"Are you content?" he demanded, lingering.
The creature wanted sympathy, though he did not know it. I gave him my
hand and told him he was a brave man; and he went away, noiselessly,
leaving me musing by the river wall.
After a long while--or it may only have been a few minutes--the square
began to fill again with the first groups of women, children, and old
men who had escorted the departing conscripts a little way on their
march to Lorient. Back they came, the maids of Paradise silent,
tearful, pitifully acquiescent; the women of Bannalec, Faöuet,
Rosporden, Quimperlé chattering excitedly about the scene they had
witnessed. The square began to fill; lanterns were lighted around the
fountain; the two big lamps with their brass reflectors in front of
the mayor's house illuminated the pavement and the thin tree-foliage
with a yellow radiance.
The chatter grew louder as new groups in all sorts of gay head-dresses
arrived; laughter began to be heard; presently the squealing of the
biniou pipes broke out from the bowling-green, where, high on a bench
supported by a plank laid across two cider barrels, the hunchback sat,
skirling the farandole. Ah, what a world entire was this lost little
hamlet of Paradise, where merrymakers trod on the mourners' heels,
where the scream of the biniou drowned the floating note of the
passing bell, where Misery drew the curtains of her bed and lay
sleepless, listening to Gayety dancing breathless to the patter of a
coquette's wooden shoes!
Long tables were improvised in the square, piled up with bread,
sardines, puddings, hams, and cakes. Casks of cider, propped on skids,
dotted the outskirts of the bowling-green, where the mayor, enthroned
in his own arm-chair, majestically gave his orders in a voice
thickened by pork, onions, and gravy.
Truly enough, half of Finistère and Morbihan was gathering at Paradise
for a fête. The slow Breton imagination had been fired by our circus
bills and posters; ancient Armorica was stirring in her slumber,
roused to consciousness by the Yankee bill-poster.
At the inn all rooms were taken; every house had become an inn; barns,
stables, granaries had their guests; fishermen's huts on coast and
cliff were bright with coiffes and embroidered jerseys.
In their misfortune, the lonely women of Paradise recognized in this
influx a godsend--a few francs to gain with which to face those coming
wintry months while their men were absent. And they opened their tiny
houses to those who asked a lodging.
The crowds which had earlier in the evening gathered to gape at our
big tent were now noisiest in the square, where the endless drone of
the pipes intoned the farandole.
A few of our circus folk had come down to enjoy the picturesque
spectacle. Speed, standing with Jacqueline beside me, began to laugh
and beat time to the wild music. A pretty maid of Bannalec, white
coiffe and scarlet skirts a-flutter, called out with the broad freedom
of the chastest of nations: "There is the lover I could pray for--if
he can dance the farandole!"
"I'll show you whether I can dance the farandole, ma belle!" cried
Speed, and caught her hand, but she snatched her brown fingers away
and danced off, laughing: "He who loves must follow, follow, follow
the farandole!"
Speed started to follow, but Jacqueline laid a timid hand on his arm.
"I dance, M'sieu Speed," she said, her face flushing under her
elf-locks.
"You blessed child," he cried, "you shall dance till you drop to
your knees on the bowling-green!" And, hand clasping hand, they swung
out into the farandole. For an instant only I caught a glimpse of
Jacqueline's blissful face, and her eyes like blue stars burning; then
they darkened into silhouettes against the yellow glare of the
lanterns and vanished.
Byram rambled up for a moment, to comment on the quaint scene from a
showman's point of view. "It would fill the tent in old Noo York, but
it's n. g. in this here country, where everybody's either a coryphee
or a clown or a pantaloon! Camuels ain't no rara avises in the Sairy,
an' no niggers go to burnt-cork shows. Phylosophy is the thing, Mr.
Scarlett! Ruminate! Ruminate!"
I promised to do so, and the old man rambled away, coat and vest on
his arm, silk hat cocked over his left eye, the lamp-light shining on
the buckles of his suspenders. Dear old governor!--dear, vulgar
incarnation of those fast vanishing pioneers who invented
civilization, finding none; who, self-taught, unashamed taught their
children the only truths they knew, that the nation was worthy of all
good, all devotion, and all knowledge that her sons could bring her to
her glory that she might one day fulfil her destiny as greatest among
the great on earth.
The whining Breton bagpipe droned in my ears; the dancers flew past;
laughter and cries arose from the tables in the square where the
curate of St. Julien stood, forefinger wagging, soundly rating an
intoxicated but apologetic Breton in the costume of Faöuet.
I was tired--tired of it all; weary of costumes and strange customs,
weary of strange tongues, of tinsel and mummers, and tarnished finery;
sick of the sawdust and the rank stench of beasts--and the vagabond
life--and the hopeless end of it all--the shabby end of a useless
life--a death at last amid strangers! Soldiers in red breeches,
peasants in embroidered jackets, strolling mountebanks all tinselled
and rouged--they were all one to me.... I wanted my own land.... I
wanted my own people.... I wanted to go home ... home!--and die, when
my time came, under the skies I knew as a child,... under that
familiar moon which once silvered my nursery windows....
I turned away across the bridge out into the dark road. Long before I
came to the smoky, silent camp I heard the monotonous roaring of my
lions, pacing their shadowy dens.