CHAPTER VI--THE BRIDAL

It was six days before the sailing for Iceland. Their wedding procession
was returning from Ploubazlanec Church, driven before a furious wind,
under a sombre, rain-laden sky.

They looked very handsome, nevertheless, as they walked along as in a
dream, arm-in-arm, like king and queen leading a long cortege. Calm,
reserved, and grave, they seemed to see nothing about them; as if they
were above ordinary life and everybody else. The very wind seemed to
respect them, while behind them their "train" was a jolly medley of
laughing couples, tumbled and buffeted by the angry western gale.

Many people were present, overflowing with young life; others turning
gray, but these still smiled as they thought of _their_ wedding-day and
younger years. Granny Yvonne was there and following, too, panting a
little, but something like happy, hanging on the arm of an old uncle of
Yann's, who was paying her old-fashioned compliments. She wore a grand
new cap, bought for the occasion, and her tiny shawl, which had been
dyed a third time, and black, because of Sylvestre.

The wind worried everybody; dresses and skirts, bonnets and _coiffes_,
were similarly tossed about mercilessly.

At the church door, the newly married couple, pursuant to custom, had
bought two nosegays of artificial flowers, to complete their bridal
attire. Yann had fastened his on anyhow upon his broad chest, but he
was one of those men whom anything becomes. As for Gaud, there was still
something of the lady about the manner in which she had placed the rude
flowers in her bodice, as of old very close fitting to her unrivalled
form.

The violin player, who led the whole band, bewildered by the wind,
played at random; his tunes were heard by fits and starts betwixt the
noisy gusts, and rose as shrill as the screaming of a sea-gull. All
Ploubazlanec had turned out to look at them. This marriage seemed to
excite people's sympathy, and many had come from far around; at each
turn of the road there were groups stationed to see them pass. Nearly
all Yann's mates, the Icelanders of Paimpol, were there. They cheered
the bride and bridegroom as they passed; Gaud returned their greeting,
bowing slightly like a town lady, with serious grace; and all along the
way she was greatly admired.

The darkest and most secluded hamlets around, even those in the woods,
had been emptied of all their beggars, cripples, wastrels, poor, and
idiots on crutches; t