Among the stones the cricket sang of happiness, being right for this time. And Sylvestre's pitiful insignificant portrait seemed to smile on them out of its black frame. All things, in fact, seemed suddenly to throb with life and with joy in the blighted cottage. The very silence apparently burst into exquisite music; and the pale winter twilight, creeping in at the narrow window, became a wonderful, unearthly glow.

"So we'll go to the wedding when the Icelanders return; eh, my dear children?"

Gaud hung her head. "Iceland," the "_Leopoldine_"--so it was all real!

while she had already forgotten the existence of those terrible things that arose in their way.

"When the Icelanders return."

How long that anxious summer waiting would seem!

Yann drummed on the floor with his foot feverishly and rapidly. He seemed to be in a great hurry to be off and back, and was telling the days to know if, without losing time, they would be able to get married before his sailing. So many days to get the official papers filled and signed; so many for the banns: that would only bring them up to the twentieth or twenty-fifth of the month for the wedding, and if nothing rose in the way, they could have a whole honeymoon week together before he sailed.

"I'm going to start by telling my father," said he, with as much haste as if each moment of their lives were now numbered and precious.

PART IV -- YANN'S FIRST WEDDING

CHAPTER I--THE COURTING BY THE SEA

All sweethearts like to sit on the bench at their cottage door, when night falls.

Yann and Gaud did that likewise. Every evening they sat out together before the Moans' cottage, on the old granite seat, and talked love.

Others have the spring-time, the soft shadow of the trees, balmy evenings, and flowering rosebushes; they had only the February twilight, which fell over the sea-beaten land, strewn with eel-gra.s.s and stones.

There was no branch of verdure above their heads or around them; nothing but the immense sky, over which pa.s.sed the slowly wandering mists.

And their flowers were brown sea-weeds, drawn up from the beach by the fishers, as they dragged their nets along.

The winters are not very severe in this part of the country, being tempered by currents of the sea; but, notwithstanding that, the gloaming was often laden with invisible icy rain, which fell upon their shoulders as they sat together. But they remained there, feeling warm and happy.

The bench, which was more than a hundred years old, did not seem in the least surprised at their love, having seen many other pairs in its time; it had listened to many soft words, which are always the same on the lips of the young, from generation to generation; and it had become used to seeing lovers sit upon it again, when they returned to it old and trembling; but in the broad day, this time, to warm themselves in the last sun they would see.

From time to time Granny Moan would put her head out at the door to have a look at them, and try to induce them to come in. "You'll catch cold, my good children," said she, "and then you'll fall ill--Lord knows, it really isn't sensible to remain out so late."

Cold! they cold? Were they conscious of anything else besides the bliss of being together.

The pa.s.sers-by in the evening down their pathway, heard the soft murmur of two voices mingling with the voice of the sea, down below at the foot of the cliffs. It was a most harmonious music; Gaud's sweet, fresh voice alternated with Yann's, which had soft, caressing notes in the lower tones. Their profiles could be clearly distinguished on the granite wall against which they reclined; Gaud with her white headgear and slender black-robed figure, and beside her the broad, square shoulders of her beloved. Behind and above rose the ragged dome of the straw thatch, and the darkening, infinite, and colourless waste of the sea and sky floated over all.

Finally, they did go in to sit down by the hearth, whereupon old Yvonne immediately nodded off to sleep, and did not trouble the two lovers very much. So they went on communing in a low voice, having to make up for two years of silence; they had to hurry on their courtship because it was to last so short a time.

It was arranged that they were to live with Granny Moan, who would leave them the cottage in her will; for the present, they made no alterations in it, for want of time, and put off their plan for embellishing their poor lonely home until the fisherman's return from Iceland.

CHAPTER II--THE SEAMAN'S SECRET

One evening Yann amused himself by relating to his affianced a thousand things she had done, or which had happened to her since their first meeting; he even enumerated to her the different dresses she had had, and the jollifications to which she had been.

