At the very beginning of the straggling fishing-village of Pont du Sable and close by the tawny marsh stands the little stone house of the mayor. The house, like Monsieur le Maire himself, is short and sturdy. Its modest faÇade is half hidden under a coverlet of yellow roses that have spread at random over the tiled roof as high as the chimney. In front, edging the road, is a tidy strip of garden with more roses, a wood-pile, and an ancient well whose stone roof shelters a worn windlass that groans in protest whenever its chain and bucket are disturbed.

I heard the windlass complaining this sunny morning as I passed on my way through the village and caught sight of the ruddy mayor in his blue blouse lowering the bucket. The chain snapped taut, the bucket gulped its fill, and Monsieur le Maire caught sight of me.

"Ah bigre!" he exclaimed as he left the bucket where it hung and came forward with both hands outstretched in welcome, a smile wrinkling his genial face, clean-shaven to the edges of his short, cropped gray side-whiskers, reaching well beneath his chin. "Come in, come in," he insisted, laying a persuasive hand on my shoulder, as he unlatched his gate.

It is almost impossible for a friend to pass the mayor's without being stopped by just such a welcome. The twinkle in his eyes and the hearty genuineness of his greeting are irresistible. The next moment you have crossed his threshold and entered a square, low-ceiled room that for over forty years has served Monsieur le Maire as living room, kitchen, and executive chamber.

He had left me for a moment, as he always does when he welcomes a friend. I could hear from the pantry cupboard beyond the shivery tinkle of glasses as they settled on a tray. He had again insisted, as he always does, upon my occupying the armchair in the small parlour adjoining, with its wax flowers and its steel engraving of Napoleon at Waterloo; but I had protested as I always do, for I prefer the kitchen.

I like its cavernous fireplace with its crane and spit, and the low ceiling upheld by great beams of rough-hewn oak, and the tall clock in the corner, and the hanging copper saucepans, kettles and ladles, kept as bright as polished gold. Here, too, is a generous Norman armoire with carved oaken doors swung on bar-hinges of shining steel, and a centre-table provided with a small bottle of violet ink, a scratchy pen and an iron seal worked by a lever—a seal that has grown dull from long service in the stamping of certain documents relative to plain justice, marriage, the official recognition of the recently departed and the newly born. Above the fireplace hangs a faded photograph of a prize bull, for you must know that Monsieur le Maire has been for half a generation a dealer in Norman cattle.

Presently he returned with the tray, placing it upon the table within reach of our chairs while I stood admiring the bull.

He stopped as he half drew the cork from a fat brown jug, and looked at me curiously, his voice sinking almost to a whisper.

"You never were a dealer in beef?" he ventured timidly.

I shook my head sadly.

"HÉlas! HÉlas! Never mind," said he. "One cannot be everything. There's my brother-in-law, PÉquin; he does not know a yearling from a three-year-old. It is he who keeps the little store at Saint Philippe."

The cork squeaked out. He filled the thimble glasses with rare old applejack so skilfully that another drop would have flushed over their worn gilt rims. What a gracious old gentleman he is! If it be a question of clipping a rose from his tidy garden and presenting it to a lady, he does it with such a gentle courtliness that the rose smells the sweeter for it—almost a lost art nowadays.

"I saw the curÉ this morning," he remarked, as we settled ourselves for a chat. "He could not stop, but he waved me an au revoir, for he was in a hurry to catch his train. He had been all night in his duck-blind—I doubt if he had much luck, for the wind is from the south. There is a fellow for you who loves to shoot," chuckled the mayor.

"Some news for him of game?" I inquired.

The small eyes of the mayor twinkled knowingly. "Entre nous," he confided, "he has gone to Bonvilette to spray the sick roses of a friend with sulphate of iron—he borrowed my squirt-gun yesterday."

"And how far is it to Bonvilette?"

"Eh ben! One must go by the little train to Nivelle," explained Monsieur le Maire, "and from Nivelle to Bonvilette there lies a good twenty kilometres for a horse. Let us say he will be back in three days."

"And the mass meanwhile?" I ventured.

"Mon Dieu! What will you have? The roses of his old friend are sick. It is the duty of a curÉ to tend the sick. Besides——"

Here Monsieur le Maire leaned forward within reach of my ear, and I caught in whispers something relative to a chÂteau and one of the best cellars of Bordeaux in France.

"Naturally," I replied, with a wink, and again my eyes reverted to the prize bull. It is not wise to raise one's voice in so small a village as Pont du Sable, even indoors.

