LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 15, 17 June 1874, Page 4

LITERATURE.

BERTHE’S WEDDING- DAY. Continued. ‘ Oh, ray Francois! my beloved I 1 she says, £ forgive me this wrong 1 am going to do to thee. They say thou wert unfaithful to me ; 1. do not think so ; but if thou wert, what then ? I never was worthy of thee, and how can I murmur, if thou hast seen me ns I see myself? Rut thou lovedst me so once, my well-beloved ! that I can never let thee out of the shrine my heart has made for thee? Do not fear, my Francois, that this marriage will obscure thine image in ray heart—it will not be for long. May God forgive me, if this is sin ; I but consent to this marriage, to be free of these ceaseless importunities of ray mother ; and, my Francois, I know it is not for long. I am coming beloved. This marriage will but hasten our reunion, for thou awaitest me—l know it—l feel it—ah ?’ She stops with a sob of shuddering terror, and looks round with wild scared eyes ; but there is nothing in the vast blank space, only the sound of mice in the wall close by tells what has startled her. ‘ It is necessary, I believe, for my mother’s comfort,’ she goes on listlessly, ‘ and £ will try to like Jacob a little—and not tremble so when he looks at me. But oh, why is it ? —why do I always see my Francois when I see him ?’ Again the terrible look whitens her face. She glances round at the fast-darkening corners of the grenicr , and runs to the staircase in an agony of terror. CHAPTER IV, There are Seine pilots dwelling in Villequier, on the quay at the foot of the steep hill which leads up to the Chateau perched atop of the lofty cote. The little boat brings passengers from the steamer which plies tnree times a week between Le Havre and Rouen, and it has just landed its one passenger, a tall, bony, dark-eyed woman, who might well sit for the portrait of Meg Merrilies. The sailors gathered round her; they have been idle all day, and her face promises pastime, ‘ Bonjour, ma mere,' says Jules Sergent,thc biggest and burliest of the pilots, ‘ you are a stranger ; you are welcome. What may your business be in Villequier ? Command us, we are in authority here.’ A shout of laughter from the rest shows her that he is in jest. She mutters a rough word, and pushes by him till she is free of the circle, then she turns round with a scoff on her keen, dark face. ‘ Lazy vauriens I’—her face softens into a smile—‘ I have a sailor son, only he does not spend his leisure in teasing other men’s mothers. He is good and kind, is my Auguste, and it is for him I am come to pray at Barre-y-va, that his voyage may be prosperous.’ All the men take off their caps and look grave, ‘ Pardon, ma mere,' says Jules Sergent, ‘ just now we are idle fellows, as you say ; but we are going to drink the health of a bride and bridegroom to-day, and the prospect makes us merry. We will drink to your sou’s safe return too, if you will tell us who he is.’ * His name will not tell you much’ —a glow of pride passes across the wrinkled gipsy face — 1 he is called Auguste Durand. I cannot tell you where he is ; he has been gone two years ; but I have had news of him, and in his letters he asks me to go to Barre-y-va.’ ‘ I will go along with you, my mother,’ says Jules. ‘ The chapel is a good step on the road. It is nearer to Caudebec than it is to Villequier.’ Jules rolls out of the group and advances towards the mother of Auguste. The sleeves of his dark knitted jersey are rolled up to his elbows and his glazed hat is set at the back of his head ; but the smile fades out of his broad face, and he hesitates ; the old woman’s brows are gathering into a frown while she stands scanning his face. ‘What is amiss now, my mother? No offence is meant, so none should be taken. I do not seek to force my company on thee. My mates and I must all find our way to the chapel presently, to meet the bridal procession.’ The old woman shudders. ‘ I know my way,’ she says, * and I am not angry with you either, my lad. I was looking to be sure I had not seen your face before ; but no, it was another. Did you say a bridal procession to the chapel ? Tell me’— she looks away from Jules to his companions —‘has there been no one missing here this time two years ? Was there not a hue-and-cry after a lost man ?’ ‘Two years!’—a black-eyed youth laughs merrily at her. ‘ Why there’s not a man among vs has been here two years. Some of usj come from Quilleboeuf and some from Le Harve. 1 come myself from Hontleur ; we know nought of what happened here two years ago ; but via mire, if you want to hear the gossip of Villeqier you must step into the Hotel dc la Marine. Madame Manget will give it to you—well spiced.’ The woman again knits her black eyebrows fiercely. ‘ Gossip ! Do I look like a gossip, imbecile? I could tell of that which is too terrible to gossip about.’ She gives an indignant wave of her lean brown hand, and turns her back on the sailors. The dark-eyed youth laughs loudly, but Julesputs his hand on his shoulder. * Chut! Victor. She is mad, or she may be a witch, and in an instant she may cast an evil eye over her shoulder.’ ‘ Witch ! — hetisc.' Laurent Tournier, the only white-haired raanjamong them, smiles at the awe in Jule’sface. ‘ But two years ago —did she say two years ago—a man missing? Ah? I remember,’he repeats slowly. ‘Was it two years or three years ago that the young gendarme ran away from old Matthieu’s pretty daughter ?’ ‘ Tiens ! A pretty girl forsaken. What is the story, Laurent ?’ Jules speaks first, but two or three others join in entreaty. Laurent shakes his head and walks out of the group. ‘No? to-day is not the day to recall all that sorrow,’ he says gravely, ‘ Poor Berthe I never thought to have seen her weddingday with another.’ The tall woman goes on along the white osier-bordered road, ‘A wedding-party at Barre-y-va?’ she says, and then a look of horror passes over her face, ‘ I thought when I left the place I could never come back to it ; but for my Auguste’s letter I had never come. Well, it may bo that this bridal procession will wipe out the remembrance. Ah! mon Bieu! that was a night!'—she shudders and draws

ihe back of one brown hand across her eyes. The road has begun to mount ; it has widened too, and the sun pours down scorching rays on the dusty, stony ground. After a mile or so the woman’s steps flag; she no longer holds her head so erect ; at last, with almost a groan of fatigue, she makes her way out of the beaten path to a stile set in the hedge that borders the foot of the steep cote, and sits down to rest, A gurgling sound makes her look about. Close by her feet is a cluster of broad primrose leaves, starting out from among a fringe of ferns, and beyond this, issuing from the mossy bank beneath the hedge, a fountain trickles like a thread of sparkling silver in the sunshine. She gets off the stile, stoops to wash her face in the clear water, and then hollows the palm of her left hand and drinks thirstily out of it. ‘ I must make haste to Barre-y-va,” she says, more cheerfully. ‘lt is not very far on to Caudebec, and I shall perhaps find a there going to Yvetot or Beuzevillo-’ yhe goes on with a quicker step along the road beside the river to offer up prayers for her Auguste at the little chapel. Two years ago, when the young sailor started on his voyage she had made this pilgrimage. Since then all had prospered with him, and now that his ship, instead of returning home, is to remain afloat another year, the pious young fellow has written to entreat his mother to take the weary journey once again for his sake, and to make an offering to Notre Dame de Barre-y-va, Last time the Mere Durand fell ill on her way home, and stayed some time at Beuzeville before she could return to Le Havre ; but then perhaps it was not to be wondered at, for she had started from Le Havre on one of the late evenings of the little steamer, and it had not landed her at Villequier till past eight o’clock in the midst of pouring rain. She had spent the night in the road, and had been picked up next morning, in a drenched semi-conscious state, by the driver of a waggon returning to Beuzeville. It was really not wonderful that la Mere Durand should have had a fever after this ; still, the very few acquaintances she possessed at Le Havre said is was strange that la Mere Durand should have grown so stern and silent since her journey to Barre-y-va. Something must have surely happened there. There is a great contrast between the pilgrims bound for Barre-y-va on this sunshiny afternoon. Monsieur