Chambers's Journal of Popular Literature, Science, and Art, No. 733, January 12, 1878

Then she addressed herself to Nathan: ‘You will watch my brother, will you not, until I come back? If he should return to consciousness, he will be glad to find you near him.’ Without waiting for a reply, she left the room quietly, but soon returned, prepared to act nurse to the wounded man.

As Nathan raised his eyes, he thought he had never seen anything so charming before; nothing of which he had read could exceed the womanly gentleness and loveliness of that fair face; and his own flushed with shame as he allowed his eyes to dwell upon it longer than in his opinion was consistent with good breeding. ‘And at such a time,’ said Nathan to himself, as he again bent over the prostrate form.

Gertrude had brought with her an aged servant who had nursed them, and still remained an inmate of the Hall. In spite of the changes produced by time and the circumstances under which she now saw him, Nurse Goodall recognised Bertram at once, and her agitation was extreme; for being fully acquainted with every circumstance connected with his flight, she argued that there could be but one termination to this rash proceeding on the part of Colonel Lindsay – the expulsion of the son now lying at the point of death from his father's roof; for she knew full well the obstinate character of the Squire of Linden, and blamed the Colonel for thus precipitating the end.

As yet, no one in the Hall knew anything further than that the son of the house had returned desperately wounded, and that Colonel Lindsay and Nathan had brought him home: all the rest was mystery unfathomable. At this juncture, the surgeon, Dr Downes, entered the room in a little trepidation, his visits to the Hall being rare, and this message having been sudden and brief. The surgeon perceived a complicated case, and made an examination of his patient. This done, he inquired if any person was present to whom the injured man was thoroughly accustomed. Colonel Lindsay mentioned Nathan and himself. The surgeon then requested Gertrude and the servants to retire, and proposed to wait with Nathan the advent of the physician, who had been telegraphed for. Colonel Lindsay, promising to introduce Dr Ferris directly he arrived, left the room also, and taking Gertrude on his arm, sought the Squire, who was still in conversation with his eldest daughter. Patricia and her father received him coldly, and positively declined to see Bertram.

‘Charles,’ said the Colonel, ‘I have much to tell you, which had better be said privately. Will you give me a few minutes in your library?’ The tone was so full of meaning, that the Squire rose and led the way. The result of their conference will be shewn in the conclusion of our narrative.

THE SALT MARSHES OF BRITTANY

Not the least interesting part of France is the wide range of country watered by the Loire. It is here that feudal and historic remains may best be studied; fine old castles, palaces, and abbeys rise before the traveller on all sides. The gloomy Blois, where those arch enemies of French liberty the Guises, were assassinated; the castellated den of Plessis-les-Tours, where Louis XI. carried out his deep-laid schemes, so well described in Quentin Durward; and the high towers and deep vaults of Amboise, which tell of many a tragic conspiracy and massacre. Here too is the picturesque Chénonceaux, with its rich ceilings and tapestry, where Mary Queen of Scots passed some happy days in her sad life, and Francis I. drew around him his joyous court. Joan of Arc unfurled her banner in this interesting province; and the heroic Vendeans lie buried by thousands, martyrs to their religion and their king. It is a bright sunny land; the acacia hedges divide the fields with their elegant white blossoms; the vineyards are loaded with purple grapes, the apple orchards give abundance of cider; a lazy kind of land where the idler may kill time to his heart's content. Yet the Loire cannot boast of equal beauty with the Seine; its raging waters inundate the country in winter, leaving dry shoals in summer; and near its mouth, the district called the Marais is an uninteresting tract of sand, salt marshes, and ponds. It is of this unpromising scene that we would write, where ten thousand persons find occupation in the making of salt.

The interest attaching to the people arises from their extreme simplicity. Thanks to the salubrity of the country, they are a fine hardy race, the men tall and well-proportioned, the women celebrated for their fresh complexions. Watch them as they work in the salt-fields carrying heavy loads on their heads, barefoot, in short petticoats, and running rather than walking on the edge of the ponds. But all this is changed on grand fête days, when the costume of their forefathers in past centuries is worn. It is called the marriage dress, as it is first donned by the women on that day. Since it must last for a lifetime, it is carefully laid aside for special occasions. There is the embroidered cap and white handkerchief for the shoulders, edged with lace; the belt and bodice stitched with gold thread. A gay violet petticoat is partially covered by a white dress, the sleeves of which are either red or white; and an apron of yellow or red silk adds to the smart attire. The red stockings are embroidered, and the violet sandals cover well-shaped feet. As for the bridegroom to this pretty bride, he adorns himself with a brown cloth shirt, a muslin collarette, full knickerbockers, and no less than two waistcoats, one white, the other blue, with a large black cloth mantle over all. To complete his toilet there is a three-cornered hat with velvet cords, white embroidered stockings, and white buckskin shoes. Such is the costume of Bourg-de-Batz; but each village has its own distinctive coiffure. The burning summer sun, whose rays are reflected from the salt marshes as if from a lens, forces all to wear wide-brimmed hats for daily work; the high winds and great changes of temperature necessitating double or triple woollen waistcoats; yet even this time-honoured style of dress has something picturesque about it.

