, 
 as he ran back to the gate and accosted the horseman 
 who now drew near. 
 
 '' For God's sake, sir," he cried, opening still further 
 the already half-opened gate. "For God's sake, stop and 
 help us ! He will die, I do believe he will, if he is left 
 any longer there in the cold, and I "
 
 140 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR 
 
 He did not conclude, for the fiery grey Normandy 
 horse, which the gentleman rode, started violently at the 
 unexpected apparition, reared, darted forward, and then, 
 checked by the strong hand of its rider, stopped as 
 suddenly, snorting and trembling, by the gate. 
 
 "What is it? What do you want?" asked the horse- 
 man shortly, with attention evidently divided between his 
 restive steed and the tall, ragged boy who stood in the 
 way. 
 
 "It is a sick man, Alonsitur; he lies down there in sore 
 need of help. Will Monsieur give it?" 
 
 "A sick man?" repeated the gentleman, half doubtfully, 
 eyeing Christophe's tattered garments, and then glancing 
 back at his impatient horse, — "A sick man, you say? 
 What can I do for him? Shall I ride on and send help?" 
 
 *' Oh, no, Monsieur, he is in extremity ; he cannot wait. 
 For pity's sake, Monsieur," continued the lad still more 
 urgently, as the gentleman still appeared to hesitate — " for 
 pity's sake come to him at once — he is my father." 
 
 The last words were ndded witli an effort, as if to 
 strengthen the appeal; and the boy fixed his dark eyes 
 entreatingly on the traveller. 
 
 "Your father? My lad, I would willingly help you, 
 but — my horse ? I don't know whether he would let you 
 hold him. Hadn't I better ride on and send " 
 
 "For God's sake, Monsieur, come at once," said the lad, 
 laying his hand on the horse's rein. " He might die before
 
 SAINT-SAMSON. 1 \ I 
 
 you could send help, and then— God help us, we should' 
 have his life on our hands ! " he added, hastily, using the 
 plural, as though struck by a sudden thought which his 
 hearer could not fathom. " Yes, sir, I can hold your horse, 
 or we can tether him ? " 
 
 " No, he would not stand ; don't you see how frightened 
 he is? You must hold him — that is, if you can." 
 
 As he spoke, the gentleman dismounted, patted the 
 trembling horse, said a few encouraging words to 
 him, and throwing the bridle over his arm, turned to 
 Christophe. 
 
 " ]S"ow, then, where is your father ? Lead on j you 
 shall take the reins when we get there." 
 
 The lad pointed towards the group of fir-trees. 
 
 "It is there. Monsieur; quite close," he said; and, 
 entering the field, led the way towards the hollow. 
 
 The horse started again, and trembled more violently as 
 he saw the long black shadows cast by the trees upon the 
 snow, and felt the chilly gloom of the pine-wood closing 
 round him, and it required all his master's powers of 
 persuasion, added to a firm will, which he .evidently 
 knew could not lightly be resisted, to induce him to go 
 forward. 
 
 It was, indeed, a weird scene, and the gentleman, as 
 well as his steed, drew up suddenly with a start as they 
 came in sight of the menhir of Saint- Samson, rising tall 
 and shadowy from the half-lit gloom of the hollow. The
 
 142 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 figure of the pillawer was not visible from where they 
 stood. 
 
 Christophe stopped too, and glanced half doubtfully 
 over the edge. 
 
 What is this ? " asked the gentleman hastily, as though 
 vexed with himself for the nameless fear his start had 
 betrayed. " What is this ? I see no sick man. Surely 
 you are not seeking to deceive me ? If I thought " 
 
 "How can Monsieur think so?" exclaimed the boy, 
 half indignantly, half reproachfully. *' See, Monsieur" — 
 (he had moved onward a few steps and was pointing down 
 into the hollow) — " See, Monsieur, there he is. Father, 
 I have brought help." 
 
 As the lad spoke, he ran down the slope and bent over a 
 dark object, which the watcher from above could now 
 perceive in the shadow of the menhir. 
 
 A deep groan sounded from the hollow, startling a night- 
 bird which flew screaming from the dark branches of a fir- 
 tree, sending down a shower of frozen snow on the heads of 
 those below. 
 
 The grey Normandy horse neighed with alarm, and 
 tugged wildly at the rein. Its master was still engaged in 
 quieting it, when Christophe came out of the hollow and 
 stood before him. 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur," he said, and there was a tone in the 
 voice which made the stranger turn quickly and look 
 fixedly at him ; " Ah, IMonsieur, let me hold the horse now,
 
 SAINT-SAMSON. 143 
 
 and will you go and see if you can do any good to him 
 down tliere — my father? He asks for you, and oh, 
 Monsieur, he seems in such pain !" 
 
 Instead of answering, the stranger still continued his 
 earnest gaze. 
 
 ** Have I seen you before ?" he asked presently. " I 
 seem to know your voice." 
 
 " No, Monsieur, I think not. But, oh ! don't delay ; he 
 won't let me do anything, and I fear he will die if he lies 
 there in the cold any longer. 
 
 " Very well," answered the other, resisting the strange 
 reluctance he felt to enter the shadowy hollow, — " I will go 
 down and examine your father, and then come back and 
 speak to you about him, and we will see what can be done. 
 Here, you must hold my grey — see, this way. Be gentle 
 with him mind, but keep a firm hold of the reins — so, ho, 
 gently !" as the horse still continued to back away from the 
 hollow. "It's the menhir there that's frightening him, I 
 think ; take him out of the shadow, and lead him up and 
 down in the moonlight till I come back ; I won't be long." 
 
 Giving the rein to Christophe, the gentleman turned 
 away, and went down into the hollow. 
 
 At first the lad was too much occupied with the still- 
 restive horse to spare much attention for what was going on 
 by the old menhir. He could hear voices now and then, 
 but the trampling of the gr^y prevented him from dis- 
 tinguishing what was said, even before he had got beyond
 
 J 11 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 the shade of the fir-trees. Once there, he led the creature 
 gently up and down the bit of road between the wood and 
 the gate, patting its quivering neck and speaking to it in 
 low, caressing tones, till gradually it calmed down, and 
 ceased capering and pulling at the rein. Then Christophe 
 paused a moment to listen. It struck him that the 
 gentleman was long in returning, and — yes, surely the 
 voices were rather loud. It seemed more like an angry 
 discussion than a consultation between a man struck down 
 by sickness and one who had come to his aid. Surely, to 
 be able to speak in so strong a voice, the pillawer must 
 already be much better ? 
 
 Christophe turned the horse's head again in the direction 
 of the menhir, and was nearing the belt of shade when a 
 faint cry, followed by a deep groan, struck on the night air, 
 causing the grey to plunge violently and trample again, 
 and sending a cold shiver through the boy's heart. 
 
 What was it ? 
 
 Could the pillawer indeed be dying ? 
 
 The renewed excitement of the horse he was holding 
 hindered the lad, during the next few minutes, from 
 stopping to listen again, and he had thus no time to analyze 
 the feeling — half relief, half dread — which had rushed upon 
 him as this idea suggested itself to his mind. 
 
 If relief had been uppermost it was soon disappointed 
 for, no sooner had he succeeded in reducing his charge once 
 more to a state of control, than he perceived the pillawer
 
 SAINT-SAMSON. 145 
 
 himself emerging from the shade, mounted on the old 
 pack-horse and leading the donkey. 
 
 Christophe stared. Such a sudden recovery was almost 
 too wonderful to be believed. Surely the man who had 
 wrought it could have been none other than a very 
 celebrated doctor. 
 
 It is true, the pillawer looked very pale, his eye was 
 wild, and there was a look of trembling nervousness 
 about his whole person, as he rode out into the moonlight, 
 glancing back hurriedly over his shoulder as he did so. 
 This, however, was as nothing ; such an attack as he had 
 had, was enough, thought Christophe, to upset the 
 strongest nerves. Really the stranger had done wonders. 
 But — where was he ? 
 
 Christophe took his eyes a moment from the advancing 
 pillawer, and, like him, gazed also towards the wood ; 
 but he could see no one. 
 
 Matelinn started violently as he came up with the lad, 
 as though he had not yet perceived him, and had forgotten 
 that he was present. 
 
 He stopped his horse, reflected a moment, and then 
 said hurriedly, "Christophe, my son, is that thou?" 
 
 *' Yes," answered the lad in growing astonishment, — 
 "You are then better? The gentleman " 
 
 " Yes, yes," struck in the pillawer, interrupting him hastily, 
 — " Yes, yes, much better — I — that is he — he bled me, you 
 
 see; and — and — it has nearly restored me. Thanks " 
 
 vou I. L
 
 14G A CHILD OF 2HE MENHIR. 
 
 He did not go on with his pious ejaculation ; it seemed 
 to stick in his throat. 
 
 " Come," he added, presently, — " let us be going." 
 
 Pie kicked old Loizik with his heels, and the pack-horse 
 went slowly on. 
 
 " But the gentleman," said Christophe, " Where is he ? 
 I have his horse, I can't go till he comes." 
 
 The pillawer drew rein again, glanced over his shoulder, 
 seemed to reflect once more, and then said : 
 
 '' Yes, you can wait if you like. He bled me, you 
 see, as I told you, and then — tiien he went away to get 
 some remedies, down the cait-track yonder — he said there 
 was a short cut. He said, though, that if I felt better 
 meantime, I'd best move on ; it was cold you see, and 
 the spasms — In short I mustn't stop; it's — it's as much 
 as my life is worth. No, not that ; I didn't quite mean 
 that. There, I'm going; you can do as you like. He 
 won't be long, I daresay; and if he is— Let me see, what 
 did he say? Oh, that you might shut the gate, ride the 
 horse a mile or so down the road, and then turn him 
 loose, he knows his way home — these pampered brutes all 
 do. Milk tonnaires, lad ! keep the beast oft' me, can't 
 you?" he cried in a shrill voice, as the grey suddenly 
 kicked up its heels perilously near to Loizik's head, — 
 ''Would you be the death of your own father? — Your o-uni 
 father^ mind ; never forget that, whatever may happen. 
 Well, you know where to follow me. Mind, shut the gate!"
 
 SAINT-SAMSON. 147 
 
 The pillawer called this last sentence over his shoulder, 
 as he rode through, and turned down the main road, 
 followed by the donkey. 
 
 Christophe was left behind with the fiery grey, which had 
 become so restive again that he utterly refused to stand, 
 and the lad had to keep him in constant motion, up and 
 down, up and down the snowy path, till time and space 
 seemed interminable, and body and mind were alike weary; 
 the one with unceasing exertion, the other from puzzling 
 over the strange events of this strange evening. 
 
 What was the meaning of tha pillawer's strange words? 
 what of his still more wonderful recovery ? and what had 
 become of the stranger all this time ? — was he never coming 
 back ? 
 
 Christophe looked again for the twentieth time to where 
 the cart-road vanished from sight among the gloom of the 
 fir-trees ; but nothing was to be seen, nothing but the trees 
 themselves, and their shadows, which now began to move 
 a little, as a light breeze rose, and gently stirred the 
 branches. This movement, the utter loneliness, and long 
 watching, awoke a nervous feeling in the bosom of the lad. 
 The shadows seemed to take strange forms, and he started 
 two or three times, thinking that something was coming to 
 him down the path. A nameless terror, as at an unseen 
 presence in the wood, took possesion of hirn, and yet he 
 could not resolve to leave his charge. Hush, what was 
 that ? Did someone sigh, or was it only the wind ?
 
 148 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 With heart beating in great throbs, Christophe led the 
 grey close up to the margin of the wood. Again a sound 
 broke the stillness, a sound which was not the wind. 
 It seemed like a hollow groan rising out of the shadows 
 which shaded the base of the old menhir. 
 
 Superstition is strong in the Celtic race, strongest of all, 
 perhaps, in that portion of it which inhabits the more 
 remote parts of Brittany. The peculiar circumstances at- 
 tending his birth and breeding, as well as the congenial 
 soil of his individual character, had given it a hold on the 
 Child of the Menhir, more tenacious even than on most of 
 his countrymen. 
 
 For some moments he felt convinced that he had just had 
 an interview with the devil himself, who, encouraged by 
 the unfilial feelings he was conscious of having cherished, 
 had assumed the form of the pillawer to tempt him away 
 from his duty. Yes, it must be so ; Matelinn Gourven still 
 lay groaning -in the hollow, and in a few moments more 
 he might have left him to perish. 
 
 But the horse — the stranger ? For an instant everytliing 
 began to assume a semblance of unreality, and, but for a 
 very material bite in the arm, which the Normandy horse, 
 conscious of the loosened rein, suddenly turned to inflict, 
 Christophe might have ended by persuading himself that 
 the steed he held was nothing but a spectre. 
 
