CHAPTER IX

LOCH-AR-BRUGG

And now I must tell of Loch-ar-Brugg, the center of my long life and the spot dearest to me upon earth. It was situated amidst the beautiful, wild, heathery country that stretched inland from Landerneau. I first saw it one day when I drove over from Landerneau with my father, and my chief recollection of this earliest visit is the deep shade under the high arch of the beech avenue and the aromatic smell of black currants in an upper room where we were taken to see the liqueur in process of being made. I was given some to drink in a tiny glass, and I never smell or taste _cassis_ that the scent, color, warmth, and sweetness of that long-distant day does not flash upon me. The liqueur was being made by the farmer's wife; for part of the house, which, as I have said, papa at that time used only as a hunting-lodge, was inhabited by a Belgian farmer and his family. They were all seated at their midday meal when we arrived, and another thing I remember is that the eldest daughter, a singularly beautiful young creature, with sea-green eyes and golden hair, was so much confused at seeing us that she put a spoonful of the custard she was eating against her cheek instead of into her mouth, greatly to my delight and to papa's.

"Monsieur must excuse her," said the mother; "she is very timid." On which my father replied with some compliment which made all the family smile. I see them all smiling and happy, yet it must have been soon after that a tragedy befell them. News was brought to my father that the farmer had hanged himself. The poor man's rent was badly in arrears, but when he had last spoken to my father about it, the latter, as was always his wont in such circumstances, told him not to torment himself and that he could pay when he liked. _Maman_ always suspected that my father's agent had threatened the poor fellow and that he had done away with himself in an access of despondency. Papa, overcome with grief, hastened to Loch-ar-Brugg and remained there for a week with the mourning family. He gave them money to return to Belgium, and the beautiful young daughter became, we heard, a very skilful lace-maker.

I was too young for this lugubrious event to cast a shadow on my dear Loch-ar-Brugg, but for many years _maman_ disliked the place. We still lived at Quimper or Landerneau, using Loch-ar-Brugg as a mere country resort; but by degrees the ugly walls, nine feet high, that shut in the house from the gardens and shut out the view were pulled down, lawns were thrown into one another, great clumps of blue hydrangeas were planted all down the avenue, on each side, between each beech-tree, and the house, if not beautiful, was made comfortable and convenient. It was when we were really established at Loch-ar-Brugg that _maman_ began to take the finances of the household into her capable hands. She reproached my father with his lack of ambition, and asked him frequently why he did not find an occupation, to which he always replied, "_Ma chère_, I have precisely the occupations I care for." _Maman_ wrote secretly to _bon papa_ in Paris and begged him to find a post for her husband there, and an excellent one was found at the treasury. But when the letter came, and _maman_, full of joy, displayed it to him, papa cheerfully, but firmly, refused to consider for a moment any such change in his way of life. As a country gentleman he had lived and as a country gentleman he intended to go on living, and so indeed he continued to the end of his long life. I don't imagine that he made any difficulties as to _maman_ taking over the financial management. He was quite incapable of saying no to a farmer who asked to have his rent run on unpaid, and realized, no doubt, that his methods would soon bring his family to ruin. So it was _maman_ who received and paid out all the money. I see her now, sitting at the end of the long table in the kitchen, between two tall tallow candles, the peasants kneeling on the floor about her while she assessed their indebtedness and received their payments. She was never unkind, but always strict, and I was more than once the sympathetic witness of an incident that would greatly have incensed her. My father, meeting a disconsolate peasant going to an interview with _la Maîtresse_, would surreptitiously slide the needful sum into his hand! What would _maman_ have said had she known that the money so brightly and briskly paid to her had just come out of her husband's pocket!

