In and out of Three Normandy Inns Part 27

One field near us was peopled with a group of girls resting on their scythes. One or two among them were mopping their faces with their coa.r.s.e blue ap.r.o.ns; the faces of all were aflame with the red of rude health. As we came upon them, some had flung away their scythes, the tallest among the group grasping a near companion, playfully, in the pose of a wrestler. In an instant the company was turned into a group of wrestlers. There was a great shout of laughter, as maiden after maiden was tumbled over on her back or face amid the gra.s.ses. Sabots, short skirts, kerchiefs, scarlet arms rose and fell to earth in the mad whirl of their gayety.

"Stop, Jacques, I must see the end," cried Charm. "Will they fight or dance, I wonder!"

"Oh, it is a pure Georgic--they'll dance." They were dancing already.

The line, with dishevelled hair, ap.r.o.ns and kerchiefs askew, had formed into the square of a quadrille. A rude measure was tripped; a s.n.a.t.c.h of song, shouted amid the laughter, gave rhythm to the measure, and then the whole band, singing in chorus, linked arms and swept with a furious dash beneath the thatched roof of a low farm-house.

"As you see, my ladies, sometimes the fields are gay--even now," was Jacques's comment. "But they should be getting their gra.s.ses in--for it'll rain before night. It's time to sing when the scythe sleeps--as we say here."

To our eyes there were no signs of rain. The clouds rolling in the blue sea above us were only gloriously lighted. But the birds and the peasants knew their sky; there was a great fluttering of wings among the branches; and the peasants, as we rattled in and out of the hamlets, were pulling the _reposoirs_ to pieces in the haste that predicts bad weather. They had been "celebrating" all along the road; and besides the piety, the Norman thrift was abroad upon the highway.

Women were tearing sheets off the house facades; the lads and girls were bearing crosses, china vases, and highly-colored Virgins from the wooden altars into the low houses.

Presently the great drops fell; they beat upon the smooth roadway like so many hard bits of coin. In less than two ticks of the clock, the world was a wet world; there were ma.s.ses of soft gray clouds that were like so much cotton, dripping with moisture. The earth was as drenched as if, half an hour ago, it had not been a jewel gleaming in the sun; and the very farm-houses had quickly a.s.sumed an air of having been caught out in the rain without an umbrella. The farm gardens alone seemed to rejoice in the suddenness of the shower. Flowers have a way of s.h.i.+ning, when it rains, that proves flower-petals have a woman's love of solitaires.

There were other dashes of color that made the gray landscape astonis.h.i.+ngly brilliant. Some of the peasants on their way to the village _fetes_ were also caught in the pa.s.sing shower. They had opened their wide blue and purple umbrellas; these latter made huge disks of color reflected in the gla.s.s of the wet macadam. The women had turned their black alpaca and cashmere skirts inside out, tucking the edges about their stout hips; beneath the wide vivid circles of the dripping umbrellas these brilliantly colored under-petticoats showed a liberal revelation of scarlet hose and thick ankles sunk in the freshly polished black sabots. The men's cobalt-blue blouses and their peaked felt hats spotted the landscape with contrasting notes and outlines.

After the last peaked hat had disappeared into the farm enclosures, we and the wet landscape had the rain to ourselves. The trees now were spectral shapes; they could not be relied on as companions. Even the gardens and grain lands were mysteriously veiled, so close rolled the mists to our carriage-wheels. Beyond, at the farthest end of the road, these mists had formed themselves into a solid, compact ma.s.s.

The clouds out yonder, far ahead, seemed to be enwrapping some part of earth that had lanced itself into the sky.

After a little the eyes unconsciously watched those distant woolly ma.s.ses. There was a something beyond, faint, vague, impalpable as yet, which the rolling mists begirt as sometimes they cincture an Alpine needle. Even as the thought came, a sudden lifting--of the gray ma.s.s showed the point of a high uplifted pinnacle. The point thereof p.r.i.c.ked the sky. Then the wind, like a strong hand, swept the clouds into a mantle, and we saw the strange spectacle no more.