 This, however, proved a salutary check to his nervous 
 fancies ; and he determined, come what would, to try and
 
 SAINT-SAAISON. 149 
 
 tether the animal to the nearest tree, and go down into the 
 hollow to learn the worst. 
 
 Binding the grey as firmly as circumstances would 
 allow, the lad crossed himself, murmured an Ave^ and, 
 mastering his nervousness as best he could, descended 
 to the spot where the pillawer had lain. There was 
 nothing there. 
 
 The lad skirted the giant stone with slow, cautious steps, 
 stooping to examine the ground as he went. The moon 
 had shifted her position a little in the interval, but there 
 was still sufficient light at the bottom of the hollow to 
 reveal most of its surface to a close observer. There were 
 footprints in several places ; at one, the snow had been a 
 good deal trampled ; but still Christophe could see no 
 living object • the ancient monument seemed to be the sole 
 occupant of the spot. 
 
 The boy had nearly finished his inspection, and was 
 about to turn away, when, where the shades fell thickest, 
 his foot struck against something soft, and again came the 
 sighing groan — this time close to his ear. 
 
 Christophe started back ; a cold dew broke out on his 
 brow, and his heart seemed to stop, and then go on again 
 with suffocating rapidity. 
 
 " Saint Corneille, be my succour ! " he murmured, — 
 "What is this? Can it be he?" 
 
 Controlling himself with a great effort, he bent more 
 closely over the object on the ground, and could just
 
 150 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 make out the outline of a human body ; the light was too 
 -lim to distinguish anything further. 
 
 The lad's first impulse was to drag it out into the more 
 illumined part of the hollow and satisfy himself at once 
 whether it were the pillawer or not ; to his excited 
 imagination, the uncertainty involved too much ghastly 
 horror to allow of his enduring it for a moment more. 
 Following this impulse, he put his hands under the arms 
 of the body, and, in another instant had placed it where 
 a dim moonbeam, filtering through the dark branches, 
 fell full on the upturned face. It was not the pillawer. 
 
 Those clearly-cut, high-bred features never belonged 
 to a rag-merchant. At the first glance Christophe 
 recognised the owner of the grey. 
 
 There are moments in the lives of some into which the 
 bitterness of years seems to be compressed. Misery, such 
 as, perhaps, does not come to one man in the whole of 
 his three-score years and ten, is meted to another in a 
 second of time, falling upon his head with a weight vrhich 
 crushes out youth while it is yet tender, blasting the 
 green shoots of life with the suddenness of scathing 
 lightning. Moments there are which suffice to poison 
 the sources of life so that the stream of after years may 
 never flow bright again ; which blight all chances of 
 happiness, leaving the whole nature warped and riven 
 well-nigh hopelessly. Faith forbids us to omit that saving 
 '' well-nigh." God be thanked, some do overcome these
 
 SAINT-SAMSON. 1 5 1 
 
 earthquake shocks, especially when the cause lies in the 
 fault of another rather than in themselves ; but^wher^ one is 
 victorious, a score are vanquished. Shall we judge them — 
 we who have been spared the ordeal ? God help them ! 
 He only knows the 'rial, He only can be their judge. 
 
 Such a moment it was that came to Ilanilet when the 
 lips of one no longer among the living, revealed to him 
 the secret which was to burden his whole life; "wiping 
 off all trivia], fond records " from memory's table, to make 
 room for one single black inscription. 
 
 Such a moment came now to Christophe, the Child of 
 the Menhir. 
 
 It hardly needed the wound in the breast, from which 
 dark drops of blood oozed slowly, to show that there had 
 been foul play ; it hardly needed a backward thought 
 over the events of the evening to show whose hand had 
 dealt the blow. That instant revealed it all, past all 
 doubt. 
 
 Not that the lad could realize all the horror contained 
 in this truth at the moment when his eyes first fell upon 
 the face of the murdered man. The shock of the 
 sudden discovery was too great to allow his mind full 
 play ; and the hope, soon* to fade on nearer inspection, 
 that the wound might not be unto death, was still there. 
 Outward things, connected with^the victim of this a\\ful 
 crime, must still occupy him, drawing him, as it were, out 
 of himself by their urgent importunity, as he stood there,-
 
 152 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 holding the wounded man and watching his fast-fleeting 
 breath ; but the dull agony of consciousness, not yet felt 
 out — the horror, which as yet there was no leisure to face — 
 underlaid them all. 
 
 Presently the half-closed eyes opened, and Christophe 
 felt them turn on him with a look of keen reproach. 
 
 There was an effort to speak, an awful, gasping effort, 
 which ended, not in words, but in a rush of blood from 
 the pale lips ; then the head fell back, and all was over. 
 
 Christophe laid the body down, and as he drew out the 
 hands which had supported it, a strange sensation about 
 them made him hold them up to the moonlight. 
 
 They were wet with blood. 
 
 This only was needed to make the lurking horror 
 break loose. 'J he lad shuddered like one in an ague-fit, 
 uttered a piercing cry, and fled from the hollow. 
 
 As he gained the higher ground, a dark object rushed 
 snorting before him, sprang through the gate, and dis- 
 appeared down the road, with the fleetness of the wind. 
 It was the grey Normandy horse, which, alarmed by the 
 cry, had broken his bridle and escaped. 
 
 Christophe followed him ; but, by a strange impulse 
 which he could not have explained, he paused at the 
 gate, shut it carefully, and then rushed on again as 
 though pursued by the terrors of a Cain.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 A DARK HOUR. 
 
 " My heart turned sick, my brain grew sore, 
 And throbbed awhile, then beat no more : 
 The skies spun like a mighty wheel ; 
 1 saw the trees like drunkards reel. 
 And a slight flash sprang o'er my eyes, 
 Which saw no further : he who dies 
 Can die no more than then I died." 
 
 Byko.m— " Mazeppa.' 
 
 How long he continued to fly, Christophe never knew. 
 The unreasoning terror that was upon him took away all 
 consciousness of time and space. 
 
 To put as much distance as possible between himself 
 and the horrors of the menhir was the idea uppermost in 
 his mind, if idea it could be called ; and it drove him on 
 and on through the night, with a tyranny not to be 
 resisted. 
 
 Men have lost their wits from a shock less than that 
 which Christophe had sustained; and, for the time at 
 least, the lad's mind was off its balance. 
 
 His mad flight was ended by his foot striking against a 
 stone, or some otlier hard object, and he was thrown 
 violently to the ground, striking his head as he fell. 
 
 For a long time he lay there insensible, then cold or
 
 154 A CHILD OF TJIE MENHIR. 
 
 pain, or a mixture of both, brought back a degree cf 
 consciousness, and he sat up and looked around. 
 
 It was still moonlight, no sign of dawn had yet 
 appeared in the east ; surely winter night had never 
 been so long. 
 
 The lad rose slowly and painfully. His limbs were 
 numb with cold ; his head ached in dull heavy throbs. 
 He felt very weary, yet, almost mechanically he began to 
 walk forward, for the sense of flight was still upon him. 
 
 On and on he went, scarcely more than half conscious 
 all the while, till at last a time arrived when rest became 
 absolutely necessary; without it he could go no further. 
 
 The instinctive pause roused him a little. He looked 
 around. The day was dawning at last. The cold light 
 of a winter's morning was spreading over the eastern sky, 
 and the moon was fading before it. The road had left 
 the fir plantations, and led, bleak and solitary, over a 
 barren moor. A few paces from where the lad was 
 standing was a place where four ways met, and mark- 
 ing it, as is often the case in Brittany, was an ancient 
 stone cross with a Figure of the Crucified fastened 
 against it. 
 
 Tall and dark it stood out across the pale dawn, the 
 only notable object within sight, its avvful burden hanging 
 silent and motionless bLtween earth and heaven, with 
 head bowed towards the one and arms outstretclied 
 against the other.
 
 A DARK HOUR. 155 
 
 The lad started as his eyes fell on the way-side crucifix ; 
 he crossed himself instinctively, moved forward and 
 kneeled down on the well-worn steps. 
 
 The habit of a life-time, not any idea of relief in prayer., 
 made him do this, and from habit also he raised his eyes 
 to the sacred Figure, and his lips began to murmur the 
 Fate?' Jiosfer, 
 
 But scarcely had the holy name of Father risen to them, 
 than an uncontrolable shudder passed over the lad's whole 
 frame, and the words died away unuttered. He coiild not 
 say them, the bare idea seemed sacrilege. 
 
 Father ! what then was his father ? — a murderer \ and 
 he was — a murderer's son ! Nay, worse ! — the lad grew 
 sick as this new idea forced itself into prominence — a 
 partner in the deed ! Yes, so it seemed to his diseased 
 imagination; for had he not lured tlie victim to his death? 
 Was it not he who had waited for the prey, and conjured 
 him in the name of all that was most holy to take' the 
 step which led him into what was surely the foulest 
 snare ever laid by one man for another : a trap baited b}- 
 pity, by a feeling of brotherly-kindness ? 
 
 Oh, cruel, cruel to do this ; doubly cruel wlien it was a 
 father who thus made a son the unconscious instrument 
 of his foul purpose. 
 
 Christophe groaned aloud, as these details in all theif 
 horror passed in review before him ; and, as he knelt with 
 eyes fixed mechanically upon the Face above him, tlic
 
 J 56 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 sacred countenance itself seemed to take the features of 
 the murdered man and look down reproachfully upon him. 
 It was too much. AVith hands pressed over his eyes to 
 shut out all siglu, with thumbs thrust into his ears to 
 exclude what, after all, was no external sound, the echo of 
 the terrible death-rattle, Christophe turned once more and 
 stumbled blindly across the heath. A few yards he went, 
 not knowing whither, hardly conscious but of the horror 
 which possessed him ; then even that consciousness fled 
 away. There came a sound as of rushing waters in his 
 closed ears, hot flashes of black and crimson before his 
 closed eyes, a sensation as of endless falling, and then he 
 knew no more.
 
 BOOK III. 
 
 "^kt ®«tcast
 
 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 BOOK 111.— THE OUTCAST. 
 
 CHAPTER I. • 
 
 POORER THAN POOR. 
 
 " J.e laboureur et sa femme se reniettent a suer et a souffier, car ils sout seuls 
 tncore. Le laboureur et sa femme sont cOmme des hirondelles qui vont faire leurs 
 nids aux fenetres des villes ; chaque joor on les balaye, et chaque il leur faul 
 recommencer. 
 
 O laboureurs ! vous menez une vie dure dans le monde." 
 
 — Complaints Ou Lahourcur (Breton). 
 
 Cli CK ETY- CLICK ^ — dickcty-cllck — clickety-click — tliis sou nd, 
 repeated monotonously ad i/ifuiitin/t, mingled itself con- 
 fusedly with the slowly returning consciousness of the lad 
 Christophe. 
 
 First came a sense of pain, as though the sharp, 
 regular noises were so many pins, inserted one after the 
 other witli painful precision into the dull, bruised 
 substance which used to be his brain. Then, as life 
 -ebbed slowly back, he was just conscious of a languid 
 feeling of curiosity as to the cause, a feeling not strong 
 enough yet to act sufficiently on the will which should
 
 160 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 make the heavy eye-lids open, and so take in what was 
 going on. 
 
 Presently, while this sluggish inertia still continued, the 
 clicking sound ceased suddenly, and then he found that it 
 had been underlaid by another and fainter sound, which 
 still went on incessantly — the wJiirr^ ii<hirr — as of some 
 one winding thread. 
 
 Then low voices mingled with this — the hoarse whisper 
 of a man, the thin whisper of a woman. 
 
 *' He's long, wife," said the first. 
 
 "Ay, maybe he'll be longer yet," said the second. 
 
 *' It's likely thou wert right, after all," said the first. 
 
 " Ay ; thou mostlys comest round to viy way o' think 
 ing, good man," said the second. 
 
 " Won't get over it ? — Better have let him die ? " asked 
 the first. 
 
 " That's about it, husband," returned the second. 
 
 Then there was silence again, but for the whirr^ whirr 
 of the thread, or what sounded like it. Presently the man 
 resumed : — 
 
 " I hadn't the heart to leave him, wife ; a Christian 
 can't see his brother in such a strait and not help. Who 
 can tell, wife, it may bring a blessing on us, on tliee and 
 me — we want it badly ! " 
 
 "Ay. And don't tliink it's because I grudge him aught. 
 
 It's not that; only " she sighed, and if more words 
 
 followed, they did not reacli Christophe's ears, for the
 
 POORER THAN POOR. ICi 
 
 clicking sound began again. Somehow, this time, its very 
 monotony proved lulling, for soon he ceased to hear it, and 
 consciousness was once more a blank. 
 
 Next time he awoke, it was with a start ; something had 
 fallen with a sharp sound. 
 