"A pretty beast!" affirmed the mayor, noticing my continued interest in live stock. "And let me tell you that I took him to England in 'eighty-two. Ah, mais oui! HÉlas! HÉlas! What a trip!" he sighed. "Monsieur Toupinet—he that has the big farm at Saint Philippe—and I sailed together the third of October, in 1882, with forty steers. Our ship was called The Souvenir, and I want to tell you, my friend, it wasn't gay, that voyage. Ah, mais non! Toupinet was sea-sick—I was sea-sick—the steers were sea-sick—all except that sacrÉ brute up there, and he roared all the way from Calais to London. Eh ben! And would you believe it?" At the approaching statement Monsieur le Maire's countenance assumed a look of righteous indignation. He raised his fist and brought it down savagely on the table as he declared: "Would you believe it? We were thirty-four hours without eating and twenty-nine hours, mon Dieu! without drinking!"

I looked up in pained astonishment.

"And that wasn't all," continued the mayor. "A hurricane struck us three hours out, and we rolled all night in a dog's sea. The steers were up to their bellies in water. Aye, but she did blow, and The Souvenir had all she could do to keep afloat. The captain was lashed to the bridge all night and most of the next day. Neither Toupinet nor myself ever expected to see land again, and there we were like calves in a pen on the floor of the cabin full of tobacco-smoke and English, and not a word of English could we speak except 'yes' and 'good morning.'" Here Monsieur le Maire stopped and choked. Finally he dried his eyes on the sleeve of his blouse, for he was wheezing with laughter, took a sip from his glass, and resumed:

"Well, the saints did not desert us. Ah, mais non! For about four o'clock in the afternoon the captain sighted Su-Tum-Tum."

"Sighted what?" I exclaimed.

"Eh ben! Su-Tum-Tum," he replied.

"Where had you drifted? To the Corean coast?"

"Mais non," he retorted, annoyed at my dullness to comprehend. "We were saved—comprenez-vous?—for there, to starboard, lay Su-Tum-Tum as plain as a sheep's nose."

"England? Impossible!" I returned.

"Mais parfaitement!" he declared, with a hopeless gesture. "Su-Tum-Tum," he reiterated slowly for my benefit.

"Never heard of it," I replied.

The next instant he was out of his chair, and fumbling in a drawer of the table extracted a warped atlas, reseated himself, and began to turn the pages.

"Eh, voilÀ!" he cried as his forefinger stopped under a word along the English coast. "That's Su-Tum-Tum plain enough, isn't it?"

"Ah! Southampton!" I exclaimed. "Of course—plain as day."

"Ah!" ejaculated the mayor, leaning back in his chair with a broad smile of satisfaction. "You see, I was right, Su-Tum-Tum. Eh ben! Do you know," he said gently as I left him, "when you first came to Pont du Sable there were times then, my poor friend, when I could not understand a word you said in French."

Then, as if a sudden thought had struck him, he called me back as he closed the gate.

"Are those gipsies still camped outside your wall?" he inquired, suddenly assuming the dignity of his office. "Bon Dieu! They are a bad lot, those vagabonds! If I don't tell them to be off you won't have a duck or a chicken left."

"Let them stay," I pleaded, "they do no harm. Besides, I like to see the light of their camp-fire at night scurrying over my wall."

"How many are there?" inquired his excellency.

"Seven or eight, not counting the dogs chained under the wagons," I confessed reluctantly, fearing the hand of the law, for I have a fondness for gipsies. "But you need not worry about them. They won't steal from me. Their wagons are clean inside and out."

"Ah, mais!" sighed the mayor. "It's just like you. You spoil your cat, you spoil your dog, and now you're spoiling these rascals by giving them a snug berth. Have they their papers of identity?"

"Yes," I called back, "the chief showed them to me when he asked permission to camp."

"Of course," laughed the mayor. "You'll never catch them without them—signed by officials we never can trace."

He waved me a cheery au revoir and returned to the well of the groaning windlass while I continued on my way through the village.

Outside the squat stone houses, nets were drying in the sun. Save for the occasional rattle of a passing cart, the village was silent, for these fisher-folk go barefooted. Presently I reached the public square, where nothing ever happens, and, turning an iron handle, entered Pont du Sable's only store. A box of a place, smelling of dried herring, kerosene, and cheese; and stocked with the plain necessities—almost everything, from lard, tea, and big nails to soap, tarpaulins, and applejack. The night's catch of mackerel had been good, and the small room with its zinc bar was noisy with fisher-folk—wiry fishermen with legs and chests as hard as iron; slim brown fisher girls as hardy as the men, capricious, independent and saucy; a race of blonds for the most part, with the temperament of brunettes. Old women grown gray and leathery from fighting the sea, and old men too feeble to go—one of these hung himself last winter because of this.

