Yann and Sylvestre took their breakfast of biscuits,
which they had to break with a mallet, and began to
munch noisily, laughing at their being so very hard.
They had become quite merry again at the idea of going
down to sleep, snugly and warmly in their berths; and
clasping each other round the waist they danced up
to the hatchway to an old song-tune.
Before disappearing through the aperture they stopped
to play with Turc, the ship’s dog, a young Newfoundland
with great clumsy paws. They sparred at him,
and he pretended to bite them like a young wolf, until
he bit too hard and hurt them, whereupon Yann, with
a frown and anger in his quick-changing eyes, pushed
him aside with an impatient blow that sent him flying
and made him howl. Yann had a kind heart enough,
but his nature remained rather untamed, and when his
physical being was touched, a tender caress was often
more like a manifestation of brutal violence.
Their smack was named La Marie, and her master
was Captain Guermeur. Every year she set sail
for the big dangerous fisheries, in the frigid regions
where the summers have no night. She was a very
old ship, as old as the statuette of her patron saint
itself. Her heavy, oaken planks were rough and
worn, impregnated with ooze and brine, but still strong
and stout, and smelling strongly of tar. At anchor
she looked an old unwieldy tub from her so massive
build, but when blew the mighty western gales, her
lightness returned, like a sea-gull awakened by the
wind. Then she had her own style of tumbling
over the rollers, and rebounding more lightly than
many newer ones, launched with all your new fangles.
As for the crew of six men and the boy, they were
“Icelanders,” the valiant race of seafarers
whose homes are at Paimpol and Treguier, and who from
father to son are destined for the cod fisheries.
They hardly ever had seen a summer in France.
At the end of each winter they, with other fishers,
received the parting blessing in the harbour of Paimpol.
And for that fete-day an altar, always the same, and
imitating a rocky grotto, was erected on the quay;
and over it, in the midst of anchors, oars and nets,
was enthroned the Virgin Mary, calm, and beaming with
affection, the patroness of sailors; she would be
brought from her chapel for the occasion, and had looked
upon generation after generation with her same lifeless
eyes, blessing the happy for whom the season would
be lucky, and the others who never more would return.
The Host, followed by a slow procession of wives,
mothers, sweethearts, and sisters, was borne round
the harbour, where the boats bound for Iceland, bedecked
in all colours, saluted it on its way. The priest
halted before each, giving them his holy blessing;
and then the fleet started, leaving the country desolate
of husbands, lovers, and sons; and as the shores faded
from their view, the crews sang together in low, full
voices, the hymns sacred to “the Star of the
Ocean.” And every year saw the same ceremonies,
and heard the same good-byes.