For several miles our way led us through a dim, phantasmal landscape.

All the outlines were blurred. Even the rain was a veil; it fell between us and the nearest hedgerows as if it had been a curtain. The jingling of Poulette's bell-collar and the gurgle of the water rus.h.i.+ng in the gulleys--these were the only sounds that fell upon the ear.

Still the clouds about that distant ma.s.s curled and rolled; they were now breaking, now re-forming--as if some strange and wondrous thing were hanging there--between heaven and earth.

It was still far out, the ma.s.s; even the lower mists were not resting on any plain of earth. They also were moved by something that moved beneath them, as a thick cloak takes the shape and motion of the body it covers. Still we advanced, and still the great mountain of cloud grew and grew. And then there came a little lisping, hissing sound. It was the kiss of the sea as it met some unseen sh.o.r.e. And on our cheeks the sea-wind blew, soft and salty to the lips.

The ma.s.s was taking shape and outline. The mists rolled along some wide, broad base that rested beneath the sea, and skyward they clasped the apexal point of a pyramid.

This pyramid in the sky was Mont St. Michel.

With its feet in the sea, and its head vanis.h.i.+ng into infinity--here, at last, was this rock of rocks, caught, phantom-like, up into the very heavens above.

It loomed out of the spectral landscape--itself the superlative spectre; it took its flight upward as might some genius of beauty enrobed in a shroud of mystery.

Such has it been to generations of men. Beautiful, remote, mysterious!

With its altars and its shrines, its miracle of stone carved by man on those other stones hewn by the wind and the tempest, Mont St. Michel has ever been far more a part of heaven than a thing of earth.

Then, for us, the clouds suddenly lifted, as, for modern generations of men, the mists of superst.i.tion have also rolled themselves away.

MONT ST. MICHEL:

AN INN ON A ROCK.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MONT SAINT MICHEL]

CHAPTER XXIX.

BY SEA TO THE POULARD INN.

We were being tossed in the air like so many b.a.l.l.s. A Normandy _char a banc_ was proving itself no respecter of nice distinctions in conditions in life. It phlipped, dashed, and rolled us about with no more concern than if it were taking us to market to be sold by the pound. For we were on the _greve_. The promised rivers were before us.

So was the Mont, spectral no longer, but nearing with every plunge forward of our st.u.r.dy young Percheron. Locomotion through any new or untried medium is certain to bring with the experiment a dash of elation. Now, driving through water appears to be no longer the fas.h.i.+on in our fastidious century; someone might get a wetting, possibly, has been the conclusion of the prudent. And thus a very innocent and exciting bit of fun has been gradually relegated among the lost arts of pleasure.

We were taking water as we had never taken it before, and liking the method. We were as wet as ducks, but what cared we? We were being deluged with spray; the spume of the sea was spurting in our faces with the force of a strong wet breeze, and still we liked it. Besides, driving thus into the white foam of the waters, over the sand ridges, across the downs, into the wide plains of wet mud, this was the old cla.s.sical way of going up to the Mont. Surely, what had been found good enough as a pathway for kings and saints and pilgrims should be good enough for two lovers of old-time methods. The dike yonder was built for those who believe in the devil of haste, and for those who also serve him faithfully.

Someone else besides ourselves was enjoying our drive through the waves. Our gay young Normandy driver seemed to find an exquisite relish in the spectacle of our wet faces and unstable figures. He could not keep his eyes off us; they fairly glistened with the dew of his enjoyment. Two ladies pitched and rolled about, exactly as if they were peasants, and laughing as if they were children--this was a spectacle and a keen appreciation of a joke that brought joy to a rustic blouse.

