During our month's tour in Brittany we had not met one English or American traveller; but at Rochefort-en-Terre there was said to be a colony of artists. On arriving at the little railway-station, we found that the only conveyance available was a diligence which would not start until the next train, an hour thence, had come in. There was nothing for it, therefore, but to sit in the stuffy little diligence or to pace up and down the broad country road in the moonlight. There is something strangely weird and eerie about arriving at a place, the very name of which is unfamiliar, by moonlight.

After a long hour's wait, the diligence, with its full complement of passengers, a party of young girls returned from a day's shopping in a neighbouring town, started. It was a long, cold drive, and the air seemed to be growing clearer and sharper as we ascended. At length Rochefort-en-Terre was reached, and, after paying the modest sum of fifty centimes for the two of us, we were set down at the door of the hotel. We were greeted with great kindness and hospitality by two maiden ladies in the costume of the country, joint proprietors of the hotel, who made us exceedingly comfortable. To our surprise, we discovered that the colony of painters had been reduced to one lady artist; but it was evident, from the pictures on the panels of the salle-À-manger, that many artists had stayed in the hotel during the summer.

Rochefort by morning light was quite a surprise. The hotel, with a few surrounding houses, was evidently situated on a high hill; the rest of the village lay below, wreathed, for the time being, in a white mist. It was a balmy autumn morning; the sunlight was clear and radiant; and I was filled with impatience to be out and at work. The market-place was just outside our hotel, and the streets were alive with people. A strange smell pervaded the place—something between cider apples and burning wood—and whenever I think of Rochefort that smell comes back to me, bringing with it vivid memories of the quaint little town as I saw it that day.

There is nothing modern about Rochefort. The very air is suggestive of antiquity. Few villages in Brittany have retained their old simplicity of character; but Rochefort is one of them. Untouched and unspoilt by the march of modernity, she has stood still while most of her neighbours have been whirled into the vortex of civilization. Rochefort, like the Sleeping Beauty's palace, has lain as it was and unrepaired for years. Moss has sprung up between the cobble-stones of her streets; ferns and lichen grow on the broken-down walls; Nature and men's handiwork have been allowed their own sweet way—and a very sweet way they have in Rochefort. To enter the village one must descend a flight of stone steps between two high walls, green and dark with ivy and small green ferns growing in the niches. Very old walls they are, with here and there ancient carved doorways breaking the straight monotony. On one side is a garden, and over the time-worn stone-work tomato-coloured asters nod and wistaria throws her thick festoons of green, for the flowering season is past. Everything is dark and damp and moss-grown, and very silent. An old woman, with a terra-cotta pitcher full of water poised on her head, is toiling up the steps, the shortest way to the town, which, save for the singing of the birds in the old chÂteau garden, the bleating of lambs on the hillside, and the chopping of a wood-cutter, is absolutely silent. One descends into a valley shut in by rugged blue-gray mountains, for all the world like a little Alpine village, or, rather, a Breton village in an Alpine setting. The mountains in parts are rocky and rugged, purple in aspect, and in parts overgrown with gray-green pines. There are stretches of wooded land, of golden-brown and russet trees, and great slopes of grass, the greenest I have ever seen. It is quite a little Swiss pastoral picture, such as one finds in children's story-books. On the mountain-side a woman, taking advantage of the sun, is busy drying her day's washing, and a little girl is driving some fat black-and-white cows into a field; while a sparkling river runs tumbling in white foam over boulders and fallen trees at the base. But Rochefort is a typically Breton village. Nowhere in Switzerland does one see such ancient walls, such gnarled old apple-trees, laden and bowed down to the earth with their weight of golden red fruit. Nowhere in Switzerland, I am sure, do you see such fine relics of architecture. Nearly every house in the village has something noble or beautiful in its construction. Renovation has not laid her desecrating hands on Rochefort. Here you see a house that was once a lordly dwelling; for there are remains of some fine sculpture round about the windows, remnants of magnificent mouldings over the door, a griffin's head jutting from the gray walls. There you see a double flight of rounded stone steps, with a balustrade leading up to a massive oak door. On the ancient steps chickens perch now, and over the doorway hang a bunch of withered mistletoe and the words 'Debit de Boisson.'

The village is full of surprises. Everywhere you may go in that little place you will see all about you pictures such as would drive most artists wild with joy. Everything in Rochefort seems to be more or less overgrown. Even in this late October you will see flowers and vines and all kinds of greenery growing rampant everywhere. You will see a white house almost covered with red rambling roses and yellowing vines, oleanders and cactus plants standing in tubs on either side of the door. There is not a wall over which masses of greenery do not pour, and not a window that does not hold its pot of red and pink geraniums. Two cats are licking their paws in two different windows. The sun has come out from the mists which enveloped it, and shines in all its glory, hot and strong on your back, as it would in August. It is market day, and everyone is light-hearted and happy. The men whistle gaily on their way; the women's tongues wag briskly over their purchases; even the birds, forgetful of the coming winter, are bursting their throats with song. In the chÂteau garden the birds sing loudest of all, and the flowers bloom their best. It is a beautiful old place, the chÂteau of Rochefort. Very little of the ruin is left standing; but the grounds occupy an immense area, and are enclosed by great high walls. Where the old kitchen once stood an American has built a house out of the old bricks, using many of the ornamentations and stone gargoyles found about the place. It is an ingeniously designed building; yet one cannot but feel that a modern house is somewhat incongruous amid such historic surroundings. The old avenue leading to the front door still exists; also there are some apple-trees and ancient farm-buildings. The chÂteau has been built in the most beautiful situation possible, high above the town, on a kind of tableland, from which one can look down to the valley and the encircling hills.