It was here, too, I found Marianne, dripping wet, in her tarpaulins.

"What luck?" I asked her as I helped myself to a package of cigarettes from a pigeonhole and laid the payment thereof on the counter.

"Eh ben!" she laughed. "We can't complain. If the good God would send us such fishing every night we should eat well enough."

She strode through the group to the counter to thrust out an empty bottle.

"Eight sous of the best," she demanded briskly of the mild-eyed grocer. "My man's as wet as a rat—he needs some fire in him and he'll feel as fit as a marquis."

A good catch is a tonic to Pont du Sable. Instantly a spirit of good humour and camaraderie spreads through the village—even old scores are forgotten. A good haul of mackerel means a let-up in the daily struggle for existence, which in winter becomes terrible. The sea knows not charity. It massacres when it can and adds you to the line of dead things along its edge where you are only remembered by the ebb and flow of the tide. On blue calm mornings, being part of the jetsam, you may glisten in the sun beside a water-logged spar; at night you become a nonentity, of no more consequence along the wavering line of drift than a rotten gull. But if, like Marianne, you have fought skilfully, you may again enter Pont du Sable with a quicker eye, a harder body, and a deeper knowledge of the southwest gale.

Within the last week Pont du Sable has undergone a transformation. The dead village is alive with soldiers, for it is the time of the manoeuvres. Houses, barns and cow-sheds are filled by night with the red-trousered infantry of the French RÉpublique. By day, the window panes shiver under the distant flash and roar of artillery. The air vibrates with the rip and rattle of musketry—savage volleys, filling the heavens with shrill, vicious waves of whistling bullets that kill at a miraculous distance. It is well that all this murderous fire occurs beyond the desert of dunes skirting the open sea, for they say the result upon the iron targets on the marsh is something frightful. The general in command is in a good humour over the record.

Despatch-bearers gallop at all hours of the day and night through Pont du Sable's single street. The band plays daily in the public square. Sunburned soldiers lug sacks of provisions and bundles of straw out to five hundred more men bivouacked on the dunes. Whole regiments return to the little fishing-village at twilight singing gay songs, followed by the fisher girls.

Three young officers are stopping at Monsieur le CurÉ's, who has returned from the sick roses of his friend; and Tanrade has a colonel and two lieutenants beneath his roof. As for myself and the house abandoned by the marsh, we are very much occupied with a blustering old general, his aide-de-camp, and two common soldiers; but I tremble lest the general should discover the latter two, for you see, they knocked at my door for a lodging before the general arrived, and I could not refuse them. Both of them put together would hardly make a full-sized warrior, and both play the slide-trombone in the band. Naturally their artistic temperament revolted at the idea of sleeping in the only available place left in the village—a cow-shed with cows. They explained this to me with so many polite gestures, mingled with an occasional salute at their assured gratefulness should I acquiesce, that I turned them over for safe keeping to Suzette, who has given them her room and sleeps in the garret. Suzette is overjoyed. Dream of dreams! For Suzette to have one real live soldier in the house—but to have two! Both of these red-eared, red-trousered dispensers of harmony are perfect in deportment, and as quiet as mice. They slip out of my back gate at daylight, bound for the seat of war and slip in again at sundown like obedient children, talk in kitchen whispers to Suzette over hot cakes and cider, and go punctually to bed at nine—the very hour when the roaring old general and his aide-de-camp are toasting their gold spurs before my fire.

The general is tall and broad-shouldered, and as agile as a boy. There is a certain hard, compact firmness about him as if he had been cast in bronze. His alert eyes are either flashing in authority or beaming in gentleness. The same play between dominant roughness and tenderness is true, too, of his voice and manner.

"Madame," he said, last night, after dinner, as he bent and graciously kissed Alice de BrÉville's hand, "forgive an old savage who pays you homage and the assurance of his profound respect." The next moment my courtyard without rocked with his reprimand to a bungling lieutenant.

To-night the general is in an uproar of good humour after a storm, for did not some vagabonds steal the danger-posts intended to warn the public of the location of the firing-line, so that new ones had to be sent for? When the news of the theft reached him his rage was something to behold. I could almost hear the little slide-trombonists shake as far back as Suzette's kitchen. Fortunately, the cyclone was of short duration—to-night he is pleased over the good work of his men during the days of mock warfare and at the riddled, twisted targets, all of which is child's play to this veteran who has weathered so many real battles.

To-night he has dined well, and his big hand is stroking the Essence of Selfishness who purrs against his medalled chest under a caress as gentle as a woman's. He sings his favourite airs from "Faust" and "AÏda" with gusto, and roars over the gallant stories of his aide-de-camp, who, being from the south of La belle France, is never at a loss for a tale—tales that make the general's medals twinkle merrily in the firelight. It is my first joyful experience as host to the military, but I cannot help being nervous over Suzette and the trombonists.