She listened in great surprise. How did he know all this? Who would have thought of a man ever paying any attention to such matters, and being capable of remembering so clearly?

But he only smiled at her in a mysterious way, and went on mentioning other facts to her that she had altogether forgotten.

She did not interrupt him; nay, she but let him continue, while an unexpected delicious joy welled up in her heart; she began, at length, to divine and understand everything. He, too, had loved--loved her, through that weary time. She had been his constant thought, as he was guilelessly confessing. But, in this case, what had been his reason for repelling her at first and making her suffer so long?

There always remained this mystery that he had promised to explain to her--yet still seemed to elude--with a confused, incomprehensible smile.

CHAPTER III--THE OMINOUS WEDDING-DRESS

One fine day, the loving pair went over to Paimpol, with Granny Moan, to buy the wedding-dress.

Gaud could very easily have done over one of her former town-lady's dresses for the occasion. But Yann had wanted to make her this present, and she had not resisted too long the having a dress given by her betrothed, and paid for by the money he had earned at his fishing; it seemed as if she were already his wife by this act.

They chose black, for Gaud had not yet left off mourning for her father; but Yann did not find any of the stuffs they placed before them good enough. He was not a little overbearing with the shopman; he, who formerly never would have set his foot inside a shop, wanted to manage everything himself, even to the very fashion of the dress. He wished it adorned with broad beads of velvet, so that it would be very fine, in his mind.

CHAPTER IV--FLOWER OF THE THORN

One evening as these lovers sat out on their stone bench in the solitude over which the night fell, they suddenly perceived a hawthorn bush, which grew solitarily between the rocks, by the side of the road, covered with tiny flowered tufts.

"It looks as if 'twas in bloom," said Yann.

They drew near to inspect it. It was in full flower, indeed. As they could not see very well in the twilight, they touched the tiny blooms, wet with mist. Then the first impression of spring came to them at the same time they noticed this; the days had already lengthened, the air was warmer, and the night more luminous. But how forward this particular bush was! They could not find another like it anywhere around, not one!

It had blossomed, you see, expressly for them, for the celebration of their loving plight.

"Oh! let us gather some more," said Yann.

Groping in the dark, he cut a nosegay with the stout sailor's knife that he always wore in his belt, and paring off all the thorns, he placed it in Gaud's bosom.

"You look like a bride now," said he, stepping back to judge of the effect, notwithstanding the deepening dusk.

At their feet the calm sea rose and fell over the shingle with an intermittent swash, regular as the breathing of a sleeper; for it seemed indifferent or ever favourable to the love-making going on hard by.

In expectation of these evenings the days appeared long to them, and when they bade each other good-bye at ten o'clock, they felt a kind of discouragement, because it was all so soon over.

They had to hurry with the official doc.u.ments for fear of not being ready in time, and of letting their happiness slip by until the autumn, or even uncertainty.

Their evening courtship in that mournful spot, lulled by the continual even wash of the sea, with that feverish impression of the flight of time, was almost gloomy and ominous. They were like no lovers; more serious and restless were they in their love than the common run.

Yet Yann never told her what mysterious thing had kept him away from her for these two lonely years; and after he returned home of a night, Gaud grew uneasy as before, although he loved her perfectly--this she knew.

It is true that he had loved her all along, but not as now; love grew stronger in his heart and mind, like a tide rising and overbr.i.m.m.i.n.g. He never had known this kind of love before.

Sometimes on their stone seat he lay down, resting his head in Gaud's lap like a caressing child, till, suddenly remembering propriety, he would draw himself up erect. He would have liked to lie on the very ground at her feet, and remain there with his brow pressed to the hem of her garments. Excepting the brotherly kiss he gave her when he came and went, he did not dare to embrace her. He adored that invisible spirit in her, which appeared in the very sound of her pure, tranquil voice, the expression of her smile, and in her clear eye.