 " Broken again ! " exclaimed the same man's voice he 
 had heard before, only this time it had forgotten to 
 whisper, — '• The poor old frame is getting rotten Barbaik ! " 
 
 "Ay," said the woman, "but it'll last out our time, my 
 friend." 
 
 '• Our time ! Ah, wife, wife, don't strike out hope like 
 that, so calmly, so — It will come., fortune 7t'///come before 
 thou and I have lived out our time ; and then, — and then 
 we can have new frames. It'll not need to last out our 
 
 time, I say ; perhaps a year, perhaps There, I've tied 
 
 it up once more, and it'll go for the present, anyhow." 
 
 The hoarse, eager tone in which these last words were 
 spoken ceased ; and again the dickdy-click^ dickety -clicks 
 which had been intermitted for some minutes, began 
 again. 
 
 Then, at last, by a great effort, Christophe exerted his 
 will, and opened the lids which hung so heavily over his 
 eyes. 
 
 He need not have hesitated so long ; there was nothing 
 to be afraid of in the sight which met them, nothing 
 unusual — nothing glaring or dazzling. It was simply a 
 scene which may be met with any day in Brittany — a 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 1C2 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 cottage interior of the humblest class : a place where 
 poverty was evidently too much at home, where she abode 
 rather as an inmate than as a guest. 
 
 The roof, which wys ihe first thing that offered itself to 
 Christophe's gaze, was dark brown in tint, crossed by 
 mouldering wood rafters, smoke-dried and rain-soaked, 
 between which showed the rough heather thatching ; here, 
 bulging in, as though it would fall into the room \ there, 
 falling out, leaving tiny chinks through which the blue sky 
 peeped, as with laughing eyes, whose sunny beams broke 
 in and twinkled on the earthern floor below. 
 
 The walls also were dark brown, and were evidently 
 formed of rough stone, smeared with clay of a sombre hue, 
 stained here and there with leprous spots of damp and 
 mildew. 
 
 Opposite the rude bed on which he lay, Christophe 
 could see an open fire-place, on whose hearth smouldered 
 a few turfs, the pungent smoke from which seemed unwil- 
 ling to escape by the proper opening, and preferred 
 seeking a passage through the chinks of the roof, and 
 through the ill-fitting door, below which a wintry wind was 
 blowing a tiny white snow-wreath into the room. To the 
 right of this was a tiny window, cracked, straw-stuffed, 
 paper-mended, yet framing at that moment a picture which 
 none of its defects could wholly mar — a splendid sun-set 
 sky, rich, beyond the skill of any pamter, save the One 
 who is Divine, in glorious tints of deep-dyed crimson, palest
 
 rOORRR THAN POOR. 1G3 
 
 gold, and green, so ethereal as to border on blue ; and, 
 rolling up to this, in snowy waves, intense with reflected 
 colour, a great, wide stretch of moorland, infinitely melan- 
 choly, solitary as the sea. 
 
 The solemn, rose-tinted light, dim and grave as that 
 which filtres through the sainL-fiUed window of some old 
 Cathedral, fell even into that poverty-stricken room, 
 glorifying everything within it with the last smile of the 
 dying giant, who had worthily run his course and was 
 content to pass hence in tranquil peace. There was little 
 indeed for it to fall upon, and that little, but for the all- 
 glorifying light, would have seemed mean and sordid 
 enough. Even the Crucifix, which hung in a niche of the 
 wall, facing the window, was of the roughest, coarsest 
 manufacture, and the hcnitier and rosary suspended below, 
 could not have cost more than a few centimes at a village 
 Pardon. 
 
 Yet in the rich, dim light of the dying west, which fell 
 upon it through the dusty window opposite, the sacred 
 Countenance seemed to wear an unearthly smile. Calm 
 still, victorious over death, it recalled no memory to the 
 lad's yet half-numb senses of the terrible look which had 
 been the finishing-stroke to his despair. 
 
 So far, indeed, was it from recalling anything to his 
 mind, that his eyes soon wandered elsewhere, lanquidly 
 taking in the details which surrounded him. 
 
 Of other furniture, besides the bed on which lie lay, the
 
 1G4 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 Crucifix, and a rude bench by the fire, there appeared ta 
 be little or none, and yet the room was almost filled ; for 
 two great, cumbrous hand-looms stood, one in a broken 
 condition against the wall by the bed, the other under the 
 window. By the latter sat a man, working with his feet the 
 rickety treddles, while his hands threw the shuttle back- 
 wards and forwards. He was pale and emaciated to an 
 appalling degree ; his spine curved outwards from constant 
 bending over the loom ; his chest was hollow ; his cheeks, 
 sunken and paUid, contrasted painfully with the black- 
 browed eyes, deep-set in cave-like sockets, and the dark, 
 lank masses of hair which fell on to his shoulders. The 
 hands which threw the shuttle were blanched to an un- 
 healthy palor, and almost devoid of flesh ; and the fingers 
 were worn at the ends to a thin, sharp hook, almost like the 
 claws of a bird. They looked as though, ever since they 
 had been fingers, they had never done anything else but 
 throw the shuttle and manipulate the linen threads of the 
 growing web. The weaver seemed as much of a machine 
 as the frame at which he worked, and no less worn out 
 and rickety. 
 
 Opposite the man, at the lower end of the loom, stood a 
 diminutive woman, filling the winder with coarse linen 
 thread. She, also, had a pallid, half-fed appearance, but 
 there was that in the expression of her pale, pinched 
 face which was lacking to the man, making even his 
 wasted features infinitely less uncomely. Sharp, hungry,
 
 POORER THAN POOR. 105 
 
 grasping worldly-wisdom sat on the woman's countenance, 
 while on the man's one could read nothing but the pathetic 
 patience of a weak dreamer, who is content to go ua 
 plodding wearily at an ungrateful task, sustained by the 
 vision of coming fortune, wliicli, like the lapwing, keeps 
 ever flitting before him and leading him on with deceitful 
 hopes. 
 
 The Breton hand-loom weaver doggedly refuses to 
 realize that machinery has dealt the death-blow to his once 
 flourishing trade. Year by year his earnings become more 
 scanty, his condition more miserable; yet, in spite of all, he 
 remains obstinate in his belief that this depression is but 
 for a time ; that a day will come when all the old prosperity 
 will return fourfold to him who knows how to wait. Never 
 was a land more conservative than Brittany. Old customs, 
 old Veliefs, old ways die hard there, disputing with 
 relentless Progress each inch of the legendary soil, so 
 dearly loved, so tenaciously clung to. 
 
 ^re^ently the sunlight faded wholly from the west, leaving 
 the liitle room in dim grey twilight. Up to the last 
 moment at which it was possible to distinguish the warp 
 from the woof, did the weaver continue his task ; and when 
 he could see no more he leant back in his seat, joined his 
 hands over his eyes, and stretching out his tired arms, 
 gave vent to a long, deep sigh. Then the woman also 
 dropped her winder and sank down wearily on the bench 
 by the fire.
 
 ICG A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 For some moments they sat thus, and complete silence 
 reigned in the little room ; then the woman got up slowly, 
 stirred up the smouldering embers, laid upon them some 
 faggots of wood, and began to prepare the scanty pot au 
 fell of water, buckwheat bread, and onions, for supper. As 
 the flame leaped up, kindled the wood, and flickered 
 through the room, the man also rose, shuflled his feet into 
 his wooden shoes, and moved heavily across the earthern 
 floor, till he stood by the bed on which lay the sick lad. 
 Bending down, he set himself to scan Christophe's face so 
 attentively, that the lad, who had again fallen into a sort of 
 doze, opened his eyes with a start. 
 
 "He lives, Barbaik — he lives!" exclaimed the weaver, 
 with excitement. 
 
 " Sainte-Anne d'Auray ! I scarcely expected it. Dost 
 hear, wife?" he continued, turning to the woman who was 
 paying no attention, but continued to prepare the pot an 
 fell in silence. 
 
 *' Dost hear ? He lives, I tell thee !" 
 
 Barbaik was standing with her back turned, shredding 
 onions into the black pot, which was beginning to simmer 
 on the fire. 
 
 '■Hum," she said, "hum; then for the next few da} s, 
 I suppose, there'll be another mouth for the pot au feu. 
 How am I to make that enough for three, which is short 
 commons for two ? I ask thee that, Grallon ?" 
 
 'Jlie weaver did not answer; but he sighed, and
 
 POORER THAN POOR. 167 
 
 strdightening himself, glanced towards the Crucifix. The 
 glance seemed to do him good, for his melancholy face 
 brightened, and he said, quite cheerily, " Never mind, wife, 
 I'll do with half my portion. He'll bring a blessing on us ^ 
 see if he doesn't," 
 
 Saying which, Grallon again bent over ilie bed. 
 
 '' Art better, lad?'' he asked, softly. 
 
 It was an effort to Christophe to take in the sense, even 
 of this simple question, still more to answer it. For it 
 moment his great dark eyes stared helplessly at h.;> 
 questioner, and when the words did come, they seemed 
 to him as though sounding loudly from a long way 
 off. To the weaver, on the contrary, they sounded only 
 as a hoarse whisper, which he had to bend down quite 
 close to catch. 
 
 "Was nil?" 
 
 It is disconcerting to have one (question capped by 
 another, instead of receiving the answer you are expecting. 
 
 The weaver hesitated. 
 
 '•111?" he repealed, presently, in a puzzled tone. "111.^ 
 Don't you know, then ? don't you remember you fell 
 into the Poiilpikan s-' Hollow on the moor out there, and 
 I found you lying, head down, heels up, between two 
 big stones, with all the breath knocked out of you? Ill ! 
 Dost hear, wife? he asks if he were ill!" 
 
 "Come to supper, Grallon," was all the reply vouchsafed 
 
 Poulpikan, ;i marsh elf.
 
 168 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 by Barbaik ; and Grallon, convinced apparently that 
 nothing was to be made of his guest at present, and that 
 he would certainly not need the half portion that evening, 
 complied.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 A TERRIBLE RUMOUR. 
 
 " This night, a rumour wildly blown about, 
 
 Came Tennyson.—"' Guinevere." 
 
 Was the lad an innocent ? 
 
 (rrallon and his wife, Barbaik, h id several discussions on 
 this question in the courFc of the next two days following 
 that on which Christophe had been found by the weaver 
 in the Poulpikan's Hollow. It furnished food for the mind 
 of the poor toiler, as he phed his monotonous trade at the 
 noisy hand-loom ; and his wife, perhaps, thought of it also 
 rather anxiously, as she wound the thread for her husband, 
 •casting glances the while at their silent guest, and 
 wondering how they should get quit of this extra mouth? 
 should it prove 'o belong to a witless head. 
 
 Thus in the pauses of work, when the eternal dickdy-click 
 ceased for a moment, tlie weaver would unfold in a 
 cautious voice the result of his thoughts since the last de- 
 bate, and Barbaik would listen, and then put in the same 
 shrewd and caustic remarks, which served to provide a 
 fresh train for speculation during tlie next spell of weaving. 
 
 :Meanwhi'e the object of this interest lay silent on the
 
 170 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 liard bed which the poor couple had vacated for him ; 
 or, as was the case during the course of the second day, 
 sat silent by the fire, whither the good-wife had assisted 
 him to move. 
 
 He paid little attention to what was going on around 
 him ; he did not even seem to hear the low-toned 
 discussions, discreetly carried on by signs and whispers, 
 accompanied by various glances towards iheir subject, 
 lest more intelligence might be there than was suspected. 
 
 The fact was that there had been sufficient injury to 
 Christophe's head, both from the shock he had received 
 during that terrible night, and from the effects of his fall, 
 to produce a dulled, stunned condition of the brain ; 
 v.'hich, though it no longer amounted to insensibility, and 
 was gradually wearing away with every hour, he could not 
 exert himself sufficiently to shake of. 
 
 Could not, and perhaps, also, would not. 
 
 For it was with him as v^■ith one who awakes from sleep 
 witki the dim consciousness of a terrible misfortune ; the 
 full knowledge and consequent anguish of which are 
 lurking in the background, ready to spring upon him when 
 he shall have fully awakened. Can we wonder if such a 
 one cling as long as may be to the merciful insensibility 
 of sleep ? Does not each of us who has gone through 
 such experience give way to the weakness ? 
 
 Let no one, therefore, marvel at the condition of the 
 lircton lad.
 
 A TERRIBLE RUMOUR. 171 
 
 This state of things lasted till the afternoon of the 
 fourth (iay after the murder by the menhir of Saint- 
 Samson. 
 
 It was market day in Dinan, the nearest town, wliich, 
 however, lay far enough away from the weaver's lonely 
 cottage ; and Barbaik had gone tu sell some of her 
 husband's manufacture, and lay in a supply of necessaries 
 with the produce. 
 