I was always a great deal with papa at Loch-ar-Brugg. At first I used to walk with him,--when he did not take me on his horse,--trotting along beside him, my hand in his. Later on, when Tante Rose had given me a dear little pony, I rode with him, and he had secretly made for me, knowing that _maman_ would not approve, a very astonishing riding-costume. It had long, tightly fitting trousers, a short little jacket, like an Eton jacket, with a red-velvet collar,--red was my father's racing color,--and on my long golden curls a high silk hat. _Maman_ burst out laughing when she saw me thus attired and was too much amused to be displeased. She herself rode a great deal at this time, but it was to hunting- and shooting-parties, from which she would return with her "bag" hanging from a sort of little pole fixed to her saddle; and I remember that one day she brought a strange beast that none of us ever saw in Brittany again, a species of armadillo (_tatou_) that her horse had trodden upon and killed.

It was at Loch-ar-Brugg, on one of those early walks with papa, that my first vivid recollection of a landscape seen as a beautiful picture comes to me. We had entered a deep lane where gnarled old trees interlaced their fingers overhead and looked, with their twisted trunks, like crouching men or beasts; and as we advanced, it became so dark and mysterious that I was very much frightened and hung to papa's hand, begging to be taken out. He pointed then before us, and far, far away I saw a tiny spot of light. "Don't be frightened, Sophie," he said; "we are going toward the sunlight." So I kept my eyes fixed on the widening spot, holding papa's hand very tightly in the haunted darkness; and when we suddenly emerged, we were on the brink of a great gorge, and beyond were mountains, and below us lay a tranquil, silver lake. I have never forgotten the strange, visionary impression, as of a beauty evoked from the darkness. Papa told me the story of the lake; it was called "le lac des Korrigans." The Korrigans are Breton fairies--fairies, I think, more melancholy than those of other lands, and with something sinister and _macabre_ in their supernatural activities. They danced upon the turf, it is true, in fairy-rings, but also, at night, they would unwind the linen from the dead in the churchyards and wash it in this lake. I felt the same fear and wonder on hearing this story that all my descendants have shown when they, in their turn, have come to hear it, and my little granddaughter, in passing near the lake with me, has often said, shrinking against me, "Je ne veux pas voir les blanchisseuses, Grand'mère."

Unlike the marquis, who filled my mind, or tried to fill it, with the facts of nature and history, papa, on our walks, told me all these old legends, not as if he believed them, it is true, but as if they were stories quite as important in their way as the crusades; and perhaps he was right.

Sometimes, when we were walking or riding, we met convicts who had escaped from the great prison at Brest. I was strictly forbidden ever to go outside the gates alone; but once, at evening, I slipped out and ran along the road to meet papa, who, I knew, was coming from Landerneau on foot. He was very much perturbed when he saw me emerge before him in the dusk, and drew me sharply to his side, and I then noticed that two men were following him. Presently they joined us and asked papa, very roughly, for the time.

"It is nine, I think," said my father, eyeing them very attentively.

"You think? Haven't you a watch, then?" said one of them.

I suppose they imagined that the rifle papa carried over his shoulder was unloaded; but unslinging it in the twinkling of an eye, he said sternly:

"Walk ahead. If you turn or stop, I shoot." They obeyed at once, and as they went along we heard a queer clink come from their ankles.

"Escaped convicts," said papa in a low voice. "Poor devils! And you see, Sophie, how dangerous it is for little girls to wander on the roads at night."

On another occasion we found a wretched, exhausted man lying by the roadside, and papa stopped and asked him what was the matter. He must have felt the kindness of the face and voice, for he said:

"I am an escaped convict, monsieur. For God's sake! don't betray me. I am dying of hunger." Papa took out his hunting-flask and made him drink, and then, when we saw that the brandy had given him strength, he put some money into his hand and said:

"It is against the law that I should help you, but I give you an hour before I raise the alarm. Go in that direction, and God be with you!"

