Page:Peterson's Magazine 1842, Volume I.pdf/57

46 THE FISHERMAN AND HIS WIFE

The pretty village of Roscoff is situated on the brink of the ocean and about a league from St. Paul-de-Leon. It is known far and near for its well-sheltered port, even though the approach to it is dangerous, for the canal formed by the Isle of Batz is strewed with reefs, upon which the ships caught by the tempest are sometimes dashed before they can reach the safety harbor. When a storm excites the waves in this narrow passage, the scene presented by this canal is a most awful one, for the sea then beats upon the black rocks and covers them with foam, as if it were impatient to cast down the obstacles that they oppose to its fury. The waves dashed up the sand from the very bottom and cast it in heaps upon the island, where once stood a Roman chapel that is now covered up by the accumulations consequent upon these disasters. The winds too combine their fearful clamor with the roaring of the sea, and it is said that in these awful commotions, by which nature itself is shaken, there is heard the constant and voluntary striking of the bells of the church, which, when heard, are regarded as the sure prognostic of a shipwreck.

The sun was setting over the sea. The old town of Roscoff, illuminated by its last beams, looked like a glorious golden mansion of prayer, on which Heaven cast with pleasure its gleams. The lighthouse on the western part of the Isle of Batz was just beginning to sparkle, and a light wind succeeded the stifling heats of the day. The sea spread itself, in the perfect calmness of peace, over the strand that was covered with the wives and children of the fishermen, and they contemplated with satisfaction the fruits of the day's painful labor, for the fishing had been abundant. The young people frolicked through their rustic dances; the children gave themselves up, heart and soul, to their noisy sports. Everybody appeared happy; every person seemed content, with one exception. It was a young, girl-like woman whose husband had not yet returned. It had been three years since the charming Teresa had united her destiny with that of Josselin, and never, until now, had it happened that he was the last at sea. Brave and vigorous, he had always been the first to return with his boat well filled. What then could detain him when his companions were already more than a full hour on shore?

The poor creature was alarmed, doubtlessly, without a cause. The sea had been calm, and the light agitation that the rising breeze communicated to it was not at all sufficient to justify even the suspicion of danger. However, the clouds began to gather on the horizon, and their dark, dull, leaden color might, especially after the extreme heat, of which the first days of September sometimes give us an example, as if they were the remembrances of the summer that has fled—these might be the presage of a tempest. But then Josselin knew so well all the reefs and all the passes, and his little boat sailed with such lightness; it was so obedient to the rudder and the oar, and none could guide it better than he, even in the worst weather. Why did Teresa then tremble so much?

Nevertheless, the inquietude of the wife, little by little, stole the hearts of her companions. They began to ask why it was that Josselin had not yet returned. Their eyes were fixed with anxiety on the sea, to discover, if they could, in the distance, the small white sail, which was to be the signal of his return; but they could see nothing; and yet the sun was about to disappear altogether. The clouds gathered together in huge black masses, and the breeeze was changed into fitful squalls of wind. Dull noises and the sure precursors of a storm began to be heard; the bases of the rocks, beaten with the agitated waves, began to be covered with a white foam.

"My God! my God!" said Teresa, "Protect him!"

Teresa was a mother; her two children were sleeping in a cabin a short distance from the shore. She believed, one time, that she heard them weeping, and their cries sounded to her like the shrieks of despair. To dart toward them and to convince herself that what she heard was nothing more than an illusion, produced by the agitation of her mind, was but the affair of a moment. She embraced them with a new effusion of maternal affection. She prayed for an instant over them, and then she returned to the strand to interrogate anew those who surrounded her, as to the fate of her husband.

During her short absence, the scene had changed. The alarm as to the fate of Josselin had become general, for his return then appeared to be impossible. The tempest had burst out furiously, like one that rages during the equinox. The thunder growled without ceasing. The winds blew with violence, and the premature darkness of night had swallowed up the little light of an autumnal evening, while an old shepherd, shaking his head, declared that he had heard the great bell in the church of Our Lady give forth a light tinkling! And yet the church was quite solitary and deserted, and the cord of the belfry was loose and floating. One single hope remained. It was that Josselin had had the courage and good fortune to escape among the reefs, for it was not impossible for him to land on the island of Batz. The coast of that island was not so distant from that of Roscoff as to make it impossible to see signals from it, even in the half-obscurity that prevailed, but nothing appeared upon that solitary coast. All of a sudden, people thought they could discern by the glare of the lightning a frail bark struggling with the tempest, which still kept increasing in violence. "It is he!" cried out all voices, and in the accents of