old with coarse words and oratorical flourishes of his own.
Yet this commonplace of civilized life jarred sadly among such
simple men, with the grand solemnity of the ocean around them; in the
glimmering of midnight, falling from above, was an impression of the
fleeting summers of the far north country.

These ways of Yann greatly pained and surprised Sylvestre. He was
a girlish boy, brought up in respect for holy things, by an old
grandmother, the widow of a fisherman in the village of Ploubazlanec.
As a tiny child he used to go every day with her to kneel and tell his
beads over his mother's grave. From the churchyard on the cliff the
grey waters of the Channel, wherein his father had disappeared in a
shipwreck, could be seen in the far distance.

As his grandmother and himself were poor he had to take to fishing in
his early youth, and his childhood had been spent out on the open water.
Every night he said his prayers, and his eyes still wore their religious
purity. He was captivating though, and next to Yann the finest-built lad
of the crew. His voice was very soft, and its boyish tones contrasted
markedly with his tall height and black beard; as he had shot up very
rapidly he was almost puzzled to find himself grown suddenly so tall and
big. He expected to marry Yann's sister soon, but never yet had answered
any girl's love advances.

There were only three sleeping bunks aboard, one being double-berthed,
so they "turned in" alternately.

When they had finished their feast, celebrating the Assumption of their
patron saint, it was a little past midnight. Three of them crept away
to bed in the small dark recesses that resembled coffin-shelves; and
the three others went up on deck to get on with their often interrupted,
heavy labour of fish-catching; the latter were Yann, Sylvestre, and one
of their fellow-villagers known as Guillaume.

It was daylight, the everlasting day of those regions--a pale, dim
light, resembling no other--bathing all things, like the gleams of a
setting sun. Around them stretched an immense colourless waste, and
excepting the planks of their ship, all seemed transparent, ethereal,
and fairy-like. The eye could not distinguish what the scene might be:
first it appeared as a quivering mirror that had no objects to reflect;
and in the distance it became a desert of vapour; and beyond that a
void, having neither horizon nor limits.

The damp freshness of the air was more intensely penetrating