The church-bells were rung everywhere, answering one another from village to village when a convict was known to be at large; but on this occasion I know that my father did not fulfil his duty, the poor creature's piteous face had too much touched him. Once, too, when we children were walking with Jeannie along the highroad we caught sight of a beggar-woman sleeping in the ditch. In peering over cautiously to have a good look at her, we saw huge men's boots protruding from her petticoats, and, at the other end, a black beard, and we then made off as fast as our legs would carry us, realizing that the beggar-woman was a convict in disguise. At an inn not far from Loch-ar-Brugg there was a woman of bad character who sold these disguises to the escaped convicts.

Papa and my little brother and sister (Maraquita was not then born) were not my only companions at Loch-ar-Brugg. The property of Ker-Azel adjoined ours, and I saw all my Laisieu cousins continually, dear, gentle France, domineering Jules, and the rest. There were nine of them. It was Jules who told us one day that he had been thinking over the future of France (the country, not his brother), and had come to the conclusion that we should all soon suffer from a terrible famine. Famines had come before this, said Jules, so why not again? It was only wise to be prepared for them; and what he suggested was that we should all accustom ourselves to eat grass and clover, as the cattle did. If it nourished cows, it would nourish us. All that was needed was a little good-will in order that we should become accustomed to the new diet. Jules was sincerely convinced of the truth of what he said; but he was a tyrannous boy, and threatened us with beatings if we breathed a word of his plan to our parents. We were to feign at meals that we were not hungry, and to say that we had eaten before coming to the table. I well remember the first time that we poor little creatures knelt down on all fours in a secluded meadow and began to bite and munch the grass. We complained at once that we did not like it at all, and Jules, as a concession to our weakness, said that we might begin with clover, since it was sweeter. For some time we submitted to the ordeal, getting thinner and thinner and paler, growing accustomed, it is true, to our tasteless diet and never daring to confess our predicament; we were really afraid of the famine as well as of Jules. At last our parents, seriously alarmed, consulted the good old doctor, as nothing could be got from us but stout denials of hunger. He took me home with him, for I was his special pet, and talked gravely and gently to me, reminding me that I was now eight years old and of the age of reason, going to confession and capable of sin. It was a sin to tell lies, and if I would tell him the truth, he would never betray my confidence. Thus adjured, I began to cry, and confessed that we had all been eating nothing but grass and clover. The doctor petted and consoled me, told me that it was all folly on the part of Jules, and that he would set it right without any one knowing that I had told him. He kept his promise to me. It was as if by chance he found us all in our meadow next day, on all fours, munching away. Jules sprang up, sulky and obstinate.

"Yes; we are eating grass and clover," he said, "and we are quite accustomed to it now and like it very much, and we shall be better off than the rest of you when the famine comes."

The doctor burst out laughing, and his laughter broke the spell Jules had cast upon us. He told us that not only was there no probability of a famine, no possibility even, France being a country rich in food, but that even were there to be a famine, we should certainly all be dead before it came if we went on eating as the cattle did, since we were not accommodated with the same digestive apparatus as they. He described to us this apparatus and our own, and at last even Jules, who was as thin and as weary as the rest of us, was convinced, and glad to be convinced. It was not till many years afterward that we told our parents the story.