Let us cross to the left bank of the Loire, and ascend the hill into the little town of Pellerin, justly proud of its position and commanding views. From this vantage-ground the eye passes over the indented coast-line where the points of Mesquer, Croisic, and many others advance into the sea. The green pastures and pretty villas of Saint Etienne form the foreground to the barren reaches of the salt district, which extends towards Morbihan, occupying about six thousand acres. The commercial centre of the country is the town of Guérande, perched on a hill, and belonging to a long past age. Its high ramparts, built for defence in troublous times, can only be entered by four gates, which bear the marks of portcullises. Enormous trees entirely conceal it from the traveller, who would fancy he was approaching a green forest, instead of an old fortified place belonging to feudal times. Vines and cereals grow admirably on the higher ground surrounding it, to the very verge of the salt marshes, which are utterly bare. Looking towards the sea, the marks of its fury are apparent, as if Nature wished to collect all her weapons of defence for the inhabitants. Gigantic rocks of capricious forms, sometimes rising like a bundle of lances; sometimes lying on the shore, as if they were Egyptian sphinxes, or lions turned into stone, and polished by the waves; or even resembling these very waves petrified in a moment on some tempestuous day.

Nothing is more easy to describe than a salt marsh. Imagine a market-garden divided into squares; but instead of the green vegetables, each square filled with water, and the walks not level with, but raised above the spaces about ten inches in height. The parallelograms are termed in the vernacular œillets. These are filled with sea-water, which pours in through conduits at high-tide, the water having been stored during a period of from fifteen to thirty days, in reservoirs attached to each marsh. The system of canals through which it passes is of a complicated nature; and the production of the salt constitutes, so to speak, a special branch of agriculture, where the visible help of man assists the hidden work of Nature. The ground must be dug and arranged in a particular manner, that the saline particles may crystallise, just as a field where wheat grows and ripens. Thus, it is not surprising that the salt-workers adopt the professional terms of the farmers. At certain times they say ‘The marsh is in flower;’ they speak of the ‘harvest’ and of ‘reaping the salt.’

It is in the œillet, where the water is only about an inch in depth, that the salt forms, thanks to the evaporation of the sun, and to the current which, slowly circulating through the different compartments, assists the evaporation. The salt which then falls to the bottom of the basin is raked out by the paludier into round hollows made at the edge at certain distances. This is done every one or two days. The art consists in raking up all the salt without drawing the mud with it. In the salt marsh of Guérande they collect separately a white salt, which forms on the surface under the appearance of foam, and is used for the salting of sardines.

It will easily be understood that everything depends on the sky; above all things, the heat of the solar rays is necessary. In cloudy weather there is no crystallisation. Rainy seasons are most disastrous for the paludiers. The harvest varies from year to year; but calculating the produce for ten years, it amounts to three or four thousand pounds of salt in each œillet. Work begins in the month of June, and is carried on till October. The number of œillets varies with the size of the marsh; that of Guérande contains about twenty-four thousand; others are much less. The gathered salt is carried daily to some slope near and packed in a conical form, very much resembling the tents of a camp when seen from a distance. At Guérande the women are seen running in this direction, carrying the salt on their heads in large wooden bowls, holding about fifty pounds; whilst at Bourgneuf the men are employed, who make use of willow-baskets borne on the shoulder. If the salt is sold immediately, the cone is only covered with a little earth. But it more frequently happens that when the harvest is good, speculators buy large quantities to keep until the price rises, and then large masses a thousand pounds in weight are formed, and protected by a thick layer of earth.

Like all kinds of property in France, the salt marshes are much divided. More than three thousand proprietors share that of Guérande; and there is a kind of co-operative partnership between the owner and the worker, the latter generally receiving a quarter of the profits, out of which he pays the porters. The gain is, however, miserably small; and the wonder is how the various families manage to exist upon it. Even if the wife and daughter help, the whole family only earn about two hundred and fifty-five francs a year – ten pounds of our money; and in consequence of the season when the salt is collected, the paludier has no chance of increasing his income by assisting the farmers, and can only employ himself in the trifling labours of winter. So low, indeed, have the profits sunk, that in some marshes the expenses have exceeded them; in short there is no kind of property in France that has for the last century undergone more terrible reverses than this. These changes are partly due to the railways, which have provided a much more efficient and rapid means of transport for the east of France than for the west.

There are three large zones in the country where salt is found. In the eastern district it is derived from springs and mines; but in the present day the salt mines are treated like the springs. Instead of dividing the lumps with the pickaxe, galleries are cut through and flooded with water; when this is sufficiently saturated, it is brought to the surface and evaporated in heated caldrons. The aid of the sun is not required; fine or rainy days do not count, and the making of salt becomes a trade for all the year round. In the south the plan is varied, because there is no tide in the Mediterranean Sea. Here, by the help of a mechanical apparatus, the sea-water is pumped into enormous squares, where it crystallises, and the evaporation is accelerated by a continual circulation. With a warm temperature and a cloudless sky, the water requires to be renewed only at intervals, whilst the salt itself is not collected until the end of summer. Thus the poor workmen of Brittany have a more laborious and less remunerative task, though the salt is acknowledged to be of a finer quality.