"Bah! Those sacrÉ musicians!" exclaimed the general to-night as he puffed at his cigarette. "If there's a laggard in my camp, you may be sure it is one of those little devils with a horn or a whistle. Mon Dieu! Once during the manoeuvres outside of PÉrigord I found three of them who refused to sleep on the ground—stole off and begged a lodging in a chÂteau, parbleu!"

"Ah—indeed?" I stammered meekly.

"Yes, they did," he bellowed, "but I cured them." I saw the muscles in his neck flush crimson, and tried to change the subject, but in vain.

"If they do that in time of peace, they'll do the same in war," he thundered.

"Naturally," I murmured, my heart in my throat. The aide-de-camp grunted his approval while the general ran his hand over the gray bristles on his scarred head.

"Favours!" roared the general. "Favours, eh? When my men sleep on the ground in rough weather, I sleep with them. What sort of discipline do you suppose I'd have if I did not share their hardships time and time again? Winter campaigns, forced marches—twenty-four hours of it sometimes in mountain snow. Bah! That is nothing! They need that training to go through worse, and yet those good fellows of mine, heavily loaded, never complain. I've seen it so hot, too, that it would melt a man's boots. It is always one of those imbeciles, then, with nothing heavier to carry than a clarinet, who slips off to a comfortable farm."

"Bien entendu, mon gÉnÉral!" agreed his aide-de-camp tersely as he leaned forward and kindled a fresh cigarette over the candle-shade.

Happily I noticed at that moment that the cigarette-box needed replenishing. It was an excuse at least to leave the room. A moment later I had tiptoed to the closed kitchen door and stood listening. Suzette was laughing. The trombonists were evidently very much at ease. They, too, were laughing. Little pleasantries filtered through the crack in the heavy door that made me hold my breath. Then I heard the gurgle of cider poured into a glass, followed swiftly by what I took to be unmistakably a kiss.

It was all as plain now as Su-Tum-Tum. I dared not break in upon them. Had I opened the door, the general might have recognized their voices. Meanwhile, silly nothings were demoralizing the heart of my good Suzette. She would fall desperately in love with either one or the other of those sacrÉ virtuosos. Then another thought struck me! One of them might be Suzette's sweetheart, hailing from her own village, the manoeuvres at Pont du Sable a lucky meeting for them. A few sentences that I now hurriedly caught convinced me of my own denseness in not having my suspicions aroused when they singled out my domain and begged my hospitality.

The situation was becoming critical. By the light of the crack I scribbled the following:

"Get those two imbeciles of yours hidden in the hay-loft, quick. The general wants to see the kitchen," and slipped it under the door, coughing gently in warning.

There was an abrupt silence—the sound of Suzette's slippered feet—and the scrap of paper disappeared. Then heavy, excited breathing within.

I dashed upstairs and was down again with the cigarettes before the general had remarked my tardiness to his aide. At midnight I lighted their candles and saw them safely up to bed. Then I went to my room fronting the marsh and breathed easier.

"Her sweetheart from her own village," I said to myself as I blew out my candle. "The other"—I sighed drowsily—"was evidently his cousin. The mayor was right. I have a bad habit of spoiling people and pets."

Then again my mind reverted to the general. What if he discovered them? My only consolation now was that to-day had seen the end of the manoeuvres, and the soldiers would depart by a daylight train in the morning. I recalled, too, the awkward little speech of thanks for my hospitality the trombonists had made to me at an opportune moment before dinner. Finally I fell into a troubled sleep.

Suzette brought me my coffee at seven.

"Luckily the general did not discover them!" I exclaimed when Suzette had closed the double door of my bedroom.

"Mon Dieu! What danger we have run!" whispered the little maid. "I could not sleep, monsieur, thinking of it."

"You got them safely to the haymow?" I inquired anxiously.

"Oh! Mais oui, monsieur. But then they slept over the cider-press back of the big casks. Monsieur advised the hay-loft, but they said the roof leaked. And had it rained, monsieur—"

"See here," I interrupted, eyeing her trim self from head to foot savagely. "You've known that little devil with the red ears before."

I saw Suzette pale.

"Confess!" I exclaimed hoarsely, with a military gesture of impatience. "He comes from your village. Is it not so, my child?"

Suzette was silent, her plump hands twisting nervously at her apron pocket.

"I am right, am I not? I might have guessed as much when they came."

"Oh, monsieur!" Suzette faltered, the tears welling up from the depths of her clear trustful eyes.

