“Shall we see Monsieur du Halga this evening?” asked Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoël, taking off her knitted worsted mittens after exchanging the usual civilities.
“Yes, mademoiselle, I saw him airing his dog in the Mall,” replied the Curé.
“Then our mouche will be lively this evening,” said she. “We were but four last night.”
On hearing the word mouche, the priest rose, and brought out of a drawer of one of the cabinets a small, round basket of fine willow, some ivory counters as yellow as Turkish tobacco, from twenty years’ service, and a pack of cards as greasy as those of the customhouse officers of Saint-Nazaire, who only have a new pack once a fortnight. The Abbé himself sorted out the proper number of counters for each player, and put the basket by the lamp in the middle of the table, with childish eagerness and the manner of a man accustomed to fulfil this little task. A loud rap in military style presently echoed through the silent depths of the old house. Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoël’s little servant went solemnly to open the gate. Before long, the tall, lean figure of the Chevalier du Halga, formerly flag-captain under Admiral de Kergarouët, was seen, carefully dressed to suit the season, a black object in the dusk that still prevailed outside.
“Come in, Chevalier,” cried Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoël.
“The altar is prepared!” said the priest.
Du Halga, whose health was poor, wore flannel for the rheumatism, a black silk cap to protect his head against the fog, and a spencer to guard his precious chest from the sudden blasts of wind that refresh the atmosphere of Guérande. He always went about armed with a rattan to drive off dogs when they tried to make inopportune love to his own, which was a lady. This man, as minutely particular as any fine lady, put out by the smallest obstacles, speaking low to spare the voice remaining to him, had been in his day one of the bravest and most capable officers of the King’s navy. He had been honored with the confidence of the Bailli de Suffren, and the Comte de Portenduère’s friendship. His valor, as captain of Admiral de Kergarouët’s flagship, was scored in legible characters on his face, seamed with scars. No one, on looking at him, could have recognized the voice that had roared down the storm, the eye that had swept the horizon, the indomitable courage of a Breton seaman. He did not smoke, he never swore; he was as gentle and quiet as a girl, and devoted himself to his dog Thisbe and her various little whims with the absorption of an old woman. He gave everyone a high idea of his departed gallantry. He never spoke of the startling acts which had amazed the Comte d’Estaing.
Though he stooped like a pensioner, and walked as though he feared to tread on eggs at every step, though he complained of a cool breeze, of a scorching sun, of a damp fog, he displayed fine white teeth set in red gums, which were reassuring as to his health; and, indeed, his complaint must have been an expensive one, for it consisted in eating four meals a day of monastic abundance. His frame, like the Baron’s, was large-boned and indestructibly strong, covered with parchment stretched tightly over the bones, like the coat of an Arab horse that shines in the sun over its sinews. His complexion had preserved the tanned hue it had acquired in his voyages to India, but he had brought back no ideas and no reminiscences. He had emigrated; he had lost all his fortune; then he had recovered the Cross of Saint-Louis and a pension of two thousand francs, legitimately earned by his services, and paid out of the fund for naval pensions. The harmless hypochondria that led him to invent a thousand imaginary ailments was easily accounted for by his sufferings during the emigration. He had served in the Russian navy till the day when the Emperor Alexander wanted him to serve against France; he then retired and went to live at Odessa, near the Duc de Richelieu, with whom he came home, and who procured the payment of the pension due to this noble wreck of the old Breton navy.
At the death of Louis XVIII he came home to Guérande, and was chosen mayor of the town. The Curé, the Chevalier, and Mademoiselle de Pen-Hoël had been for fifteen years in the habit of spending their evenings at the Hôtel du Guénic, whither also came a few persons of good family from the town and immediate neighborhood. It is easy to see that the Guénic family were the leaders of this little Faubourg Saint-Germain of the district, into which no official was admitted who had been appointed to his post by the new Government. For six years
