CHAPTER LXX

Toulven, 30_th April._

The cottage of the old Keremenens, as darkness is falling on an evening of April. Our little party has just returned from a walk: Yves, Marie, Anne, little Corentine "golden locks," and "little black man" Pierre.

_Four_ candles are burning in the cottage (_three_ would be unlucky).

On an old table of massive oak, polished by the years, there are paper, pens and sand. Benches have been placed round. Very solemn things are about to happen.

We put down our harvest of herbs and flowers, which shed a perfume of April in the old cottage, and take our places.

Presently two dear old women enter with an important air: they say good evening with a curtsey, which makes their large starched collarettes stand upright, and sit down in a corner. Then Pierre Kerbras, who is engaged to Anne. At last everybody is placed and we are all complete.

It is the great evening for the settlement of the family arrangements, when the old Keremenens are going to fulfil the promise they have made to their children. The two of them rise and open an old chest on which the carvings represent Sacred Hearts alternating with cocks; they remove papers, clothing, and from the bottom, take a little sack which seems heavy. Then they go to their bed, lift up the mattress and search beneath: a second sack!

They empty the sacks on the table, in front of their son Yves, and then appear all those shining pieces of gold and silver, stamped with ancient effigies, which, for the last half century, have been amassed one by one and put in hiding. They are counted out in little piles; the two thousand francs promised are there.

Now comes the turn of the old aunt who rises and empties a third little sack; another thousand francs in gold.

The old neighbour comes last; she brings five hundred in a stocking foot. And all this is lent to Yves, all this is heaped before him. He signs two little receipts on white paper and hands them to the two old lenders who make their curtsey preparatory to leaving, but who are detained, as custom ordains, and made to drink a glass of cider with us.

It is over. All this has been done without a notary, without a deed, without discussion, with a confidence and a simple honesty that are things of Toulven.

"Rat-tat-tat!" at the door. It is the contractor for the building, and he arrives in the nick of time.

But with this gentleman it is desirable to use stamped paper. He is an old rogue from Quimper, with only a smattering of French, but he seems cunning enough for all that, with his town manners.

It is given to me to explain to him a plan which we had thought out during our evenings on board, and in which a room is provided for me. I discuss the construction in the smallest details and the price of all the materials, with an air of knowledge which imposes on the old man, but which makes Yves and me laugh, when by ill-luck our eyes chance to meet.

On a sheet bearing a twelve sou stamp I write two pages of clauses and details:

"A house built of granite, cemented with sand from the seashore, limewashed, joinered in chestnut wood, with skylit attic, shutters painted green, etc., etc., the whole to be finished before the 1st May of next year and at the price fixed in advance of two thousand nine hundred and fifty francs."

This work and this concentration of mind have made me quite tired; I am surprised at myself, and I can see that they all are amazed at my foresight and my economy. It is unbelievable what these good people have made me do.

At last it is signed and sealed. We drink cider and shake hands all round. And Yves now is a landowner in Toulven. They look so happy, Yves and his wife, that I regret no part of the trouble I have taken for them.

The two old ladies make their final curtsey, and all the others, even little Pierre, who has been allowed to stay up, come with me, in the fine moonlit night, as far as the inn.

Toulven, 1_st May_, 1881.

We are very busy, Yves and I, assisted by old Corentin Keremenen, measuring with string the land to be acquired.

First of all we had to select it, and that took us all yesterday morning. For Yves it was a very serious matter this fixing of the site of his little house, in which he pictured, in the background of a melancholy and strange distance, his retirement, his old age and death.

After many goings and comings we had decided on this spot. It is in the outskirts of Toulven, on the road which leads to Rosporden, on high ground, facing a little village square which is brightened this morning by a population of noisy fowls and red-cheeked children. On one side is Toulven and its church, on the other the great woods.

At the moment it is just an oatfield very green. We have measured it carefully in all directions; reckoned by the square yard it will cost fourteen hundred and ninety francs, without counting the lawyer's fees.

How steady Yves will have to be, and how he will have to save to pay all that! He becomes very serious when he thinks of it.