One day we children were all in a deep lane--perhaps the same that had frightened me years before--when, at a turning, the most inconceivable monster towered above us in the gloom. We recognized it in a moment as a camel (a camel in Brittany!), and with it came a band of Gipsies, with dark skins, flashing teeth, bright handkerchiefs, and ear-rings. Our alarm was not diminished when we saw that they led, as well as the camel, two thin performing bears. But as we emerged into the light with the chattering, fawning crowd, alarm gave way to joyous excitement. The camel and the bears were under perfect control, and the Gipsies were not going to hurt us. They asked if they might make the bears dance for us, and we ran to show them the way to Loch-ar-Brugg. _Maman_, in her broad garden hat, was walking in the beech-avenue, and came at once to forbid the Gipsies to enter, as they were preparing to do; but as we supplicated that we should be allowed to see the bears dance, she consented to allow the performance to take place in the highroad before the _grille_. We sat about on the grass; the camel towered against the sky, gaunt, tawny, and melancholy; and the bears, armed with wooden staffs, went through their clumsy, reluctant tricks. _Maman_, from within the _grille_, surveyed the entertainment with great disfavor, and it lost its charm for us when we heard her say: "How wretchedly thin and miserable the poor creatures look! They must be dying of hunger." We then became very sorry for the bears, too, and glad to have them left in peace, and while we distributed sous to the Gipsies, _maman_ went to the house and returned with a basket of broken bread and meat, which she gave to the famished beasts. How they snatched and devoured it, and how plainly I see _maman_ standing there, the deep green vault of the avenue behind her, the clumps of blue hydrangeas, her light dress, her wide-brimmed garden hat, and her severe, solicitous blue eyes as she held out the bread to the hungry bears!

A great character at Loch-ar-Brugg was the curé. It was he who had baptized me, for I was baptized not at Quimper, but in the little church of St. Eloi that stood at the foot of the Loch-ar-Brugg woods and had been in the Kerouguet family for generations. During my earliest years there he was our chaplain, inhabiting one of the _pavillons_ in the garden with his old servant; later on he was given the living of Plougastel, some miles away, and my father had to persuade him to accept it, for he was very averse to leaving Loch-ar-Brugg and our family. Still, even at Plougastel we saw him constantly; he drove over nearly every day in his little pony-trap, and officiated every Sunday at the seven o'clock mass at St. Eloi. What a dear, honest fellow he was, and what startling sermons I have heard him preach! Once he informed his congregation that they would all be damned like Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Fénélon! This threat, pronounced in Breton, was especially impressive, and how he came by the two ill-assorted names I cannot imagine, for he was nearly as ignorant of books as his flock. He was devoted to my father body and soul, being the son of one of his farmers. They were great comrades. Whenever my father had had a good day's shooting he would go to the _pavillon_ and cry: "Come to dinner! There are woodcocks." And the curé never failed to come. I see him now, with his rustic, rugged face, weather-tanned, gay, and austere. One of my first memories is of the small, square neck ornament (_rabat_) that the clergy wear,--a _bavette_ we children called them,--stitched round with white beads. I longed for these beads, and when he took me on his knee I always fixed my eyes upon them. Unattainable indeed they seemed, but one day, noticing the intentness of my gaze, he questioned me, and I was able to express my longing. "But you shall have the beads!" he cried, touched and delighted. "I have two _rabats_, and one is old and past wearing. Nothing is simpler than to cut off the beads for you, my little Sophie."

His performance was even better than his promise, for he brought me a bagful of the beads, collected from among his curé friends, and for days I was blissfully occupied in making chains, rings, and necklaces. Some of these ornaments survived for many years.

The curé was not at all happy in the presence of fine people. "_Je me sauve!_" he would exclaim if such appeared, and he would make off to the garden, where he was altogether at home, true son of the soil that he was. Here he would gird up his _soutane_ over his homespun knee-breeches, open his coarse peasant's shirt on his bare chest, and prune and dig and plant; and when he took a task in hand it went quickly. One of my delights was when he put me into the wheelbarrow and trundled me off to Ker-Eliane to dig up ferns for _maman's_ garden.

He, too, told me many legends. The one of St. Eloi especially interested me. St. Eloi was the son of a blacksmith and helped his father at the forge in the tiny hamlet called after him. One day as they were working, a little child came riding up, mounted on a horse so gigantic that four men could not have held him. "Will you shoe my horse, good friends?" said the child,--who of course was _l'Enfant Jésus_,--very politely. "His shoe is loose, and his hoof will be hurt." The father blacksmith looked with astonishment and indignation at the horse, and said that he could not think of shoeing an animal of such a size; but the son, St. Eloi, said at once that he would do his best. So _l'Enfant Jésus_ slid down, and took a seat on the _talus_ in front of the smithy, and St. Eloi at once neatly unscrewed the four legs of the horse and laid them down beside the enormous body. At this point in the story I always cried out:

"But, _Monsieur le Curé_, did it not hurt the poor horse to have its legs unscrewed?"