 Not having his wife to talk to, Grallon had worked wiili 
 hardly a pause during the whole time which had elapse>l 
 since her departure ; and Christophe, at whose toilet she 
 h.ad had no time to assist, had remained in bed, sunk in 
 his usual condition of semi-lethargy, only rousing sufficiently 
 to swallow the portion of ihin breati-soup which the weaver 
 brought him at noon. 
 
 As the short winter's day drew to its close, footsteps 
 were heard outside the door, and the wife returned, laden 
 with her purchases and prime 1 widi a supply of market 
 gossip which would afford the solitary couple a staple cf 
 conversation for many days to come. 
 
 The generally mther silent woman was unusually excited, 
 and evidently brimming over vrith news. " Well, Grallon, 
 well," she said, depositing her basket and bundles on the 
 floor b)' her husband's fiame — "Here's doings for a 
 Chribiian land ! No Chrisiian will feel safe in his 
 led if the rascal be allowed to escape. Siinte-Anne 
 d'Auray be our succour ! It is terrible ! terrible T'
 
 172 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 Grallon had stopped liis work on his wife's entrance, 
 and was leaning on his frame, listening, open-mouthed. 
 
 "But what is terrible, my friend? What, then, is it 
 that has liappened?" 
 
 '^ Happened ? Yes, plenty has happened ; and to think 
 we should never ha\e heard, and it is four days since. 
 Four days — ^g\ir^ it to yourself, my friend ! It is terrible 
 to live in such ignorance." 
 
 •' But Barbaik, for the love of Heaven, tell me what has 
 happened? " 
 
 She came quite close to the frame^ put her hands on her 
 sides, assumed an air of solemn importance, and then 
 said, in a tragic whisper : 
 
 *'It is Monsieur le Comte ; poor gentleman, he is dead !" 
 
 '' Dead ! " 
 
 " Ay, dead ! " 
 
 ''But how? All, well, he looked healthy enough last 
 time I saw him, and as hard as Saint-Samson himself. 
 Not a sou of rent would he let us off, though he knew that 
 times were bad. Ah, well, the healthiest and the hardest 
 have to go, seigneur as well as peasant, and there's a day 
 of reckoning for us all. Ves " 
 
 But here the weaver's wife cut him short impatiently. 
 She had heard all that before, and it vexed her that her 
 husband should serve up his insipid rechauffe.^ while her 
 news was fresh, and highly spiced above all that had fallen 
 to her share for long.
 
 A TERRIBLE RUMOUR. 17S 
 
 " Great-mouth ! " she exdaimed, stamping her foot on 
 the earthen floor, "Wait, then, till thou hast heard ! Dost 
 thou think I should make so much of it if M. le Comte 
 had died in his bed? Bah, that is a thing of every day f 
 No, no ; this is (jiiite another affair." 
 
 She paused a moment to enjoy the impression she had 
 made, and further whet liis unworthy curiosity, and this 
 time she was rewarded. 
 
 The weaver started to his feet. 
 
 "What?" he said, " what ? Not in his bed ! Barbaik, 
 thou dost not mean to say that M. le Comte was " 
 
 ^'-Murdered U" said his wife, supplying the word in an 
 impressive tone. 
 
 " Ay, murdered ! That's it, Grallon." 
 
 "But how?" 
 
 "How? Well, that's just the question. He was found 
 lying dead, stabbed in several places ; but who did it, no 
 one knows ; the rascal has escaped." 
 
 " Good heavens ! and to think it has come to that ! 
 Hard as Saint-Samson he was, there is no denying it, 
 but " 
 
 '"Saint-Samson!" echoed the weaver's wife, again taking 
 the words out of her husband's mouth, 
 
 "Yes, that's just where it was. He was lying by the 
 menhir, poor gentleman, dead as a door-nail. Thou seest, 
 my friend, it was thus : He had been away on business, 
 and IMadame la Comtesse was expecting him back that
 
 174 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 very night. He rode alone, as he was fond of doing, 
 though folks say he had a considerable sum upon him, 
 which was not there when he was found. That tempted 
 the rascal, doubtless. Well, he never came home alive — 
 never! His horse was all the living being ihit ever 
 arrived tliat night. They thought at first he had throvv-n 
 his rider, and search was made, and after awhile he was 
 found ; but it \v is not the horse, poor innocent animal ; 
 no, no." 
 
 " But who was it, then ? Who ? " 
 
 " Who ? Inbecile that thou art ! Haven't I said that is 
 just the question?" 
 
 " But it is terrible ! Barba'ik, wife, it has made me teel 
 quite restless. Suppose I run down to the public-house 
 at the Quatres Maisons, and see if they have heard 
 anything there ? " 
 
 ''Ay, do. And I will step across the heath to Mere 
 Nanon's, and tell her the news. I say, Grallon," — she 
 lowered her voice and glanced towards the bed — 
 
 " There is a reward out for the rascal who did it." 
 
 The weaver pricked up his ears. 
 
 " A reward ? How much ? " 
 
 "Nay, that I could not certainly learn. Some said 
 fifty iouis, some a hundred." 
 
 " Holy Saint-Corentin ! a hundred louis ! If we could 
 
 gain it, wife ! Tell me, could it possibly be " he jerked 
 
 his thumb towards the bed, instead of finishing his sentence.
 
 A TERRIBLE RUMOUR. 175 
 
 " Bah ! a mere lad — an innocent to all appearance. 
 And yet " She too whispered the rest. 
 
 "Yes, certainly, my wife; yes, I could swear there was 
 blood on his hands when I found him. But then he had 
 fallen. No, it seems unlikely. But come, if he it be, he 
 is safe enough for the present. Let us go and see if we 
 can learn some more." 
 
 " Ay, and don't stop down at the inn, Grallon, my 
 friend. Remember cider costs money and thou hast 
 none." 
 
 " A hundred louis, a hundred louis," murmured the 
 weaver reflectively, for once in a way'paying small attention 
 to his wife's words, — 
 
 •' Well, didn't I say he might bring us a blessing ?" 
 
 '• The saints send it — may be so," retorted Barbaik-, 
 incredulously, — 
 
 '* But the louis are not yet there, so beware of the cider. 
 Adieu, my friend, a bieiifot!" 
 
 So saying, the couple quitted the cottage, one going in 
 this direction, the other in that, across the sunset-lighted 
 heath.
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 HAUNTED AND HUNTED. 
 
 " Half I seemed to recognise some trick 
 Of mischief happened to me, God knows when — 
 In a bad dream, perhaps." 
 
 R. Browning— " C/ttWc Itoland/' 
 
 PoR some moments after they were gone, the cottage was 
 silent, but for the tinkUng sound of the low fire. Presently, 
 however, there was a rustle in the far corner where stood 
 the bed, and anyone who had looked in might have seen 
 its occupant raise himself on his elbo.v and look round. 
 There was a wild expiession in his grey eyes, such as one 
 sees in those of a hunted animal, who has escaped lor a 
 time, only to hear again the sounds of pursuit. The dull 
 lethargic look was gone, and yet it was plain that reason 
 was not yet fully awakened. 
 
 It would be hard to say how much of the foregoing, 
 conversation the lad had heard, what were the words tliat 
 had fust roused his attention, and to vvhat extent the whole 
 had been understood. However that might be, certain it 
 is that, to a certain point, the dormant faculties had been 
 stirred up and fear was alive again. 
 
 Fear was the dominant motive power at that moment
 
 HAUNTED AND HUNTED. 177 
 
 and it acted at once, lending fictitious strength t > the 
 weakened body. 
 
 After satisfying himself thit he was, indeed, alone, 
 Christophe rose from his bed, dressed himself hastily, and, 
 opening the door, left the cottage. 
 
 The sun was near its setting, and was throwing long, 
 level rays over the moor. The snow no longer lay in^ 
 unbroken whiteness. A partial thaw had carried most 
 of it away, and the spotted heath looked inexpressibly 
 dreary. 
 
 The lad paused a moment on the threshold and looked 
 around. He could see by the marks of their feet in the 
 patches of snow which still remained, what direction had 
 been taken by the weaver and his wife ; and he, therefore, 
 struck off in a contrary course to either. Tliere was no 
 path, and he plunged at random straight ahead, through 
 snow, through pools of water, shining redly in the setting 
 sun, through brown masses of wet heather. 
 
 The crimson globe which hung in the south-west sank 
 lower, and dipped below the far horizon. Light died from 
 the heath, and then from the pale sky overhead ; but still 
 Cliristophe stumbled blindly on, every now and then 
 casting anxious glances over his shoulder, as though he 
 dreaded pursuit. It never seemed to strike him that there 
 were other dangers ; that he might fall again into some 
 hollow, or sink up to his neck in tlie marshy ground 
 through which he had, every now and then, to struggle. 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 .4 CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 Tliere is a saying that a special Providence vratches 
 over children, and those whose reason is not in a condition 
 for them to watch over their own safety. Such care was 
 there, I think, for Christophe then, or surely his feet would 
 never have been kept from the many pit-falls which lay 
 around in the gathering darkness. 
 
 Suddenly, it was too dark to see how, he again found 
 his feet on hard, dry, level ground. It seemed as if he 
 had struck some road, and so it must have been, for, as 
 •he went on, the nature of the ground did not alter. 
 
 Walking more easily, he began to discover what a 
 strain there had hitherto been upon him, and how his 
 enfeebled limbs were trembling after their late exertions. 
 He stopped for a moment, drew a long breath, and 
 glanced up at the sky. It was getting a little lighter there. 
 Stars were looking out, the sunset clouds had melted away, 
 and against the vague expanse of firmament two long 
 Hnes of shadowy plumes, daric and tall as those which 
 fancy might picture as waving from a giant's funeral-car^ 
 stood out on either hand. They were poplars, he knew 
 that ; such poplars as you see every day in France, keeping 
 -watch, like tall sentinels, over the higli road ; and yet 
 there was something in their aspect which made liim 
 shudder involuntarily. He looked down again and 
 trudged on, striving in vain against the dull feeling of 
 lassitude, which each moment kept hanging in heavier 
 weight about his limbs.
 
 HAUNTED AND HUNTED. 171) 
 
 The air was cold and raw, he shivered as he walked, 
 and his teeth began to chatter like a pair of castanets. 
 Presently came the feeling, rather than the thought, that 
 he was coming to the end of his powers, that to go on 
 much longer would be to fall down exhausted ; and what 
 would be the result of that in his enfeebled state during a 
 mid-winter night ? Christophe did not ask himself this 
 question ; he was in no condition to do so. It was the 
 instinct of self-preservation, more than any conscious 
 reasoning, whicli led him to look from side to side to see 
 if shelter there were any, of which such an outcast as he 
 might venture to avail himself. 
 
 Poplars, poplars, never-ending poplars ; nothing but 
 these and his own weary body seemed to Christophe to 
 remain upon earth. Look where he might, nothing else 
 was to be seen. 
 
 Presently, stumbling wearily on, he came to a break in 
 the dark avenue, where two side ways, one to the right, the 
 other to the left, turned off from tlie main road. More 
 to escape from tlie poplars than for any other reason, 
 Christophe took that to the left, and, after following it for 
 some minutes, perceived something which was not a poplar, 
 looming from tlie twilight in a field on one side. 
 
 Could it be a building? It looked like one. Christophe 
 stopped and gazed_at it wisttully. His need of re^t and 
 shelter was sore ; and yet he dreaded his fellow-men with 
 the haunting fear ^of Cain. He felt, as it were, a brand
 
 180 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 upon him, by winch everyone beholding must recognise 
 him as connected with fhe dreadful deed by the menhir ot 
 Saint-Samson. 
 
 But as he stood there hesitating, his powers failed more 
 and more, and bodily need prevailed. 
 
 Scarcely knowing what he did. the lad passed tlirough a 
 gap in the fence, staggered across the intervening ground, 
 and fell, half-fainting, against the wall of a small building. 
 It took him some moments to collect himself sufficiently to 
 search for a door, and several more for his trembling fingers 
 to lift the latch; but when that was done, a sense of great 
 relief stole over him, for the place within was shrouded in 
 the sheltering darkness he had grown to love. With a 
 great sigh of mingled weariness and relief, he went in, 
 drew the door after him and sank down on a heap of 
 something which felt soft and dry. The place was warm 
 with the breath of animals. 
 
 A sleepy bleat sounded from some far-away corner as 
 the lad entered, followed by the regular luuncJi muncJi of 
 some creature chewing the cud, after which all was 
 silent. I question if the weary boy heard even these. 
 Nature could do no more. He had reached shelter just 
 in time.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 TIRKI) OUT. 
 
 " O'erspcnt vvilh tlie day's fatigue." 
 
 L,o\c,PKLi.(n\.—" The Golden Loj<:nil." 
 