and Madame Haulard head the procession when it leaves the church The bridegroom is from the south, and he has no relative to stand by him in Caudebec, so he has asked the tailor to give him countenance. Next to this portly pair come Alphonse Poireau, the clock maker, and his sister Louise ; old Pierre Lebrun, a half-wit-ted brother of Tonine, is the only relative of the bride, for Berthe entreated her mother not to write to any of her father’s relatives —they live in Paris, and they are rich, and have shown no sympathy with the troubles which have befallen the Duvals in these two sad years. After Pierre come two gendarmes, sleepyeyed fellows, who look suitable guardians of order for the peaceful, leisurely town of Baudebec. Then come about seven or eight girls and young women, for whom Berthe has no special friendship ; but they love Berthe for her sweet face and for the patience with which she has borne her sorrow. The procession goes to the house of Monsieur Haulard to breakfast, and it is afternoon before it sets out again towards the little chapel. No one knows whence the custom of going there came. The chapel, as the name implies, was built to implore the Virgin’s help against the fury of the terrible harre of the Seine, which loses its force just above Caudebec ; but whether the bridegroom is or is not a sailor, from time out of the memory of any living inhabitant, every newly-mar-ried pair goes on foot from Caudebec to the chapel, and offer up prayers for a blessing on their union. The procession walk in the same order as before. There is no bridal finery displayed in it till you reach the bride; her friends all wear their Sunday garments, and look trim and fresh as for a fete day ; but the dresses are chiefly dark-colored. Berthe looks pale and delicate but very charming to-day. She has on a long white muslin gown, which trails on the ground behind, a wreath of white roses on her head, and over this a large white muslin veil. She has a bouquet of white flowers in one hand, and a pocket handkerchief trimmed with lace in the other. These are Jacob’s gifts selected by Madame Haulard. Jacobs walks a little in front of the bride and her mother, swinging Berthe’s parasol in his hand. He looks very pale and grave, paler even than he did during the marriage ceremony, certainly not a joyful bridegroom, ‘ I did not think Berthe would have looked so well,’ madame whispers to her husband, as soon as they arc clear of the town and fairly on the Villequier road. ‘ She must really have been nice-looking before her illness. ‘ Nice-looking ! dost thou say ? She w r as the prettiest girl to be seen for miles ; and as for figure !’—here Monsieur Haulard sees a projection of his wife’s lower lip, and he stops. Since marriage experience has added much to the talior’s natural sagacity ; but he occasionally forgets prudence when he speaks of female beauty. ‘ Pretty ?’—madame shrugs her broad shoulders till her handsome shawl nearly touches her ears. ‘ Thou art so easy to please, ray friend ; put a head on a mopstick, and dress it up, and for thee there is a finefigured woman ! Well, dress does something for most of us. I laughed when Jacob Leduc asked me to buy black silk, and get it made into a gown for Touine ; but the poor old woman looks quite respectable in it, and those white satin bows that Eugenie trimmed her cap with are really becoming.’ Monsieur Haulard looks displeased. ‘ It is well, my wife,” he says, “ in the midst of prosperity, to remember the ups and downs of fortune. There was a time when Tonine Duval always had a silk gown to her back, though, may be, she seldom wore it.’ But madame never allows her husband the last word ; she shrugs her shoulder a little higher. ‘ Ah, perhaps so, my friend ; and it might have been better for Touine and Beithe now, if that poor Matthieu had been more thrifty.’ Here Madame Haulard finds the sun so scorching that, although she wears a bonnet, she is glad to ask her husband to shade her with his huge blue umbrella, ‘ Courage, my friend !’ He stands still a minute, his white trowsered bolster legs wide apart, takes off his grey felt hat and wipes his bald broad forehead. ‘ Truly the heat is oppressive ; but we are almost arrived, and there is shade just round the chapel.’ To ho continued ,