Ah, the poor
comrades that died in their manhood, that went to the _grande peche_
once too often! Dost thou remember when the great wave curled round
Ignace like his poor wife's arms, and we saw him no more? We clasped
each other's hands, for we believed that we should follow, but we lived
and went again and again to the _grande peche_, and died in our beds.
_Grace a Dieu_!"
"Why dost thou think of that now--here in the grave where it matters
not, even to the living?"
"I know not; but it was of that night when Ignace went down that I
thought as the living breath went out of me. Of what didst thou think as
thou layest dying?"
"Of the money I owed to Dominique and could not pay. I sought to ask my
son to pay it, but death had come suddenly and I could not speak. God
knows how they treat my name to-day in the village of St. Hilaire."
"Thou art forgotten," murmured another voice. "I died forty years after
thee and men remember not so long in Finisterre. But thy son was my
friend and I remember that he paid the money."
"And my son, what of him? Is he, too, here?"
"Nay; he lies deep in the northern sea. It was his second voyage, and
he had returned with a purse for the young wife, the first time.
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