We stood together on the deck of the steamer, watching--after an
eight hours' passage from Plymouth--the Breton coast as it loomed
out of the afternoon haze. Our crossing had been smooth, yet
sea-sickness had prostrated all his compatriots on board--five or six
priests, as many religieuses, and maybe a dozen peasants, whom I
supposed to be attached in some way to the service of the religious
orders the priests represented. (Of late years, since the French
Government expelled them, quite a number of these orders have found a
home in our West Country.) On my way to the docks that morning I had
overtaken and passed them straggling by twos and threes to the
steamer, the men in broad-brimmed hats with velvet ribbons, the women
coifed and bodiced after the fashion of their country, each group
shepherded by a priest; and I had noted how strange and almost
forlorn a figure they cut in the grey English streets. If some of
the strangeness had worn off, they certainly appeared no less forlorn
as they sat huddled in physical anguish, dumb, immobile, staring at
the sea.

The little Cure, however, was vivacious enough for ten. It was
impossible to avoid making friends with him. He had nothing to do,
he told me, with his companions, but was just a plain parish priest
returning from an errand of business.

He announced this with a fine roll of the voice.

"Of business," he repeated. "The English are a great nation for
business. But how warm of heart, notwithstanding!"

"That is not always reckoned to us," said I.