A scene we sometimes realise in our
dreams, rarely in our waking hours--as we saw it that day. On the
far-off water below small white-winged boats looked as shadowy and
dreamy as the far-off fleecy clouds above.
But we could not linger. We passed away from the town and the sea and
found ourselves in the country--the station seemed to escape us like a
will-o'-the-wisp. Presently we came to where two roads met--which of
them led to the station? No sign-post, no cottage. We should probably
have taken the wrong one--who does not on these occasions?--when happily
a priest came in sight, with stately step and slow reading his breviary.
Of him we asked the way, and he very politely set us right, in French
that was refreshing after the patois around us--he was evidently a
cultivated man; and offered to escort us.
As this was unnecessary, we thanked him and departed; and, arriving soon
after at the station, found our deaf and dumb porter had not played us
false. He was cunning enough to ask us three times his proper fare, and
when we gave him half his demand seemed surprised at so much liberality.
Conversation had to be carried on with paper and pencil, and by signs
and tokens.
The train started after a great flourish of trumpets. We had a journey
of many hours before us through North Brittany; for Brittany is a
hundred years behind the rest of France, and however slow the trains may
be in Fair Normandy they are still slower in the Breton Provinces.
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