 All next day till niglitfall no one came near the shed, 
 and ^the weary lad slept without a break ; but when the 
 sun had once more run his course and was sinking to his 
 rest, ihe door of the stable opened and a little peasant 
 girl, of about ten years old, entered, with her arms full of 
 fodder for the young animals which were kept there. She 
 gave a cry on seeing the sleeping figure stretched on the 
 litter by the <ioor, with one arm under his haggard cheek 
 and the other thrown out at full length. 
 
 The cry startled Christophe ; he awoke, sat up, 
 supporting himself on his elbow, and then the two 
 stared at each other in about equal alarm. 
 
 The boy was the first to recover liimself. He got up, 
 shook the litter from his clothes, and said, with the 
 natural politeness of his race : 
 
 " Pardon, I was so tired, I thought I might come in 
 and rest." 
 
 " Yes, certainly," returne 1 the little damsel, recovering
 
 182 A CHILD OF THE MENHm. 
 
 herself with alacrity, now tliat she heard '^the intruder 
 speak, — 
 
 "But don't you want to stay? You can't have been 
 here long, you know; its only just sunset." 
 
 Did he know? Christophe asked himself the question 
 in a puzzled way Surely the sun had set long since when 
 he lay down, and surely he had not just come, as the little 
 maiden so confidently declared. 
 
 "Yes," he said — "Yes, I will stay till morning if you 
 will let rfiC ; that is, if it be already so late?" he added, 
 looking in a puzzled way at the little white-capped figure 
 standing in the stream of red sunlight which had entered 
 with her by the door. 
 
 "Yes, it is late," she repeated, decidedly, — 
 
 "It is already four o'clock, and time to fjed the goat, 
 and the heifer, and the dear little red ox. Don't you see 
 how hungry they are? Listen how they call me ! Coming, 
 coming, little darlings; Marie won't let you starve, will 
 she ? " 
 
 Speaking thus in a soothing tone of caress, the child 
 went up to the animals and served out their daily fodder, 
 portioning to each his due share with scrupulous impar- 
 tiality. 
 
 " See how hungry they are ! " she repeated, holding out 
 her empty hands towards Christophe, who had again 
 subsided on to his heap, — 
 
 " TJicy know it is sunset well enough ; they always know,
 
 TIRED OUT. 183 
 
 and so do I. I'm going home to supper now," .^he con- 
 tinued, coming av^ay from the animals and moving towards 
 the door. There, as though struck with a sudden thought, 
 she paused, looked at Christophe for a moment, and then 
 said : *' I'm hungry, that's how I know it's supper time. 
 Aren't you hungry, boy ? " 
 
 Was he hungry ? 
 
 Again the cliild's words had suggested a question, and 
 this time Christophe did not have to search for an answer. 
 
 " Yes," he said, after an almost imperceptible pause^ 
 " I am very hungry." 
 
 "And have you nothing to eat?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Poor boy ! " 
 
 Again the child paused, standing there, holding the door 
 in her hand, and looking down on the lad with a pucker 
 on her brow. 
 
 " Look here," she said presently, as though struck by a. 
 happy thought — 
 
 " You mustn't starve any more than the little animals. 
 I'll run home and ask mother to give me something for 
 you to eat." 
 
 Christophe looked alarmed. 
 
 " No, don't do that," he said, 
 
 "She might send me away if she knew I were here. 
 I— that is, I'm not so very hungry ; I can do quite well 
 till to-morrow."
 
 184 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 'llie child felt in her pocket, and immediately her face 
 brightened. 
 
 "See," bhe said, drawing out a piece of black bread. 
 " Here's what mother gave me to eat when I was minding 
 the ccw. Now I know why I'm so particularly hungry 
 th's evening — I quite forgot my dinner !" 
 
 She put the bread into Christophe's hand, and, with a 
 friendly nod, and a brisk "good-night," shut the door, and 
 was gone. 
 
 Not till the bread was between his teeth did the home- 
 less lad know how much he had wanted it. Hard and 
 dry as it was, he ate it to the last crumb, and would fain 
 there had been more. Yet it did for his body that which 
 his speech with the child had done for his mind. Of 
 words, as of crumbs, there had been few, it is true ; yet 
 both were wholesome and supplied a want of nature ; and, 
 as he turned once mere to sleep, feeling comforted, he 
 knew not how, it did not even cross his mine, that, for 
 the first time since ll.at horrible niglit, he had exchanged 
 reasonable words with a human being, and that she had 
 not turned from him with horror. 
 
 He forgot for a moment his haunting consciousness of 
 the brand of Cain, and in that sweet forgetfulness he fell 
 asleep.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 "the husks that the swine did e.\t.'' 
 
 — " An open inoulli, 
 A gross need, food to till us, ;uk' no more." 
 
 E. R. PjKowning — " Aariiiii. l.enjh." 
 
 Christophe could never give any very colierent account 
 of the manner in which he spent the next icw days. That 
 he left the stable very early the following morning, and 
 that he remained on the tramp from dawn to dark, 
 avoiding towns, and sleeping where he could, is about all 
 that anyone has ever been able to glean from him. 
 
 How he lived during this time is also uncertain. 
 One old woman lemembeis giving a lad, answering to his 
 description, the scrapings of her po/ au feu A workman, 
 going early to his labour, found him picking up the 
 leavings of the fowls in a farm-yard. A child once shared 
 her dinner wiih liim. Little else, I think, can have passed 
 his lips, if ihe next autlientic account which has come 
 down to us of the poor lad be not exaggerated, 
 
 Tephany Kannau, wile of Benead Eannau, owner of a 
 tall windmill which stood in those da)s like a watch-tower 
 overlooking the liollow in which nestles the old grey town 
 of ]\Iorlaix, was standing one evening in the round door-
 
 ISG A CHILD OF THE MENHIR, 
 
 way of her husband's mill. Her arms were placed a-kimbo, 
 her plump hands resting on her hips, her comely face was 
 turned towards the sunset, and every now and then the 
 whistled and called as though summoning some animals 
 to come and partake of the contents of a smoking bucket 
 whicli stood beside her. 
 
 To what species these animals belonged soon became 
 apparent. A series of short grunts broke on the evening 
 air, and then, with a lumbering scamper, a flock of gaunt- 
 looking Brittany pigs appeared over a ridge of rising 
 ground, and ran, helter-skelter, long ears flapping, tails 
 twisting, little eyes greedily twinkling, up to the miller's 
 wife. Not too nice were they to enjoy the sweepings of 
 the round-house, which thrifty Tephany every evening 
 collected and cooked for their supper ; and soon every 
 snout was in the bucket, and Madame Rannau was stand- 
 ing looking on, with a smile on her good-tempered face, at 
 the good appetite of her gobbling pensioners. 
 
 She left them after a while, and went back into the mill 
 for a handful of corn to throw to her pigeons, who, jealous 
 of the pigs' good fortune, were fluttering round, trying in 
 vain to find a vacant corner whence to snatch a beakful for 
 themselves. Pretty creatures they looked, with their white 
 wings, bright eyes, and dainty pink feet, cooing and flap- 
 ping and flashing around the ugly swine in the low red 
 sun-light ; now soaring to a coign of vantage on the old 
 grey mill, thence the better to survey possibilities ; then
 
 ''THE HUSKS THE S\VE\E DID EAT' :S7 
 
 swooping ulmobt on to the backs of ihe pigs, cooing lustily 
 if a chance grain of pottage rewarded their efforts. 
 
 The moraHsing beholder would probably have seen liere 
 the emblems of innocence and sensuality ; and yet, fiom 
 my knowledge of pigeon-nature, I much doubt whether the 
 dainty white birds were a whit less greedy than the ill- 
 conditioned swine. So much for a timid and innocent 
 appearance ! It often gets more credit than it deserves 
 from a skin-deep observer. Presently, however, timidity 
 overcame greed. With a sudden rush and flutter, every 
 white wing in the assembly struck the air, leaving the field 
 in undisputed possession of the swine. Undisputed ? 
 Hardly that. 
 
 Madame Rannau, who understood the character of lier 
 feathered favourites too well to suppose that they would 
 have forsaken the ground without due cause while any- 
 thing remained in the pigs' bucket, looked up in astonish- 
 ment at the sudden flight past the window, where she was 
 standing with the corn-basket on her arm. 
 
 "Who can be coming?" she asked herself, as she turned 
 towards the door of the mill. 
 
 " Ah, Minet ! if it should he thou who art frightening my 
 pretty doves ■" 
 
 The sentence remained unfinibhed on the red lips of the 
 miller's wife, for she had reached the door and come in 
 full view of tlie intruder, who had dispersed not only the 
 pigeons, but even the less bold among the porkers.
 
 188 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 No cat was this strange, gaunt being, kneeling on both 
 knees upon the ground and disputing with the two largest 
 pigs for the remains of the pottage. His face was half 
 buried in the bucket, his long, dark hair hung, lank and 
 uncombed, upon his shoulders ; his back seemed a mass of 
 rags, through which, here and there, peeped the naked 
 skin. Two claw-like hands, thin to emaciation, greedily 
 scraped the pottage from the sides of the bucket and 
 raised it to a mouth which seemed unable to wait for the 
 service of the hands, but was eagerly bent to meet them. 
 
 AVhat was it ? A wild man, or a being left in the last 
 extremities of starvation ? 
 
 The blood left Tephany's ruddy lips ; they turned white 
 as unripe cherries, and her kindly eyes grew round with 
 terror as she looked at the spectacle before her. 
 
 No wonder the pigeons were frightened. 
 
 For some moments Madame Rannau stood, as though 
 rooted to the spot, then her fears found expression in a 
 sharp cry. 
 
 The creature at the pigs' bucket raised his head, turned 
 his face and looked at her- and suddenly the good woman's 
 fright gave way to a feeling of profound pity. 
 
 Such infinite suffering gazed at lier out of those soft, 
 dark eyes, with thtir long lashes and heavy lids. Such 
 pain trembled on the thin white lips, pathetic, in spite 
 of the coarse food which clung to them; such privation 
 was scored on every line of the wasted features. And over
 
 ^^THE HUSKS THE Sll'/XE DID EATr 189 
 
 all there was a half- imploring, half scared expression, an 
 evident fear of her, which effectually banished all alarm 
 from the mind of the miller's kindly wife. Big as the 
 intruder was, he had the look of a child who has done 
 wrong, and fears, yet deprecates, the consequences. 
 
 As the miller's wife still stood looking, the stranger 
 rose slowly, came timidly towards her, and said, in a 
 broken voice : 
 
 ''Pardon, Madame, I was so hungry!" 
 
 " Poor lad," murmured the woman, gently, as she noted 
 how young was the face before her, with all its suffering, — 
 '•Poor lad, and you are hungry still?" 
 
 The gentle tone seemed to attract him ; he lifted his 
 pathetic eyes to hers with a look which made her feel 
 the tears spring quickly for very pity. 
 
 " Hungry ? Ah, yes, Madame ! " 
 
 " Wait a moment ! " 
 
 She hurried in-doors, and presently returned with a 
 buckwheat cake and a cup of milk. The stranger lad 
 was still there where she had left him, but he was no 
 longer standing upright; he leaned against the wall as 
 though for support, and there was a strange, eager look 
 about the eyes as though the waiting were hard to bear. 
 To Tephany it appeared like the look she had once seen 
 on the face of a starving, homeless dog, who had 
 crouched to her for food, and yet, with all its need,, had 
 evidently been too gently trained to snatch it. The wild
 
 190 ^ CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 pathos of those hungry eyes had haunted her for days 
 afterwards. 
 
 With her kind heart swelling for very pity, she put the 
 iood into the lad's hands without a word, and stood by to 
 see him eat it, which he began to do with an eagerness he 
 tried hard to restrain. But presently he came to a 
 standstill ; he set down the cup on a little stone window- 
 ledge in the wall, looked at the remains of the cake, 
 shook his head with a faint smile, and returned it to the 
 miller's wife. 
 
 •''Thank you, Madame." 
 
 " What, do you not like it ?" 
 
 There was a ring of hurt surprise in the tone with which 
 she said it ; for Tephany was a notable housewife and 
 did not like to see her provisions unappreciated. The lad 
 noticed it. 
 
 " Pardon, Madame, it is very good, but — I have gone so 
 long without, I " 
 
 He put his hand to liis throat, and reeled slightly as he 
 stood. 
 
 " Poor lad, he is faint with fasting !" exclaimed the 
 friendly woman, all lier pity returning upon her. *' Come 
 in, my child, and sit down." 
 
 She took the dirty, ragged arm of the wanderer in her 
 clean, plump hands, forgetting her ordinary horror of dirt, 
 and led him into tlie mill. 
 
 There was a stone bcncli witliin the door, and here she
 
 ''THE HUSKS THE SWINE DID EATr 191 
 
 made Christophe sit, while she bathed his brow and 
 moistened his pale lips with cold water. 
 