And the curé, smiling calmly, would reply:

"Not in the least. You see, this was a miracle, my little Sophie."

So St. Eloi was able to deal with the great hoofs separately, and when all was neatly done, the legs were screwed on again; and the child remounted, and said to St. Eloi's father before he rode away:

"You are a little soured with age, my friend. Your son here is very wise. Listen to him and take his advice in everything, for it will be good."

It was no doubt on account of this legend that all the horses through all the country far and near were brought to the church of St. Eloi once a year to be blessed by the curé. This ceremony was called _le Baptême des Chevaux_. The horses, from plow-horses to carriage-horses and hunters, were brought and ranged round the church in groups of fours and sixes. At the widely opened western door the curé stood, holding the _goupillon_, or holy-water sprinkler, and the horses were slowly led round the church, row after row, seven times, and each time that they passed before him the curé sprinkled them with holy water. After this initial blessing the curé took up his stand within beside the christening-font, and the horses were led into the church,--I so well remember the dull thud and trampling of their feet upon the earthen floor,--and the curé, with holy water from the font, made the sign of the cross upon each large, innocent forehead. Finally the tail of each horse was carefully cut off, and all the tails hung up in the church together, to be sold for the benefit of the church at the end of the year, before _le Baptême des Chevaux_ took place again. This touching ceremony still survives, but the horses are only led round the church and blessed, not brought inside.

The Church of St. Eloi was very ancient, and adorned with strange old statues of clumsily carved stone painted in garish colors. One was of a Christ waiting for the cross, His hands tied before Him. It was a hideous figure, the feet and hands huge and distorted, the eyes staring like those of a doll; yet it had an impressive look of suffering. There were no benches in the church except for our family, near the choir. The peasants, the men on one side, the women on the other, knelt on the bare earth during the office. They had used, always, when they entered the church, to pass round before _les maîtres_, bowing before them; but even my mother objected to this, and the curé was told to give out from the pulpit that _les maîtres_ were no longer to be bowed to in church, where there was only one master. _Maman_, however, did not at all like it that my father should insist on us children kneeling with the peasants, and it was the one subject on which I remember a difference of opinion between my grandfather Rosval and papa. But the latter was firm, and Ernest on the side of the men, Eliane and I on the side of the women, we knelt through mass. This was no hardship to us, for the kind peasants spread their skirts for our little knees and regaled us all through the service with _crêpes_.

