sunlight. We followed her finger, that pointed to a projection on the
cliffs. Among the grasses, grouped on top of the highest rock, was a
family party. An old fish-wife was standing far out against the sky;
she also was shading her eyes. A child's round head, crowded into a
white knit cap, was etched against the wide blue; and, kneeling,
holding in both hands a seaman's long glass, was a girl, sweeping the
horizon with swift, skilful stretches of arm and hand. The sun
descended in a shower of light on the old grandam's seamy face, on the
red, bulging cheeks of the chubby child, and on the bent figure of the
girl, whose knees were firmly implanted in the deep, tall grasses.
Beyond the group there was nothing but sea and sky.

"Yes," the mere went on, garrulously, as she recorked the bottle of
old port, carrying table and glasses within doors. "Yes, they're
looking for him. It ought to be time, now; he's due about now. There's
a man for you--good--_bon comme le bon Dieu_. Sober, saving too--good
father--in love with Loisette as on the wedding night--_ah, mes
enfants!_--there are few like him, or this village would be a paradise!"

She shut the door of the little cabin. And then she gave us a broad
wink. The wink was entirely by way of explanation; it was to enlighten
us as to why a certain rare bottle of port--a fresh one--was being
secreted beneath her fichu. It was a wink that conveyed to us a really
valuable number of facts; chief among them being the very obvious fact
that the French Government was an idiot, and a tyrant into the bargain,
since it imposed stupid laws no one meant to carry out; least of all a
good Norman. What? pay two _sous octroi_ on a bottle of one's own wine,
that one had had in one's cellar for half a lifetime? To cheat the town
out of those twopence becomes, of course, the true Norman's chief
pleasure in life. What is his reputation worth, as a shrewd, sharp man