 Presently he sighed, and looked up with a smile. 
 
 " Ah, thank you, IMadame, you are very good." 
 
 •' Poor child, poor child !" 
 
 Her tears gathered, and one dropped on the dirty brown 
 hand of the outcast. 
 
 His lips quivered. There was silence for a moment, 
 and tjien he said, wearily — 
 
 " I must go." 
 
 " Not yet. You are too weak. Wait till the master 
 comes in, and we will see about a night's lodging. Will 
 you sit here ? I must go and put his supper ready." 
 
 He thanked her with his eyes; and, as she bustled 
 to and fro, slie could see them following her movements 
 with languid interest, as he sat there on the bench, never 
 moving hand or foot, evidently wearied out, and feeling 
 that, for the moment, it was well with him. The supper 
 ready, Te'phany came and stood at the door, shading her 
 eyes with her hand and looking out for the master. 
 
 " He is late," she murmured, " late. It does not 
 generally take so long to conduct Fifine into Morlaix 
 with the sacks of flour, and to return. What can he be 
 doing ?" 
 
 She paused a little, looked more earnestly in the 
 direction of the town, and tapped her foot impatiently on 
 the doorstep.
 
 192 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " If Adam had been here," she went on, talking- rather 
 to herself than Christophe, " if that lout of a lad had 
 behaved himself, then Benead need not have gone. Rut 
 there — what can one do with idlers ? Benead was right 
 to chase him out, quite right. It is awkward, though,. 
 \itxy awkward. And with all that wheat read)- to be 
 ground. Ah I " 
 
 She broke off suddenly with a quick exclamation of 
 alarm, clasped her plump hands and leant forward. 
 
 *' Quick I look here ! What is that I see coming up the 
 hill ? Surely it is not ! Quick, I say, look ! " 
 
 Christophe, thus appealed to, rose from his seat and 
 came to the door. 
 
 The sun had set, but there was still light enough to 
 make out the form of a white horse coming along the 
 winding- road which led up to the mill : two men were 
 walking on either side and seemed to be supporting a 
 third who sat, huddled up, on the horse's back. 
 
 Christophe had made out this much, when the miller's 
 wife, without waiting for him to speak, flung up her 
 hands, and darted forward with a cr}- — 
 
 " It is ! It is ! Ah, mon Dicu — Benead !"
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE MILLER. 
 
 " The miller, that for-dronken was all pale, 
 So that uneathes upon his hors he sat." 
 
 Chaucer,—" The Miller's Tale." 
 
 " Never mind, wife, don't cry. I shall be better soon. 
 It was that stupid Fifine, she stumbled ; and the 
 sacks Ah ! " 
 
 " Yes, they fell on him and crushed his leg-, madame,." 
 continued one of the supporters, taking up the words of 
 the injured man, who had broken off with an exclamation 
 of pain. 
 
 " Pierre and I were passing- at the time, and we took 
 him to Monsieur le Docteur, who dressed and set his leg". 
 Monsieur said " 
 
 ^^ Yes, he said that Benead Rannau would not do a 
 stroke of work for weeks to come, perhaps months," 
 broke in Pierre, eager to have his turn, — 
 
 ** He says, too, that perhaps the leg will mortify, and 
 then " 
 
 *' Hold ihy stupid tongue, thou great-mouth," exclaimed 
 his comrade, interrupting him without ceremony, — '* never 
 mind him, madame, he knows nothing about it. Monsieur 
 VOL. I. o
 
 194 A CHILD OP THE MENHIR, 
 
 the doctor will be up himself in the morning-, and it w ill 
 be all right, you'll see." 
 
 " Ah, yes, yes, we'll see ; we'll see," g-rowled Pierre. 
 " It ivcmld be all right, doubtless, if he had been a frugal, 
 sober man like thee and me, comrade ; but millers, thou 
 knowest " 
 
 He touched his mouth, winked knowingly at his 
 companion, and broke off as he caught Tephany's eye. 
 
 "More by token, Madame, I am dying- of thirst, and 
 they do say you always have the best up at Monlin d'en 
 Haut." 
 
 T^phany did not notice his insolence, she was too much 
 occupied in helping her w^ounded and half-fainting 
 husband into the mill, which they had now reached ; she 
 scarcely noticed, even, whose were the read}- hands which 
 so deftly assisted her. 
 
 The two men stood waiting- within the door, evidently 
 expecting something. 
 
 "They are still there, Madame," said a quiet voice 
 beside her, when the miller had been assisted to bed, and 
 his wife remained bending over him, pressing her hands 
 together in dumb distress, — " they are waiting : can I do 
 anything ? " 
 
 She turned quickly and saw- the ragged stranger 
 standing respectfully by, with a look of sympath} in his 
 deep eyes. 
 
 It was he, then, whu had helped her : the waif, the
 
 THE MILLER. 195 
 
 stray, who but now was disputing for a mouthful of food 
 with the pigs ! 
 
 Tephany had quite forgotten his existence : yet the 
 sight of him helped her. He seemed a friend— a some- 
 thing on which she m/ight lean. 
 
 "Thank you. Ah, yes, I forgot ! It is the cider. You 
 will find a barrel in there;" (she indicated a door), 
 " draw^ some, please, and send them away. Jehu is a 
 good fellow enough, but Pierre " 
 
 The shudder with which she closed, said more than 
 words. 
 
 " Ah I if Marie were only back, and the boys ! " sighed 
 the poor woman, as Christophe turned to obey her. 
 " How shall I ever manage by myself to-night — all 
 alone ? " 
 
 " Madame, they have gone. Can I do any more ? If 
 Madame does not want me, perhaps I had better 
 go, too ? " 
 
 The same quiet voice was speaking again, almost 
 before Tephany could hope that the errand was 
 accomplished. The voice was so quiet that she could 
 not guess the insults the boy had received from the man 
 Pierre in doing her bidding, or how his companion had 
 hurried him away for very shame. There was a wistful- 
 ness, however, in the tone with which the last words were 
 uttered that made her pause a moment before answering. 
 Could she give him the proffered shelter — now that she
 
 196 A CHILD OF THE ME XIII R. 
 
 was without protection ? She looked at her husband, 
 lying- helpless and half insensible on the bed, and 
 hesitated. 
 
 " If Madame would rather " began the voice again. 
 
 Tephany turned and looked full in the lad's face ; 
 that dark, pale, thin face, with the deep, wistful eyes 
 and the sensitive mouth. The look seemed to satisfy 
 her. 
 
 *' No, stay," she said ; briefly, and then turned again to 
 her husband, who had roused a little and was speaking 
 in a feeble, querulous voice. 
 
 ''All that corn!" he said, "all that corn!" How 
 shall I grind it, Tephany ? And there's Fifine ; did any- 
 one put her in the stable ? And what's the night, 
 Tephany ? Is't like to be windy ? I can't remember 
 whether the sails are properly secured. Go and see, 
 wife. But no, thou must not leave me ; I feel as though 
 I could not be alone. Yes, Tephany, the rascal was 
 right ; I'm no better than most millers, and I've broken 
 my word again. Mere Furgot's cider is a trifle strong, 
 
 maybe, but Ah ! if I am to die now, as that rascal 
 
 said I might. Old William will surely have me. Father 
 
 Paul will never give me absolution again, after 
 
 Dost think he will, wife ?" 
 
 He asked the question with an entreating intonation, 
 as though he longed to be contradicted ; but poor, kindly, 
 jolly-looking Tephany was too much shaken to do it.
 
 THE MILLER. 19 / 
 
 This reminder of her husband's spiritual as well as 
 temporal danger came like the last straw : she burst 
 into tears. 
 
 "If Madame will tell me where, /will put the horse in. 
 I know about horses, we had one at home." 
 
 The lad started as the last word passed his lips ; it 
 had come unconsciously. 
 
 The miller's face relaxed. 
 
 "Ah, yes," he said, "let Adam do it — I forgot about 
 Adam. There, there, wife, it will be all right ; don't 
 cry." 
 
 " He thinks you are Adam ; never mind, don't 
 contradict him — anything to keep his mind easy," 
 whispered Tephany, who had followed her ragged 
 auxiliary to the door. 
 
 " Yes, there is Fifine ; they might have had the 
 charity to put her in," continued the poor woman, as she 
 saw the white horse browsing outside in the fast 
 gathering twilight. 
 
 " Stop, the stable is round there — you can't^ miss^ it. 
 
 Tie her up and give her some hay, and then Coming, 
 
 man aini^ one little minute only. What else did he say ? 
 Ah, yes, about the sails. Just see if they have been 
 properly secured, and if not, do it. You will see Jiou\ 
 fast enough. Yes, yes — " as the miller's querulous voice 
 again called her — " Coming, nioii atui. About the sails ? 
 Oh, yes, up there — yoa can't miss it."
 
 108 A CHILD OF TEE MENHIR. 
 
 She pointed to a ladrler which seemed to lead to the 
 upper storeys of the mill, and then ran back to the 
 dwellings-rooms without another word. 
 
 The white horse raised its head as Christophe 
 approached it, looked at him for a moment, and then, 
 as thoug-h satisfied, allowed him to take the bridle and 
 lead it round the mill ; or rather, I should say, the horse 
 led Christophe ; for, confident that it would know the 
 way to its own stable, he held the reins loosely and 
 allowed it to take the lead. 
 
 A curious sensation came over the boy as he walked 
 round the dark, tower-like building, with the horse's 
 bridle in his hand, the rising- wind on his cheek, an 1 the 
 wide, wild sky overhead. There was something- in his 
 occupation, in the care of the patient animal besioe him, 
 which awoke past memories in his still half-numb mind. 
 As each memory arose in dimly-shaped, misty outline, — 
 part separated from part, passing from his weak mental 
 grasp as he tried to seize it, only to give place to another 
 just as indefinite— a strange, painful thrill of reviving 
 consciousness troubled his spirit. 
 
 l^or days past now, he had lived a semi-conscious life ; 
 his higher faculties had been almost wholly in abeyance, 
 the needs of bodily sustenance alone occupying his 
 attention. Everything had been done, as it were, in a 
 dream, and forgotten almost as quickly. 
 
 But this evening there was a change. Almost for the
 
 THE MILLER. 190 
 
 first time since his escape from the weaver's cottage, he 
 had eaten of wholesome food till he was satisfied ; he 
 had felt the warmth of a human habitation pass throu^^h 
 his chill limbs, and the g-enial warmth of human kindness 
 through his chill heart. As the blood in a torpid limb 
 under the influence of electricity, so the spiritual life 
 within him began to stir again, and with similar thrills 
 of pain. 
 
 '* Loizik !" he found himself saying to the horse ; and 
 immediately the vision of a poor, patient, worn-out 
 animal, with drooping head and troubled, suffering eyes, 
 rose before his mind. 
 
 Which was Loizik, this or that ? and how was it that 
 the very name troubled him so strangely ? 
 
 He looked up at the dark, tall mass rising- above him ; 
 and, chill as was the night, the perspiration broke out in 
 large beads upon his forehead. 
 
 It seemed to him as though he ought to see fir-trees 
 around, and a long shadow stretching across a band of 
 moonlight at its base. 
 
 But these were not here. 
 
 Christophe shuddered, and drew a long sigh of relict, 
 as the horse stopped before a little out-house on the 
 further side of the mill. This, at least, called up no 
 haunting recollections. 
 
 He opened the door, and the animal marched in, as 
 one quite at home, and began to munch the hay which
 
 200 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 was in the manger. Dark as it was, Christophe 
 manag-ed, by dint of groping-, to find the rope, slip the 
 bridle from the horse's head, and secure him for the 
 nig'ht. This done, he returned to the mill.
 
 C PI AFTER Vll. 
 
 SEEN IN THE MOONLICIHT. 
 
 " Uncertain as a vision or a dream — 
 Faint as a figure seen in early dawn." 
 
 Tennyson.— ''^;i.oc/i A rden." 
 
 The Monlin d'en Haut was, like many of the buildings of 
 Brittany, composed of both stones and timber in its outer 
 walls, but chiefly of the latter. It was a well-built old 
 mill, and had stood the wear and tear, the storms and 
 tempests of full two hundred years ; at least so said the 
 miller. Moreover, it was picturesque as well as useful, 
 awd formed the object for many an artist's picture, as it 
 stood up, tall and dark, many a score of feet above the 
 town of Morlaix, tossing- its great sails, like giant arms, 
 against the sky. 
 
 The basement floor, sufficiently large to stand division 
 into two good-sized rooms and a little sleeping closet, 
 served as the dwelling of the miller and his family. 
 