Set up in a prominent position in the village, where two roads meet, is a gaudy crucifix, very large and newly painted. It is a realistic presentation of our Saviour on the cross, with the blood flowing redly from His side, the piercing of every thorn plainly demonstrated, and the drawn lines of agony in His face and limbs very much accentuated. Every market woman as she passes shifts her basket to the other arm, that she may make the sign of the cross and murmur her prayers; every man, woman, child, stops before the cross to make obeisance, some kneeling down in the dust for a few moments before passing on their way.

Who is to say that the image of that patient, suffering Saviour is not an influence for good in the village? Who is to say that the adoration, no matter how fleeting, does not soften, does not help, does not control, those humble peasant folk who bow before Him? Religion has an immense hold over the peasants of Brittany. It is the one thing of which they stand in dread. These images, you say, are dolls; but they are very realistic dolls. They teach the people their Bible history in a thorough, splendid way. They stand ever before them as something tangible to cling to, to believe in. And the images in the churches—do you mean to say that they have no influence for good on the people? St. Stanislaus, the monk, for example, with cowl and shaven head—what an influence such a statue must have on the hearts of children! There is in his face a world of tender fatherly feeling for the little child in the white robe and golden girdle who is resting his head so wearily on the saint's shoulder, clasping a branch of faded lilies in his hand. Children look at this statue, and they picture St. Stanislaus in their minds always thus: they know what the saint looked like, what he did. He is not only a misty, dim, uncertain figure in the history of the Bible, but a tangible, living, vibrating reality, taking active part in their daily lives. For older children, boys especially, there is St. Antoine to admire and imitate—St. Antoine the hermit, with his staff and his book, the man with the strong, good face. FranÇoise d'Amboise, a pure, sweet saint in the habit of a nun, her arms full of lilies, appeals to the hearts and imaginations of all young girls. I believe in the efficacy of these figures and pictures. The peasants' brains are not of a sufficiently fine calibre to believe in a vague Christ, a vague Virgin, vague saints interpreted to them by the priests. If it were not for the images, men and women would not come to church, as they do at all hours of the day, bringing their market baskets and their tools with them. They would not come in this way, spontaneously, joyfully, two or three times a day, to an empty church with only an altar. Church-going would then become a bare duty, forced and unreal, to be gradually dropped and discontinued. These people are able to see the sufferings of our Saviour on the cross, and everything that He had to undergo for us; also, there is something infinitely comforting in the Divine Figure, surrounded by myriads of candles and white flowers, with hands outstretched, bidding all who are weary and heavy-laden to come unto Him. The peasants contribute their few sous' worth of candles, and light them, and feel somehow or other that they have indeed rid themselves of sins and troubles.

The country round Rochefort is truly beautiful. The village lies in a hollow; but it is delightful to take one of the mountain-paths, and go up the rocky way into the pines and gorse and heather. As one sits on the hillside, looking down upon the village, it is absolutely still save for the cawing of some birds. You are out of the world up here. The quaint little gray hamlet lies far below. Between it and you is the fertile valley, with green fields and groves of bushy trees. The country is quite cultivated for Brittany, where cabbage-fields and pasture-lands are rare. The mountains encircling the valley are of gray slate; growing here and there amongst the slate are yellow gorse and purple heather.

It is a gray, dull day; not a breath stirs the air, which is heavy and ominous. Evening is drawing on as one walks down the mountain-path towards home, and a haze is settling on the village; the sun has been feebly trying to shine all day through the thick clouds that cover it. The green pines, with their purple stems, are very beautiful against the deeper purple of the mountains; pretty, too, the homesteads on the hills, with their fields of cabbages and little plantations of flowers. There is a sweet smell of gorse and pine-needles and decaying bracken, and always one hears the caw of rooks.

In such a country as this, on such a day, amid such sights and sounds, you feel glad to be alive. You swing down the mountain-side quickly, and the beauty of it all enters into your soul, filling you with a nameless longing and yearning for you know not what, as Nature in her grandest moods always does. What rich colouring there is round about everywhere on this autumn afternoon! The mountain-path leads, let us say, through a pine-wood. The leaves are far above your head; you seem to be walking in a forest of stems—long, slim, silver stems, purple in the shadows. On the ground is a carpet of salmon and brown leaves, with here and there a bracken-leaf which is absolutely the colour of pure gold.

A COTTAGE HOME