Aunt Jo's Scrap Bag. Louisa May Alcott

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ houses were usually composed of one room, where, near the open fire, and fixed against the wall, stands the bedstead or lit clos, of old oak, shut in by carved sliding panels, often bearing an inscription or some sacred symbol. The mattresses and feather-beds are so piled up, that there is hardly room to creep in. Before it is the big chest containing the family wardrobe, answering the double purpose of a seat and a step by which to ascend the lofty bed. Cupboards on each side often have wide shelves, where the children sleep. Settles and a long table complete the furniture; the latter often has little wells hollowed out in the top to hold the soup instead of plates. Over the table, suspended by pulleys, are two indispensable articles in a Breton house—a large round basket to cover the bread, and a wooden frame to hold the spoons. Festoons of sausages, hams, candles, onions, horse-shoes, harness, and tools, all hang from the ceiling. The floor is of beaten earth. One narrow window lets in the light. There are no out-houses, and pigs and poultry mingle freely with the family.

      The gardens are well kept, and produce quantities of fruit and vegetables. The chief food of the poorer class is bread or porridge of buckwheat, with cabbage soup, made by pouring hot water over cabbage leaves and adding a bit of butter.

      They are a home-loving people, and pine like the Swiss, if forced to leave their native land. They are brave soldiers and good sailors. 'Their vices,' as a Breton writer says, 'are avarice, contempt for women, and drunkenness; their virtues, love of home and country, resignation to the will of God, loyalty to each other, and hospitality.' Their motto is, 'En tout chemin loyauté.'

      They are very superstitious, and some of their customs are curious. At New Year pieces of bread and butter are thrown into the fountains, and from the way in which they swim the future is foretold. If the buttered side turns under, it forebodes death; if two pieces adhere together, it is a sign of sickness; and if a piece floats properly, it is an assurance of long life and prosperity.

      Girls throw pins into the fountain of Saloun to tell, by their manner of sinking, when they will be married. If the pin goes down head-foremost, there is little hope; but, if the point goes first, it is a sure sign of being married that year.

      Their veneration for healing-springs is very great, and, though at times forbidden by the Church, is still felt. Pounded snails, worn in a bag on the neck, is believed to be a cure for fever; and a certain holy bell rung over the head, a cure for head-ache. 'If we believe in that last remedy, what a ceaseless tingling that bell would keep up in America!' said Lavinia, when these facts were mentioned to her.

      In some towns they have, in the cemetery, a bone-house or reliquary. It is the custom, after a certain time, to dig up the bones of the dead, and preserve the skulls in little square boxes like bird-houses, with a heart-shaped opening, to show the relic within. The names and dates of the deceased are inscribed outside.

      Saint Ives or Yves is a favourite saint, and images of him are in all churches and over many doors. He was one of the remarkable characters of the thirteenth century. He studied law in Paris, and devoted his talents to defending the poor; hence, he was called 'the poor man's advocate:' and so great is the confidence placed in his justice, that, even now, when a debtor falsely denies his debt, a peasant will pay twenty sous for a mass to St. Ives, sure that the Saint will cause the faithless creditor to die within the year or pay up.

      His truthfulness was such that he was called 'St. Yves de vérité.' He was the special patron of lawyers, but he does not seem to be their model.

      The early monks taught the people to work, and their motto was 'The Cross and the plough, labour and prayer.' They introduced apples, now the principal fruit of Brittany. Much cider is made and drank; and in old times they got their wine from France in exchange for wax and honey, as they were famous bee-keepers. Great fields of buck-wheat still afford food for the 'yellow-breeched philosophers,' and in many cottage gardens a row of queerly shaped hives stand in sunny nooks.

      These monks were the model farmers of those days, and their abbeys were fine farms. One had twenty piggeries, of three hundred pigs each, in its forests. The monks also reared sheep and horses, and bred fish in their ponds.

      Many were also brewers, weavers, carpenters, and so on. Evidently they lived up to their motto and laboured quite as much as they prayed, and doubtless were saved by works as well as by faith.

      The little Place Du Guesclin, with a stumpy statue of the famous knight in the middle and chestnut trees all around, was a favourite resting-place of the ladies—especially when the weekly fair was held and booths of all sorts were raised at one end. Here Amanda bought a remarkable jack-knife, which would cut nothing but her fingers: Matilda speculated in curious kinds of cake; one sort being made into gigantic jumbles so light that they did excellently for grace-hoops; another sort being used by these vandals as catch-alls, so deep and tough were they. Lavinia examined the various fabrics, and got bits of linen as samples, also queer earthen pots and pans impossible to carry away.

      The church of St. Sauveur, a dim and ancient little place with Du Guesclin's heart buried by the side of his wife, was another haunt. The castle, now a prison, contained the arm-chair in which Duchess Anne sat, and the dungeons where were crammed two thousand English prisoners of war in the last century. The view from the platform of the keep was magnificent, extending to Mont Dol and the distant sea.

      The sunny promenade on the fosse, that goes half round the town, was very charming, with the old grey walls on one side, and, on the other, the green valley with its luxuriant gardens, and leafy lanes, winding up to the ruined château, or the undulating hills with picturesque windmills whirling on the heights.

      On the other side of the town, from the high gardens of the church, one looked down into the deeper valley of the Rance, with the airy viaduct striding from hill to hill, and the old part of the town nestling at its base.

      Soft and summery, fertile and reposeful, was the scene; and the busy peasants at their work added to the charm. Pretty English children with Breton nurses, each in the costume of her native town, played under the lindens all abloom with odorous flowers and alive with bees. Workmen came to these green places to eat the black bread and drink the thin wine that was all their dinner. Invalids strolled here after their baths at the little house in the rose-garden below. Pretty girls walked there in the twilight with long-haired lovers in knee breeches and round hats. Nuns in their grey gowns went to and fro from hospital and the insane asylum or charity school; and the beautiful old priest sometimes went feebly by, smiling paternally on his flock, who rose and uncovered reverently as he passed.

      Flowers were everywhere—in the gardens of the rich, at the windows of the poor. The stalls in the market were gay with plumy lilacs, splendid tulips, roses of every shade, and hyacinths heavy with odour. All along the borders of the river waved the blossoming grass; every green bank about the mills at Lehon was yellow with dandelions, and the sunny heads of little children welcoming the flower of the poor. Even the neglected churchyard of the ruined abbey, where the tombs of the stately Beaumanoirs still stand, was bright with cheerful daisies and blue-eyed forget-me-nots.

      The willows in the valley were covered with fragrant tassels, and the old women and children sat all day on door-stones and by the wayside stripping the long, white wands for basket-making. Flax fields were blooming in the meadows, and acres of buckwheat, with its rosy stems and snowy blossoms, whitened the uplands with a fair prophecy of bread for all.

      So, garlanded about with early flowers and painted in spring's softest, freshest colours, Brittany remains for ever a pleasant picture in the memory of those who have been welcomed to its hospitable homes, and found friends among its brave and loyal people.

III.

      FRANCE.

       СКАЧАТЬ