he priest.
Perhaps she just died of not having enough to eat, he didn't know. She
had asked him to kiss her before she died, and it was the only time since
he had left Brittany. Then Jeanne-Marie's husband had come into the
house, and borrowed five francs from him and was very maudlin, and asked
what the devil he was going to do with that brat, which cried all the
time. But the little one was quiet when Yves took it in his arms, so poor
Frenchy asked if he might take it, because he knew it would die if left
there. The man had laughed, so he had taken it on his arm and wandered
out in the street with it, and a quarter-master asked him what he was
doing with a baby. He answered that he didn't know, for one can't take
little ones away on warships. He had met a man from the French shore, who
told him there was a schooner from Newfoundland which had lost two men in
a blow, and needed a hand or two. Then he had gone and offered to ship
for nothing, if they would let him take the baby. Yes, they had laughed
at him, but the skipper was drunk and good-natured, and told him to come
aboard. He had done so at night, when no one was looking, and had with
him some milk that comes in cans. So they had sailed away for
Newfoundland, and he supposed it was as good a place as any for a man who
was now a deserter. Very likely they had looked for him a long time, and
had been surprised, for he was accounted a good man. Anyway it was
Jeanne-Marie's baby, and one could not leave it to be neglected and to
die, because Jeanne-Marie had loved it very much.

Of course he would never see France again, unless the boy died. If this
happened he would go and give himself up, because nothing would matter
any more. So many of his shipmates had gone to lands of black and yellow
people, and had never returned. They were dead, and some day he also
would be dead, and it made no difference.

I really think, Auntie dear, that he had quite forgotten me as he spoke,
low, haltingly, in mingled French and English words. He was just
rehearsing to himself something that had been all of his life, because
everything that had happened before, and the struggle for a living
afterwards, were of no moment. Through the poor man's ignorance, through
his wondrous folly, I could discern an immense love that had overpowered
him and broken him forever. He was an exile from his beloved land of
Brittany, and would never see its heather and gorse again, or the flaming
foxgloves t