 The first storey was larger still, and projected far 
 enough beyond the walls below, to form a covered passage 
 all around the dwelling floor — in mill parlance, a round- 
 /lOHse, which in its turn was fenced in with timber hoard- 
 ings to protect it from the open air. Here the miller
 
 202 A CJ//LD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 received the sacks of grain, which were hoisted up by 
 great pulleys to the g-rinding-chamber ; here, also, they 
 were lowered down again, and delivered back to their 
 owners filled with well-ground flour : for the Monlin d'en 
 Haut bore a high character for its fine grinding. 
 
 A finely picturesque old timber stair-case led up to the 
 first storey, outside the round-house, communicating with 
 an equally picturesque litttle open gallery which ran all 
 round the mill. Inside, an equally useful, if less 
 picturesque ladder, performed the same office, leading 
 immediately into the interior of the first storey through a 
 trap in the floor. 
 
 Christophe hesitated a moment between these two ways 
 of mounting in pursuance of his errand, but finally chose 
 the inner. 
 
 Madame Rannau h^id lit a mill-candle during his 
 absence, and struck it by the sharp spike with which such 
 candle-sticks are usually furnished, into the wall of the 
 round-house ; a bunch of keys, strung together by a piece 
 of string, hung on a nail beside it. 
 
 Christophe took both candle and keys, and, mounting 
 the ladder, pushed up the first trap-door, and found 
 himself in the grinding-chamber. The great mill-stones 
 were at rest, the huge beams and joists which supported 
 the upper floors, no longer trembled with the heavy roll 
 uf the machinery. The whole place seemed strangely 
 and*eerily quiet.
 
 SEEN EV THE MOONEIGHT. 203 
 
 Christophe even was struck by the stillness ; for, though 
 he was no miller, he had several times been in a mill in 
 the old days at home : days which now seemed strangely 
 dim and far away, as though they had been lived in the 
 land of/lreams. 
 
 Upon everything in the chamber there had settled a 
 fine white dust. It looked like the dust which grows of 
 long disuse : but in reality it was the dust of labour, the 
 powdering's of the fine white rain of meal which was ever 
 being thrown off, like spray, by the floury cataract which 
 flowed from between the mill-stones, 
 
 A black cat, with face and ears whitened by its 
 researches among the meal-sacks, glared at Christophe 
 as he passed the hopper and went on up the next ladder 
 to the floor above. 
 
 The Monlin d'en Haut was a tall mill, and Christophe 
 had to pass up through several other storeys, each appro- 
 priated to some particular process in the grinding of corn, 
 before he reached the topmost chamber, that containing 
 the mainsj^ring of the whole, the machinery con- 
 nected with the great sails outside, which set the 
 whole of the lower works in motion. Here also all 
 was silent. 
 
 The miller had evidently secured the sails all right 
 before leaving- the mill on his expedition to the town : for 
 there was no motion, no sound to be heard, but the soft 
 piping of a _gently-stirring wind among the great trans-
 
 £04 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 verse bars which formed the inner skeleton of the mig-hty 
 arms outside. 
 
 Christophe did his best to bring his weak and be- 
 wildered mind to the task in hand ; he ransacked his 
 cloudy memory to call up an image of how things looked 
 when sails were properly locked, from the shadowy im- 
 pressions of past times. He tried his keys in what looked 
 like a lock in the machinery, found one that fitted, but 
 could not turn it further. Yes, evidently all was right. 
 
 He drew a sigh of relief, put his hand to a brow which 
 was throbbing painfully with the effort at unaccustomed 
 thought, and turned to go down stairs. 
 
 As he did so, a long shaft of pale moonlight fell into 
 the gloomy room, from one of the two square windows 
 facing each other, which pierced the wall, and from which 
 the miller was wont to look out for the coming of the 
 winds to turn his mill. 
 
 Christophe started. Never now could he see a shaft of 
 moonlight fall athwart the darkness without such a start, 
 and a curdling of the blood which turned his very heart 
 sick. His ordinary impulse on such occasions, to turn 
 and flee, came over him now : but he resisted it, walked 
 down the very track of the eerie light, and looked out of 
 the window. 
 
 It was a strange picture of light and shade which 
 stretched before him, as he stood there at the top of the tall 
 old wind-mill, lifted, as it were, between earth and heaven.
 
 SEEN IN THE MOONLIGHT. 205 
 
 Close by him, stretching- black and motionless, one 
 against the sky, one towards the far horizon, one pointing- 
 down to earth, the fourth hidden from sight, were the 
 mill-sails, about which, whether by day or night, there 
 is I know not what of weird power, which impresses the 
 imagination with a sort of fascination mingled with awe. 
 
 These were intensely black, steady and motionless ; all 
 else seemed a strange, shifting sea of light and shadow, 
 as the clouds scudded across the sky, now hiding, now 
 showing the moon, casting ghostly photographs of the 
 scenes in heaven on to the receptive surface of the 
 sleeping world which lay below. Now the roofs of the 
 town below caught the gleam ; then it passed with 
 gliding motion to the tidal river on which Morlaix lies, 
 lighting up its sluggish reaches till they showed like the 
 gleaming folds in the train of a bridal dress. Anon the 
 light died from the water, only to live again on the dim 
 brown moors and swelling hills which lie between 
 Morlaix and the far sea-line, where the silver seemed to 
 settle smilingly and linger ere it passed, like Arthur, to 
 the Isle of Avilion, which lies, say the Bretons, in those 
 " wan waters of the west." 
 
 Christophe looked some moments at the shifting picture, 
 then suddenly, as is usual with such unexplainable 
 perceptions, there came over him the feeling that 
 someone was standing behind him. 
 
 He turned quickly, and, as the moonlight, which had
 
 206 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 l)L'en shut off from the room by his own face at the 
 win low, streamed again across the floor, he caught sight 
 of the figure of a man standing in it, with his face 
 towards the trap-door. 
 
 He was a young man, short, but very powerfully built, 
 with thick, black hair. Of his face, Christophe could see 
 but little, besides the outline of a long cheek and stubborn- 
 looking chin. 
 
 He wore a miller's dress, white from head to foot. 
 After standing for an instant with his hands in his pockets 
 and his eyes on the floor, he made straight for the ladder 
 and descended to the lower storey, without once turning 
 his head, or giving any indication that he was aware of 
 Christophe's presence. 
 
 The latter, after a short interval, followed him : and 
 then, for the first time, he perceived that the draught from 
 the windows had blown out his candle, and that he would 
 have no light but that of the moon to guide him down the 
 many ladders and through the silent chambers of the 
 mill. 
 
 Who. then, was this man that seemed to know them 
 so well that he needed no light ? 
 
 Christophe could hear him descending with unhesitating 
 ste[». never once pausing till 'he reached the lowest rung 
 of the lowest ladder. Cautiously following in the gloom, 
 he himself found it no such easy matter. 
 
 Was this a grinder attached to the mill ? If so, why
 
 SEEN IN THE MOOXLIGHT. 207 
 
 had Madame Rannau spoken of being" alone ? Wh)- had 
 she been so ready to avail herself of the help of an 
 inexperienced new-comer ? 
 
 The incident puzzled him a good deal ; yet, such was 
 the condition of his mind, that the new effort, required to 
 find his way in the almost total darkness — (for the clouds 
 passed too constantly over the moon to allow of her giving- 
 much light) — caused him almost to forg-et his meeting 
 with the stranger, by the time he had groped his way 
 downstairs again. 
 
 V^ery weary was the lad when he stood once more in 
 the presence of the miller's wife. The reaction consequent 
 on the novelty and excitement of the last few hours had set 
 in : the fatigue of a long day was telling on his weakened 
 body, and it was all he could do to stand upright while 
 he reported himself to the mistress, handed her the keys, 
 and waited to receive her directions. 
 
 In spite of her own preoccupation, the weary droop of 
 the tall, thin figure, the exhausted ring of the lad's voice 
 did not escape Tephany's attention. She rose immediately 
 from her seat beside the bed oCthe now sleeping miller, 
 took the candle, and led the way into a little sleeping 
 closet. 
 
 " It is Marie's," she said, looking half doubtfully at 
 the dainty appointments of the tiny chamber, and 
 then at the undoubtedly squalid apijcarance of the lad 
 beside her.
 
 208 .^ CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 " Yes, it is Marie's ; but she won't be back to-night, 
 and I do not know where else to put you. I have no 
 time to make up a bed, and I must have you at hand in 
 case of need. Good night, and may the blessed saints 
 keep us all." 
 
 " But, Madame " 
 
 Christophe's eyes had followed the direction of 
 Tephany's, and rested, not with doubt, but with utter 
 consternation on the scene before him. 
 
 The tiny room did, indeed, look very unsuited to such as 
 he. It was not that it was luxuriously furnished ; far 
 from it. Of actual furniture there was little, and that 
 only of the usual description to be found in Breton houses, 
 such as was the Monlin d'en Haut. But there was a 
 spotless purity, a dainty finish about it all, from the 
 snowy coverlet and white pillows, which gleamed from 
 within the dark oak framework of the lit dos^ with the 
 I.H.S. above it, set in wreathen work of quaint old 
 carving ; to the winter nosegay of window-reared China 
 roses, which filled the little vase below the shrine of the 
 Madonna, opposite the diamonded window, deep set in 
 the old wall. 
 
 The very walls themselves were white, with the 
 dazzling whiteness of newly laid-on limewash, all above 
 the border of dark wainscoting which extended round the 
 room to the height of some three feet above the floor. 
 
 On a nail in the wall at one side of the window there
 
 SEEN lA THE MOONLIGHT. 209 
 
 hung one of the close white linen caps worn by the 
 female population of Morlaix, and under the plain deal 
 chair with scarlet cushion which stood by the bed, 
 Christophe could see a tiny pair of woman's sabots. 
 
 Such a white little nest, and — (He caught sight of 
 himself in a small looking-glass which hung on the wall, 
 and fairly started. The contrast was too great.) 
 
 " But, Madame " 
 
 The words came from him as a sort of protest. It 
 seemed little short of profanation that he should occupy 
 a room like this. 
 
 But Tephany was gone ; and Christophe, uttering the 
 words, turned, to find the door shut, and he himself 
 standing alone on the well-scrubbed floor. He glanced 
 again at the litde mirror, and fairly blushed. 
 
 Dirty, indeed, haggard with long fasting, and utterly 
 innocent of soap and water, was the face which met his 
 look. The darker shade which outlined the short, well- 
 cut upper lip, might be the first sign of coming manhood, 
 or only an intensified smudge of dirt, for all its owner or 
 anyone else could discover; ^d as for the hair which 
 hung in long black masses about his head and almost 
 into his eyes, it was all but rusty in hue from exposure to 
 the sun and wind, matted and unkempt to the last 
 degree. 
 
 From his face, Christophe glanced down at his figure, 
 and the blush became hotter. 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 No klaskervara could be worse than he : the rag-s 
 seemed literally about to fall from him and leave him 
 naked. 
 
 Such a tattered object ! And had he stood thus before 
 Madame Rannau ? 
 
 Almost for the first time since he had quitted his home, 
 the sense of his squalid appearance forced itself on the 
 lad's mind and filled him with overpowering- shame. 
 
 Could his foster-mother see him thus, his dainty little 
 sister Genofa, nay even Yvonne — what would they say ? 
 
 It was long since he had consciously thought much of 
 the old home, but the sight of this little white chamber 
 seemed to bring it back. It was just such a one as 
 Genofa's, he thought : and with that he went forward and 
 laid his great, brown hand, half-timidly, half-tenderly, on 
 the snowy pillow. When he took it away, it seemed to 
 him that it had left a mark on the fair, white linen. 
 
 He drew back in horror ! 
 
 No ; he could not sleep there. It was an utter im- 
 possibility. 
 
 He looked around, saw a mat, old and faded, if clean 
 like everything else, which had been laid down inside the 
 door to keep out the draught ; stretched himself upon 
 it, — like a dog not fit to intrude further, but which, 
 nevertheless, is suffered at the door, — and fell fast asleep.-
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A SON OF ROHAN. 
 
 " She thereat, as one 
 That smells a foul-fleshed agaric in the holt, 
 And deems it carrion of some woodland thing. 
 Or shrew, or weasel, nipt her slender nose 
 With petulant thumb and finger, shrilling, ' Hence 
 Avoid, thou smellest all of kitchen-grease ! ' " 
 
 Tennyson.—" Gareth and Lyaette." 
 
 '*' To think of all this happening- since we went away ! 
 Heavens ! I think old Mere Judith must have turned an 
 
 evil eye (Holy Saints, that I should have said the 
 
 word!) " 
 
 Here the speaker dropped her voice to a horrified 
 whisper, and hastily crossed herself. 
 
