Pebbles on the shore [by] Alpha of the plough eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 223 pages of information about Pebbles on the shore [by] Alpha of the plough.

Pebbles on the shore [by] Alpha of the plough eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 223 pages of information about Pebbles on the shore [by] Alpha of the plough.

And who would ever have dreamed that we should live to hear French talked in our street as a familiar form of speech?  But we have.  In a little cottage at the other end of the village is a family of Belgians, a fragment of the flotsam thrown up by the great inundation of 1914.  They have brought the story of “frightfulness” near to us, for they passed through the terror of Louvain, hiding in the cellars for nights and days, having two of their children killed, and escaping to the coast on foot.

Every Sunday night you will see them very busy carrying their few chairs and tables into a neighbouring barn, for on Monday mornings mass is celebrated there.  The priest comes up in a country cart from ten miles away, and the refugees scattered for miles around assemble for worship, after which there is a tremendous pow-pow in French and Flemish, with much laughter and gaiety.

Old Benjamin “don’t hold with they priests,” and he has grave suspicions about all foreign tongues, but the Belgians have become quite a part of us, and their children are learning to lisp in English down at the school in the valley.

Much less agreeable is the frame of mind towards the occupants of the cottage next to the Blue Boar.  They are the wife and children of a German who had worked in this country for many years and is now in America.  The woman is English and amiable, but the proximity of anything so reminiscent of Germany is painful to the village, and especially to the landlord, whose views about Germans can hardly be put into words.

“I should hope there’ll be no prisoners took after this,” he says grimly whenever he hears of a new outrage.  “Vermin—­that’s what they are,” he says, “and they should be treated according-ly.”

The Germans, in fact, have become the substitute for every term of execration, even with mild David the labourer.  He came into the orchard last evening staggering under a 15-ft. ladder.  We had decided that if we were going to have the pears before the wasps had spoiled them we must pick them at once.

“It’s a wunnerful crop,” said David.  “I’ve knowed this pear-tree [looking up at one of them from the foot of his ladder] for twenty-five year, and I’ve never seen such a crop on it afore.”

Then he mounted the ladder and began to pick the fruit.

“Well, I’m blowed,” he said, “if they ain’t been at ’em a’ready.”  And he flung down pear after pear scooped out by the wasps close to the stalk.  “Reg’lar Germans—­that’s what they are,” he said.  “Look at ’em round that hive,” he went on.  “They’ll hev all the honey and them bees will starve and git the Isle o’ Wight—­that’s what they’ll git....  Lor,” he added, reflectively, “I dunno what wospses are made for—­wospses and Germans.  It gits over me.”

I said it got over me too.  And then from among the branches, while I hung on to the foot of the ladder to keep it firm, David unbosomed his disquiet to me about enlisting.

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Pebbles on the shore [by] Alpha of the plough from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.