captain-fathers launching their fishing-smacks; one shrieking infant
was being passed, gayly, from the poop of a distant deck, across the
closely lying shipping, to the quay's steps, to be hushed by the
generous opening of a peasant mother's bodice. One could hear the
straining of cordage, the creak of masts, the flap of the sails, all
the noises peculiar to shipping riding at anchor. The shriek of
steam-whistles broke out, ever and anon, above all the din and uproar.
Along the quay steps and the wharves there were constantly forming and
re-forming groups of wretched, tattered human beings; of men with
bloated faces and a dull, sodden look, strikingly in contrast with the
vivacity common among French people. Even the children and women had a
depraved, shameless appearance, as if vice had robbed them of the last
vestige of hope and ambition. Along the parapet a half-dozen drunkards
sprawled, asleep or dozing. At the legs of one a child was pulling,
crying:

"_Viens--mere t'battra, elle est soule aussi._"

The sailors out yonder, busy in the rigging, and the men on the decks
of the smart brigs and steamships, whistled and shouted and sang, as
indifferent to this picture of human misery and degradation as if they
had no kinship with it.

As a frame to the picture, Honfleur town lay beneath the crown of its
hills; on the tops and sides of the latter, villa after villa shot
through the trees, a curve of roof-line, with rows of daintily draped
windows. At the right, close to the wharves, below the wooded heights,
there loomed out a quaint and curious gateway flanked by two
watchtowers, grim reminders of the Honfleur of the great days. And
above and about the whole, encompassing villa-crowded hills and