THE GUARDIAN OF ST. MALO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2205, 4 June 1896, Page 50

THE GUARDIAN OF ST. MALO.

Above tbe inner arch of the Grande Porte at St. Malo there is a wide niche where candles burn and a tall painted figure stands ; a quaint archaio figure witb a child Bitting primly on her outstretched arm, and her full eyelids drooping in an eternal meditation. On either side there are the huge squat towers and the great retreating wall ; beneath, there Is a little equare, with cafes at every corner, and a constant crowd coming and going all day long. The Virgin is these, because she is the guardian and patroness of Ss. Malo, the watcher at her door ; and because in the little square below sbe can- look down upon - her children month after month, season after season, in their bome-oomings and their out-goings, in tbe autumn that briDge them back, in the spring that sends them forth again. She is the protectress of St. Malo, the guardian of the town, as sacred as she is dear and familiar to every, true Malouin. But to those whose calling leads them into the constant peril of tbe sea, she is infinitely more ; she walks be« fore them on the waters, ber band is Btretohed out to them in danger, to save if it toay be; she is for them indeed tbe Scar of the Sea, the Gate of Heaven. It is autumn, and already the Newfoundland fishing boats are coming back, one by fine. There is a saying bere that it is "the wind of St. Francois that brings borne tbe Terreneuvas";* and surely on Ocfober 4, the ffite of St. Francois d'A-sissi, there ia a fair strong wind blowing from (he West. In many of the villages round St. Malo, and Inland where one can no longer catch sight of the sea, there will be those who turn their faces westward to-day, to greet the wind that has filled tbe returning sails ; in many of the cottages tbe goodwife will look to her cider, and tell herself that it mnst be ready against tbe gare comes home, Perhaps tbe gars is Indeed a boy, at tbe word signifies ; perhaps, also, be is a grey- haired man ; but to the good wife who waits for him at home be is always the gars. And she bring* oat tbe great armchair from the corner, where It -has stood unused all the long summer, and sets it by the fire; it is empty still, but she fills it for tbe present with hope. In the dock the quay is clear waiting for them ; it has been empty save for a stray visitor or so all tbe summer. All this month they come in slowly, but tbe weather is not yet fair for them; perhaps there are storms against which they can make no way, or windless days when the sea is white and still and swims in silver mists. It I, not till after All Saints' that each day the Terreneuvas gather and wait in the bay to come in on the tide. They bring with them an- overwhelming stench of sale ; every where there is salt, the stonef, tbe decks, the waiting carts are white with it; and everywhere, too, there are unending piles of salted* fish. And now tbe great steamer is dve — the steamer that brings a swarming mass of fishermen back from tbe banks, blaokening her decks and climbing on to her rigging for the first Bight" of home. ' First it 1b a cluster of black spots on the horizon ; then the land draws back on either side, and S'> Malo ahead lifts its single spire like a beckoning finger ; then the lighthouse is paßt and the bay opens, and the ■teamer sweeps round the breakwater coder the wails of the town, over which the tall chimneje rise and peer. St. Malo to-day haa emptied itself nppn the quay, and there rises thence a roar of welcome; the TerreneuVas — save for the laggards and the stormStayed, and those wbo are waited for, bat do not oome — are home. The goodwife is there from her little inland village ; she bas tramped in in her sabots that are pointed high at the toes and bound with brass, with ber Sanday coiffe that is trimmed with lace. She bas put on her gowered kerchief and the apron with the Wide Bilk ends ; she wore them all, perhaps, at her marriage, and she brings them out of the cbest where they lie on the great church festivals and for the return of her gars. The cider is ready at home, the room swept, and the great armchair set close to the fire, the high two-storeyedboxbedshave little curtains draped neatly at their windows ; everything Is ready and clean and waiting. And before tbe li'tle plaster Virgin on the chimney shelf there is a bunch of coloured leaves and late flowers or berrleß, and two tiny tapers which to-nigbt must be lit ; for the good Virgin, tbe -Star of tbe Sea, bas watched over the gars, and bas brought him once more safely borne. And there ia perhaps a young wife with a bundle in ber arms ; this time last year she was married, and now there is something for her man to see that he bas never seen before. She will put ib Into his arms" presently, and he will look at it with balfalarmed delight, and then he will call bis firates to come and see, and tell them that it is a boy, parblcu I And be will call it Mousse and talk of taking it witb him to the Banks, presently, in a year or two. There are-fathers aDd mothers, friends, (sweethearts, Children, all waiting eagerly, all there to meet the men that have oome home in the great steamer ; and there are some also who wear their coiffes hacgißg loose, and covered with a'equsre of black cloth; some, with their eyes dm, who are there to meet thoee who havv ■ ■ borne. "He would have been in i -mer too if" they say brokenly ; and tbe people about them nod and understand. There are so many, always lo many, who do not return. . . . One of them bad left at home, at St. Malo, ft wife and a little daughter, nuder the protection .of the good Virgin who watches over l&ose who must stay behind. And before he

* Terreneuv&a, the local name for the New. fonndlund fishermen, as also for their boats. 4*.

started he promised bis little daughter that be would bring her, when he came home, a great doll with blue eyes and yellow carls like the English children she saw ia summer. And lest he should forget his promise he bought the doll as soon as he reached St. Pierre et Miquelon and laid it in the top of his long black box, along with the little plaster Virgin. But one day he too went away in his dory, and did not oome baok ; and when the boats returned in late autumn there was only the long black box for his wife, who waited for her gars. It was Christmas Ere, they say, and the little daughter woke op in the darkness. Her mother was asleep ; the box had come home only that night, and she had spent herself in tears ; she did not wake when the child got np and scrambled towards the thing that atood in the corner. It had not been there when she went to Bleep, but surely, surely she had seen it before. The lid was open, and in the t»p, beside the little plaster Virgin, lay a great doll with blue eyes and yellow curls like the English children that came in summer. "Papa, papa," she cried. "Papa, where are you? Yon have come home, since you have brought my doll," The mother was spent with tears and slept ; the child wandered out into the night with the doll in her arms, calling always, " Papa, papa J " And in front of her she saw the masts of the goelettes, and the gleam of the water, and she went on, on, calling always, "Papa, papal" The bells of the churches rang out the Christmas chimes, and at home the weary mother still slept. Bat in the morning a little figure floated in the dock, a litt le figure that clasped its arms about a great doll with blue eyes and yellow hair like the English children that come Id summer. — Macmillan's Magazine.