_Crêpes_ seem to be present in nearly all my Breton memories. The peasants made them for us when we went to visit them in their cottages, and it would have hurt their feelings deeply had we refused them. We children delighted in these visits not only on account of the _crêpes_, but on account of the picturesque interest of these peasant interiors. The one living-room had an earthen floor and a huge chimney-place of stone, often quaintly carved, and so large that chairs could be set within it about the blazing logs. The room was paneled, as it were, with beds that looked, when their sliding wooden doors were closed, like tall wardrobes ranged along the walls. They were usually of dark old wood and often beautifully carved. A narrow space between the tops of these beds and the ceiling allowed some air (but what air!) to reach the sleepers, and, within, the straw was piled high, and the mattress and feather bed were laid upon it. It was quite customary for father, mother, and three or four children to sleep in one bed, several generations often occupying a room, as well as the servants, who were of the same class as their masters. The beds were climbed into by means of a carved chest that stood beside them. These were called _huches_, and contained the heirloom costumes, a store of bread, and the Sunday shoes! Potatoes were kept under the bed. In the window stood the table where the family and servants all ate together, and above it hung, suspended by a pulley and string from the ceiling, a curious contrivance for holding spoons. It was a sort of wooden disk, and the spoons were held in notches cut round the edge; it was lowered when needed, and each person took a spoon. A great earthenware bowl of creamy milk stood in the center of the table, and with each mouthful of porridge, or _fare_, the spoons were dipped, in community, into the milk. _Fare_ was a sort of thick porridge made of maize, allowed to cool in a large round cake, and cut in slices when cold. It was one of the peasants' staple dishes, and another was the porridge made of oatmeal, rye, or buckwheat, served hot, with a lump of butter. For breakfast they all drank _café au lait_, strong coffee boiled with the milk; fortunately milk and butter were plentiful. Of the hygienic habits of the peasants at this time the less said the better; a very minor detail was that the long hair of the men and the closely coiffed tresses of the women swarmed with vermin, and after every visit we paid, our heads were always carefully examined. One peasant, I remember, a good fellow, Paul Simur by name, of whom my father was specially fond, was so dirty and unwashed that a sort of mask of dirt had formed upon his features. One day, at a hunting-party, papa called to Paul to come and sit beside him, and the other huntsmen, with singular bad taste, began to make fun of poor Paul, who sat much abashed, with hanging head. Papa affectionately laid an arm about his neck and defended him, until his friends finally cried out that they wagered he would not kiss him. At this, although he confessed afterward to the most intense repugnance, he at once kissed Paul heartily. Poor Paul was quite overcome. He came to my father afterward with tears in his eyes and said, standing before him and gazing at him:

"_Oh, mon maître, que je t'aime!_"

"And why don't you ever wash your face, Paul?" papa asked him then, and Paul explained that he had never been taught to wash and was afraid it would seriously hurt him to begin. Papa undertook to teach him. He got soap and soda and hot water and lathered Paul, gently and firmly, until at last his very agreeable features were disinterred. Paul was perfectly delighted, and his face shone with cleanliness ever after.

A special friend of mine among the peasants was dear old Keransiflan, the lodge-keeper. I was fond of joining him while he tended the road in front of the lodge-gates and sitting on his wheelbarrow with him to talk to him while he ate his midday meal. This consisted of a huge slice of black bread thickly spread with butter, and it seemed to me that no bread and butter had ever looked so good.

One day he must have seen how much I longed for it, for he said, holding out the slice, "_Demoiselle, en veux-tu_?" I did not need to be asked twice, and can still see the great semicircle that I bit into the slice, and I was happily munching when _maman_ appeared at the lodge-gates. She was very much displeased, and mainly that I should be devouring poor Keransiflan's luncheon, and she rated me so soundly that the kind old man interceded for me, saying, "_Notre maîtresse, c'est moi qui lui l'ai donné_." I think that _maman_ must have seen that it gave him great pleasure to share his bread with me; at all events, Keransiflan and I, sitting on our wheelbarrow, were allowed to go on eating in peace.

But the peasants were a hard, harsh race and pitiless in their dealings toward one another. Their treatment of their old people was terrible. If an old mother, past work, had no money, she was ruthlessly turned out to beg. One sometimes saw such an old woman sitting on a _talus_, her pitiful bundle of rags beside her, helpless and stupefied. I remember a story that was told me by one of my servants about such an old woman that she had known. She had four hundred francs, and was cared for in the family of one son until it was spent, when she was turned out. Another son more kindly took her in; but his wife was a hard woman, and though she finally consented to accept the useless old mother into the household, she grudged every sou spent upon her. Thus, though the only two joys remaining her in life were snuff and coffee, only two sous a week was allowed her for tobacco, and as for coffee, she was given never a drop. When she was dying she told the servant from whom I had the story that what made her suffer most had been to sit by in the morning and smell the delicious odor of the coffee as the others drank it. This has always seemed to me a heart-piercing story. All the Breton women smoked, by the way, and pipes, and in a curious fashion; for the bowl was turned downward, though why, I do not know.