"Is it not so?" I insisted.

"Oh! Oh! Mon Dieu, oui," she confessed half audibly. "He—he is the son of our neighbor, Monsieur Jacot."

"At Saint Philippe?"

"At Saint Philippe, monsieur. We were children together, Gaston and I. I—I—was glad to see him again, monsieur," sobbed the little maid. "He is very nice, Gaston."

"When are you to be married?" I ventured after a moment's pause.

"Ben—eh ben! In two years, monsieur—after Gaston finishes his military service. He—has a good trade, monsieur."

"Soloist?" I asked grimly.

"No, monsieur—tailor for ladies. We shall live in Paris," she added, and for an instant her eyes sparkled; then again their gaze reverted to the now sadly twisted apron pocket, for I was silent.

"No more Suzette then!" I said to myself. No more merry, willing little maid-of-all-work! No more hot mussels steaming in a savory sauce! Her purÉe of peas, her tomato farcies, the stuffed artichokes, and her coffee the like of which never before existed, would vanish with the rest. But true love cannot be argued. There was nothing to do but to hold out my hand in forgiveness. As I did so the general rang for his coffee.

"Mon Dieu!" gasped Suzette. "He rings." And flew down to her kitchen.

An hour later the general was sauntering leisurely up the road through the village over his morning cigar. The daylight train, followed rapidly by four extra sections, had cleared Pont du Sable of all but two of the red-trousered infantry—my trombonists! They had arrived an hour and twenty minutes late, winded and demoralized. They sat together outside the locked station unable to speak, pale and panic-stricken.

The first object that caught the general's eye as he slowly turned into the square by the little station was their four red-trousered legs—then he caught the glint of their two brass trombones. The next instant heads appeared at the windows. It was as if a bomb had suddenly exploded in the square.

The two trombonists were now on their feet, shaking from head to foot while they saluted their general, whose ever-approaching stride struck fresh agony to their hearts. He was roaring:

"Canailles! ImbÉciles! A month of prison!" and "SacrÉ bon Dieu's!" were all jumbled together. "Overslept! Overslept, did you?" he bellowed. "In a chÂteau, I'll wager. Parbleu! Where then? Out with it!"

"Pardon, mon gÉnÉral!" chattered Gaston. "It was in the stone house of the American gentleman by the marsh."

We lunched together in my garden at noon. He had grown calm again under the spell of the Burgundy, but Suzette, I feared, would be ill.

"Come, be merciful," I pleaded.

"He is the fiancÉ of my good Suzette; besides, you must not forget that you were all my guests."

The general shrugged his shoulders helplessly. "They were lucky to have gotten off with a month!" he snapped. "You saw that those little devils were handcuffed?" he asked of his aide.

"Yes, my general, the gendarme attended to them."

"You were my guests," I insisted. "Hold me responsible if you wish."

"Hold you responsible!" he exclaimed. "But you are a foreigner—it would be a little awkward."

"It is my good Suzette," I continued, "that I am thinking of."

He leaned back in his chair, and for a moment again ran his hands thoughtfully over the bristles of his scarred head. He had a daughter of his own.

"The coffee," I said gently to my unhappy Suzette as she passed.

"Oui! Oui, monsieur," she sighed, then suddenly mustering up her courage, she gasped:

"Oh, mon gÉnÉral! Is it true, then, that Gaston must go to jail? Ah! Mon Dieu!"

"Eh bien, my girl! It will not kill him, Sapristi! He will be a better soldier for it."

"Be merciful," I pleaded.

"Eh bien! Eh bien!" he retorted. "Eh bien!" And cleared his throat.

"Forgive them," I insisted. "They overslept. I don't want Suzette to marry a jail-bird."

Again he scratched his head and frowned. Suzette was in tears.

"Um! Difficult!" he grumbled. "Order for arrest once given—" Then he shot a glance at me. I caught a twinkle in his eye.

"Eh bien!" he roared. "There—I forgive them! Ah, those sacrÉ musicians!"

Suzette stood there trembling, unable even to thank him, the colour coming and going in her peasant cheeks.

"Are they free, general?" I asked.

"Yes," he retorted, "both of them."

"Bravo!" I exclaimed.

"Understand that I have done it for the little girl—and you. Is that plain?"

"Perfectly," I replied. "As plain as Su-Tum-Tum!" I added under my breath as I filled his empty glass in gratefulness to the brim.

"Halt!" shouted the general as the happiest of Suzettes turned toward her kitchen.

"Eh—um!" he mumbled awkwardly in a voice that had suddenly grown thick. Then he sprang to his feet and raised his glass.

"A health to the bride!" he cried.