"Why, bless ye, lads, when I left she made me this here present of a
real gold watch."

The better to show it them he threw it upon the table like a worthless
toy.

This was told with coarse words and oratorical flourishes of his own.
Yet this commonplace of civilized life jarred sadly among such
simple men, with the grand solemnity of the ocean around them; in the
glimmering of midnight, falling from above, was an impression of the
fleeting summers of the far north country.

These ways of Yann greatly pained and surprised Sylvestre. He was
a girlish boy, brought up in respect for holy things, by an old
grandmother, the widow of a fisherman in the village of Ploubazlanec.
As a tiny child he used to go every day with her to kneel and tell his
beads over his mother's grave. From the churchyard on the cliff the
grey waters of the Channel, wherein his father had disappeared in a
shipwreck, could be seen in the far distance.

As his grandmother and himself were poor he had to take to fishing in
his early youth, and his childhood had been spent out on the open water.
Every night he said his prayers, and his eyes still wore their religious
purity. He was captivating though, and next to Yann the finest-built lad
of the crew. His voice was very soft, and its boyish tones contrasted
markedly with his tall height and black beard; as he had shot up very
rapidly he was almost puzzled to find himself grown suddenly so tall and
big. He expected to marry Yann's sister soon, but never yet had answered
any girl's love advances.