 "But really, Tephany, it is strangely unfortunate. 
 First, a week's baking- all spoilt; then the fmest pig 
 dropping down dead ; and now this accident ! You may 
 say what you like, sister, but I do believe Benead has 
 himself to thank. If he hadn't quarrelled with his bread 
 and butter and sent off poor ^dam, we shouldn't have 
 come to this pass. Nothing- has gone right since he went 
 away, and that's — how many weeks since ? Well, 
 anyhow, — ^jW.'" Tephany, say then, what animal hast 
 thou got here ? 'Tis a very pig ! " 
 
 The speaker, a pretty, round, kitten-like girl— as 
 
 « I'reton exclamation.
 
 2i2 A CHILD OF THE MEXHIR, 
 
 rci^'-ards outward appearance, a copy in miniature of her 
 elder sister, the miller's wife, but daintier, more sprightly, 
 and altogether less what the French call solide in looks 
 than she — turned hastily, and started as her eyes fell on 
 Christophe. 
 
 The lad was dilig'ently sweeping- out the round- 
 house, evidently putting his whole mind into his task, for 
 he had hardly glanced up as the miller's wife passed out 
 on her way to meet the returning- members of her house- 
 hold, namely, her two little boys and the young- unmarried 
 sister whose home was at present under her roof. 
 
 The boys had loitered behind, and the two women had 
 stopped with their backs to the mill that the mother 
 might glance down the road now and ag-ain, while she 
 poured out her tale of misfortunes. 
 
 Tephany followed the direction of her sister's eyes, 
 coloured a little, and answered in a tone which sounded 
 half apologetic, — 
 
 " What could I do, Marie ? He turned up last night 
 just before Benead was brought home, and I had 
 nobody " 
 
 '' Bah ! a klaskervara like that ! " 
 
 Marie tossed her head and turned up her little retrousse 
 nose still further, as though its delicate sense had been 
 offended. 
 
 *' Why, he's a true son of Jvo/ian* no better than one 
 
 * Mab-rohan — sons of Rohan— a I'.icton name for pigs.
 
 A SON OF ROHAA. 2V/> 
 
 of the pig"s," she continued, saucily, as the newly-liberated 
 herd ran g^runting- past. *' And to take him instead of 
 Adam— Bah ! '' 
 
 She scarcely took the trouble to lower her voice, as she 
 brushed past the object of her disapprobation into the dwell- 
 ingf-rooms, whither she was followed by the miller's wife. 
 
 Animal as she might think him, and as indeed he 
 almost looked in his neglected squalor, the lad had caught 
 and vividly felt the girl's last remark. The hot blood 
 crimsoned his dark skin under its coating of dirt, and he 
 paused a moment in his willing labour of helping the 
 woman who had been kind to him, in the vague desire of 
 hearing a word from her in his defence. He had better 
 have gone on. 
 
 Tephany spoke indeed, but in a voice so pitched that,. 
 had he not been listening, it would not have been over- 
 heard : yet it was evident that, not his defence, but the 
 wish to propitiate her sister, was the motive which 
 prompted her words. 
 
 " Ah, yes, poor fellow, he is, as thou sayest, a ver>- 
 pig : but what wouldst have, Marie ? Ah, pardon," she 
 continued, following her sister into the little sleeping- 
 closet, ^' I did not mean thee to find out ; if I had thought 
 how dirty he was, I would never — but Benead was so 
 ill, as thou seest, though he sleeps quietly enough for 
 the present, poor man, that — that " 
 
 She broke off, her voice drowned in the angry exclama-
 
 214 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 tions of her sister, who had evidently discovered the 
 black mark on her pretty white pillow. 
 
 '' But, Tephany, this is shocking-, — terrible ! Thou dost 
 not mean to tell me he slept in here ? Yes ? Sainte- 
 Anne defend us I A veritable pig — a beast like that ! 
 Get along- to thy animal, then ; I must put the room to 
 rig-hts directly. My room, indeed ! " 
 
 The door was banged in the face of the miller's wife, 
 who, hearing her husband calling her, went to his bed- 
 side, without a glance to see if her protege had be^n 
 within ear-shot of these pleasant remarks. 
 
 Had she looked, however, she would have found the 
 round-house empty. Christophe had not waited to hear 
 the conclusion of the altercation concerning him. With 
 head bent, ears tingling, and cheeks throbbing with 
 shame, he turned from the door of the mill, which, up to 
 that moment, had seemed to him such a kindly refuge 
 from misery and cold neglect. 
 
 Why had he so soon forgotten the image which last 
 night had shocked him by its reflection in the gdass ? 
 Why had he not at least tried whether cold water would 
 make him more respectable before he had again pre- 
 sented his squalid countenance in the sight of a civilized 
 woman ? 
 
 Poor lad, he felt as If his foster-mother, the notable 
 Ninorc'h — as if his dainty little sister Genofa, who was 
 always as fresh and sweet as a flower — had spoken by
 
 A SON OF ROHAN. iil.5 
 
 the mouths of these two women. How they had always 
 hated dirt ! How Genofa especially had been wont to 
 shrink from the neig^hbourhood of a klaskervara I 
 
 A klaskervara ! The imag-e of his father rose before 
 his mind's eye at the word, and he shuddered painfully. 
 Could it be that he was like tJiat^ 
 
 There was horror in the very thought. 
 
 Tears such as he had not shed for many months, which 
 indeed he had been too much crushed to shed, coursed 
 down the hagg'ard cheeks of the wanderer, as he knelt 
 by the mossy margin of the well where Maitre Rannau 
 was wont to water his mill-horse, and tried, with hands 
 which, it is true, were too long unaccustomed — to make 
 his morning toilet. Round him grunted Madame 
 Rannau's pigs, wallowing in the muddy runlet which 
 flowed from the well, seeming (as he thought in his deep 
 humiliation) to recognize him as a brother. 
 
 "A son of Rohan!" Yes, she had called him that, 
 and as such even the animals owned him. 
 
 And he had dared to sleep in her room, that dainty 
 room which was like a shrine ! No wonder she was 
 horrified. 
 
 No anger mingled with the lad's smarting sense of 
 shame. His life for the past few years had been such as 
 to leave no room for pride, scarcely even for self-respect ; 
 and lately, when he thought at all, it was to wonder 
 dumbl\- how a creature so vile as he felt himself to be.
 
 2L0 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR, 
 
 could be looked on by any Christian without a shudder. 
 The words of this dainty g-irl were accepted without 
 resentment, as only the simple truth ; nay, he was even 
 conscious of a feeling- of relief that she had shrunk from 
 his outward squalor only, not from the soul's defilement, 
 which was before his eyes continually to the exclusion of 
 everything- else. Outward soil mig-ht be washed away, 
 but blood 
 
 No, he would not think of that just now ; and it was a 
 sig'n of his improving mental condition that a mere 
 accident of daily life could come between his mind's eye 
 and the g^hastly horror on which it had so long dwelt. 
 
 What with his own splashing and the pigs' grunting, 
 he did not hear the babble of childrens' voices coming 
 nearer and nearer, and it was with a start of surprise 
 that he looked up presently to see two curly-headed boys, 
 standing hand-in-hand, gazing at his ablutions with the 
 mo.=it profound interest. 
 
 Christophe's head was dripping with water, the drops 
 running down from his mop of black hair into his eyes, 
 faster than he could wipe them away with his tattered 
 sleeve. He must have looked a comical object, contorting 
 his grave features and winking hard in the endeavour to 
 look at the new arrivals ; but not the slightest irlea had 
 he of this till he was startled by a peal of childish 
 laughter from his two spectators. Then Christophe, 
 having at last succeeded in stemming the wa^^er-drops.
 
 ^ SON OJ^ ROHAN. 217 
 
 stared too, and a pleasant picture it was which met his 
 eyes. 
 
 The boys mi.^ht have been about eig^ht years old, and 
 were perfect doubles of each other ; the same height, the 
 same colourini;', the same form of feature. 
 
 You could see at once that they were brothers and had 
 been born on the same day ; you could see also, almost 
 as clearly, whose children they were. They mi<^ht have 
 been modelled and painted after Madame Rannau, so 
 much did they resemble her. 
 
 Both of them had the curly hair, —dark, yet with a 
 bronze tint upon it, which, in the sunshine, showed like 
 the interweaving of a gold thread — the soft olive skin 
 with a healthy rose blooming underneath, the full red 
 lips, and clear grey eyes, which, before her beauty had 
 become a little too expansive and over-blown, had made 
 Tephany Laurent the most admired among the penncn'Z '■' 
 of Morlaix. 
 
 And now both cherub faces were rippled over with 
 smiles and laughter; the eyes twinkled with amusement, 
 the white, pearly teeth showed in a brilliant line between 
 the cherry lips. Such innocent fun is very infectious, and 
 before he knew what he was doing-, the grave, melancholy 
 outcast, who had thought never to smile again, found 
 himself laughing back at them. The lad almost started 
 at the sound of his own laugh, so strange and unnatural 
 
 * The Breton for a young marriageable girl
 
 218 A CHILD OF THE MENHIR. 
 
 did it sound ; but he had no time to think of this, for. as 
 if the spell had been broken by the re-echo of their 
 amusement, one of the cherubs ceased laughing-, and 
 spoke. 
 
 "Who are you ? " 
 
 Seldom was a simple question harder to answer. To 
 bury his individuality was Christophe's chief object, and 
 here was a child asking- it of him point blank ! 
 
 The lad could not lie ; though of late all idea of acting 
 on principle had been as if null and void — it was not in 
 his nature to do so. 
 
 But, after all, what was his individuality ? Did he 
 fully know himself? His father he knew — alas, too well ! 
 But his mother ? His birthplace ? About all that the 
 pillawer had been persistently silent. 
 
 *' Who are you?'* repeated the boy, bent on getting 
 an answer, '^ you nmsf be somebody, and live sonieivhere^ 
 you know," he added, with a sage nod of his curly head. 
 *' Mustn't he, Allan ? " 
 
 "Yes," answered the other cherub, decidedly, "of 
 course he must." 
 
 "Must I? Well, then, I don't; I live nowhere— at 
 least, not now," added Christophe, under his breath, with 
 a sad sigh. 
 
 He had found something he could answer, both 
 harmlessly and truly enough. 
 
 " You live nowhere — you have 710 home ? " questioned
 
 A SON OF ROHAN. 219 
 
 the first cherub, as if such sad facts were sheer impossibilities, 
 c[aiie unknown in the sphere of his childish experience. 
 
 "Allan, dost thou hear? He lives nowhere, he has 
 no home !" repeated the child, impressively, turning to liis 
 double. 
 
 The other meditated a little, after which he said slowly, 
 and with great conviction : " Then he's a klaskervara. 
 T/wy live nowhere, as thou knowest, Etienne ; and they're 
 nobodies, too. Adam said so." 
 
 The first cherub seemed impressed. He had forgotten 
 to take this phase of society into consideration. After 
 pondering his brother's words for a due space, he turned 
 again to Christophe : 
 
 " You hear what he says, boy ? You are a klaskervara, 
 are you not?" 
 
 Was he a klaskervara ? Christophe repeated the ques- 
 tion to him^self. A seeker of bread — certainly he had 
 been that for some time past, and had found but little. 
 He looked up and answered : 
 
 " Well, perhaps — yes, I suppose I am." 
 
 The child seemed satisfied. 
 
 "Then I'll call you Klasker," he said. " There was an 
 old man who came to the door for bread every month, 
 one winter, and that was what we called him ; he was a 
 nobody, like you, and had no name — at least, he never 
 told it. He's dead now," added the child, carelessly — " at 
 least we think so, Allan and I, for he never comes ; so you
 
 2-2 ( /i cm LI) OF THE MENHIR, 
 
 can have his name, if you like. You'd like to have one. 
 wouldn't you ? 
 
 Christophc could scarcely forbear smiling at the child's 
 curious appointment of him as successor to the old beggar 
 wlio was dead ; but it suited him well enough, so he 
 nodded his head in reply. 
 
 '' Then that's settled," concluded the little one, with a 
 look of great satisfaction. ** Would you like some bread, 
 Klasker ? Mother'll give you some if I ask her." 
 
 *' Thank you, little master, she has already given me 
 my breakfast \ and now I'm going back to sweep out the 
 round-house." 
 
 " The round-house ? Ours ? How droll I Allan, dost 
 thou hear ?" 
 
 ''Yes. Stop, Etienne, I want to whisper something." 
 
 This was said mysteriously, with a curious glance at 
 the stranger by the water-trough ; and then both curly 
 heads approached very close to each other for the space 
 of some minutes, and Christophe felt that the private con- 
 versation related to him. 
 
 " Yes, mother'll know," concluded the more talkative 
 of the pair. Come, Allan, we'll go and ask her all 
 about it. Goodbye, Klasker; don't be long in commg." 
 
 They nodded to Christophe in a patronising way, and 
 then went towards the mill, hand-in-hand. 
 
 End of Vol. I. v^' 1 /