“Mixed blessings,” I thought, but was too polite to say so.  It must have been my last thought, for I remembered no more until the clock awoke me, striking four; and woke me again, striking six; after which sleep finally fled.

Soon the town also awoke; doors slammed and echoed; omnibuses and other vehicles rattled over the stones; voices seemed to fill the air; the streets echoed with foot-passengers.  The sun was shining gloriously and we threw open the windows to the new day and the fresh breeze, and took our first look at Morlaix by daylight.  Already we felt braced and exhilarated as we took in deep draughts of oxygen.

[Illustration:  MARKET PLACE, MORLAIX.]

It was a lively scene.  The Square close by was surrounded by gabled houses, and houses not gabled:  a mixture of Ancient and Modern.  That it should be all old was too much to expect, excepting from such sleepy old towns as Vitre or Nuremberg, where you have unbroken outlines, a mediaeval picture unspoilt by modern barbarities; may dream and fancy yourself far back in the ages, and find it difficult indeed to realise that you are really not in the fifteenth but in the nineteenth century.

The streets were already beginning to be gay and animated; there was a look of expectancy and mild excitement on many faces, announcing that something unusual was going on.  It was fair time and fete time; and even these stolid, sober people were stirred into something like laughter and enjoyment.  Fair Normandy has a good deal of the vivacity of the French; but Graver Brittany, like England, loves to take its pleasures somewhat sadly.

It was a lovely morning.  Before us, and beyond the square, stretched the heights of Morlaix, green and fertile, fruit and flower-laden.  To our left towered the great viaduct, over which the train rolls, depositing its passengers far, far above the tops of the houses, far above the tallest steeple.  It was a very striking picture, and H.C. shouted for joy and felt the muse rekindling within him.  Upon all shone the glorious sun, above all was the glorious sky, blue, liquid and almost tangible, as only foreign skies can be.  The fatigues of yesterday, the terrible adventures of the past night, all were forgotten.  Nay, that midnight expedition was remembered with intense pleasure.  All that was uncomfortable about it had evaporated; nothing remained but a vision wonderfully unusual, weird, picturesque:  grand old-world outlines standing out in the surrounding darkness; a small procession of three; a flickering candle throwing out ghostly lights and shadows; a willing but unhappy waiter dying of exhaustion and pain; a curious figure of Misery in which there certainly was nothing picturesque, but much to arouse one’s pity and sympathy—­the better, diviner part of one’s nature.

“Hurrah for a new day!” cried H.C., turning from the window and hastening to beautify and adorn.  “New scenes, new people, new impressions!  Oh, this glorious world! the delight of living!”