"Ah--ah! mesdames!" he cried, exultingly, between the gasps of his own laughter, as he tossed his own fine head in the air, sitting on his rude bench, covered with sheepskin, as if it had been an armchair. "Ah, ah! mesdames, you didn't expect this, _hein_? You hoped for a landau, and feathers and cus.h.i.+ons, perhaps? But soft feathers and springs are not for the _greve_."

"Is it dangerous? are there deep holes?"

"Oh, the holes, they are as nothing. It is the quicksands we fear. But it is only a little danger, and danger makes the charm of travel, is it not so, my ladies? Adventure, that is what one travels for! _Hui!_ Fend l'Air!"

It had occurred to us before that we had been uncommonly lucky in our coachmen, as well as in the names of the horses, that had brightened our journey. In spite of Juliet, whose disdain of the virtue or the charm that lies in a name is no more worthy of respect than is any lover's opinion when in the full-orbed foolishness of his lunacy, I believe names to be a very effective adjunct to life's scenic setting.

Most of the horses we had had along these Normandy high-roads, had answered to names that had helped to italicize the features of the country. Could Poulette, the st.u.r.dy little mare, with whom only an hour ago we had parted forever, have been given a better sobriquet by which to have identified for us the fat landscape? And now here was Fend l'Air proving good his talent for cleaving through s.p.a.ce, whatever of land or sea lay in his path.

"And he merits his name, my lady," his driver announced with grave pride, as he looked at the huge haunches with a loving eye. "He can go, oh, but as the wind! It is he who makes of the crossing but as if it were nothing!"

The crossing! That was the key-note of the way the coast spoke of the Mont. The rock out yonder was a country apart, a bit of land or stone the sh.o.r.e claimed not, had no part in, felt to be as remote as if it were a foreign province. At Genets the village spoke of the Mont as one talks of a distant land. Even the journey over the sands was looked upon with a certain seriousness. A starting forth was the signal for the village to a.s.semble about the _char-a-banc's_ wheels. Quite a large company for a small village to muster was grouped about our own vehicle, to look on gravely as we mounted to the rude seat within. The villagers gave us their "_bonjours_" with as much fervor as if we were starting forth on a sea voyage.

"You will have a good crossing!" cackled one of the old men, nodding toward the peak in the sky.

"The sands may be wet, but they are firm already!" added a huge peasant--the fattest man in all the canton, whisperingly confided the landlady, as one proud of possessing a village curiosity.

"_Hui_, Fend l'Air! _attention, toi!_" Fend l'Air tossed his fine mane, and struck out with a will over the cobbles. But his driver was only posing for the a.s.sembled village. He was in no real haste; there was a fresh voice singing yonder in his mother's tavern; the sentimentalist in him was on edge to hear the end of the song.

"Do you hear that, mesdames? There's no such singing as that out of Paris. One must go to a cafe--"

"_Allons, toi!_" shrieked his mother's voice, as her face darkened. "Do you think these ladies want to spend the night on the _greve_?

_Depeches-toi, vaurien!_" And she gave the wheels a shove with her strong hand, whereat all the village laughed. But the good-for-nothing son made no haste as the song went on--

"_Le bon vin me fait dormir, L'amour me reveil--_"

He continued to c.o.c.k his head on one side and to let his eyes dream a bit.

Within, a group of peasants was gathered about the inn table. There were some young girls seated among the blouses; one of them, for the hour that we had sat waiting for Fend l'Air to be captured and harnessed, had been singing songs of questionable taste in a voice of such contralto sweetness as to have touched the heart of a bishop.

"Some young girls from the factories at Avranches, mesdames, who come here Sundays to get a bit of fresh air; _Dieu soit si elles en ont besoin, pauvres enfants!_" was the landlady's charitable explanation.

It appeared to us that the young ladies from Avranches were more in need of a moral than a climatic change. But then, we also charitably reflected, it makes all the difference in the world, in these nice questions of taste and morality, whether one has had as an inheritance a past of Francis I. and a Rabelais, or of Calvin and a Puritan conscience.