The family life is necessarily of a very hard and parsimonious character. It is impossible to buy animal food; a thin soup supplies the morning and evening repast, with poorly cooked potatoes at mid-day. Those who are near the sea can add the sardine and common shell-fish, which are not worth the trouble of taking into the towns to sell. The cruel proverb, ‘Who sleeps, dines,’ finds here its literal application; during the winter the people lie in bed all the day to save a meal. There is a strong family affection apparent among them, the father exercising a patriarchal authority in the much-loved home. If they go away, it is never for more than twenty leagues, to sell the salt from door to door. Driving before them their indefatigable mules, borne down at starting with too heavy a load, they penetrate through the devious narrow lanes, knowing the path to every hamlet or farmhouse where they hope to meet with a customer.

The population of Bourg-de-Batz is said to be a branch of the Saxon race, and has hitherto been so jealous of preserving an unbroken genealogy that marriages are always made among themselves. A union with a stranger is felt to be a misalliance. There are some local customs still remaining which point to an ancient origin, a visible legacy of paganism perpetuated to the present day. Such is the festival which is celebrated at Croisic in the month of August in honour of Hirmen, a pagan divinity in the form of a stone with a wide base lying near the sea. Here, with grotesque movements, the women execute round the stone a sort of sacred dance, and every young girl who is unfortunate enough to touch it is certain not to be married during the year. There is an old chapel of St Goustan which shews the tenacity with which the people hold to their traditions. Once a place for pilgrimages, it has not been used for sacred purposes during seventy years, and serves as a magazine for arms. Yet the inhabitants of Batz visit it yearly, and especially pray beneath the sacred walls at Whitsuntide.

Sunday is strictly kept as a day of rest from their toils; then the poorest dress in clean clothes, men, women, and children going in family groups to church. After that, relations and neighbours pay visits. Man is no longer a beast of burden, but shews that he has a heart and a conscience; a happy spirit of good temper and frankness reigns everywhere. Indeed the high moral qualities of the natives, their love of education, and strong attachment to their native soil, make them a vigorous branch of the French nation, and one calculated to gain the traveller's respect.

CRITICAL ODDITIES

That short pithy criticisms are occasionally as pointed as those that are more elaborated, may be gleaned from the following, which we cull at random for the amusement of our readers.

A little calculation would have saved a well-known novelist being taken to task by a fair graduate of Elmira College, who thus relieved her mind by writing as follows to the College magazine: ‘In a novel of Miss Braddon's, a book of wonderful plot and incident, the hero, after coming to grief in a civilised country, went to Australia to make his fortune; and while yet an apprentice at the pick and shovel, found an immense nugget of gold, which he hid, now in one place, now in another, and finally, was obliged to carry in his under-shirt pocket for weeks. When he reached home its sale made him immensely rich. I had a little curiosity in the matter, and obtaining the current price of gold, found, by a simple computation, that the nugget must have weighed a hundred and ninety-four pounds. A sizeable pocket that must have been!’

Albert Smith had his pronouns criticised in the following neat way by Thackeray. Turning over the leaves of a young lady's album, Thackeray came upon the following lines:

Mont Blanc is the Monarch of Mountains —They crowned him long ago;But who they got to put it on,Nobody seems to know. – Albert Smith.

And wrote underneath:

I know that Albert wrote in a hurry:To criticise I scarce presume;But yet methinks that Lindley Murray,Instead of ‘who,’ had written ‘whom.’W. M. Thackeray.

Not quite so good-naturedly did Chorley treat Patmore's Angel in the House, in his critical versicles: ‘The gentle reader we apprise, That this new Angel in the House, Contains a tale, not very wise, About a parson and a spouse. The author, gentle as a lamb, Has managèd his rhymes to fit; He haply fancies he has writ Another In Memoriam. How his intended gathered flowers, And took her tea, and after sung, Is told in style somewhat like ours, For delectation of the young.’ Then after giving ‘some little pictures’ in the poet's own language, the cruel critic went on – ‘From ball to bed, from field to farm, The tale flows nicely purling on; With much conceit there is no harm, In the love-legend here begun. The rest will come some other day, If public sympathy allows; And this is all we have to say About the Angel in the House.’

This hardly amounted to faint praise, a kind of encouragement Mr Buckstone owned had a very depressing effect upon him when he ranked among youthful aspirants to theatrical honours. ‘I was,’ said the comedian, ‘given by my manager a very good part to act, which being received by the public with roars of laughter, I considered that my future was made. A worthy vendor of newspapers, a great critic and patron of the drama, asked me for an order. On giving him one, I called the next day expecting to hear a flattering account of my performance, but was disappointed. Determined to learn what effect my acting had produced on him, I nervously put the question: “Did you see me last night?” to which he replied: “O yes.” “Well,” said I, “were you pleased?” And he again replied with his “O yes.” I then came to the point with: “Did you like my acting?” And he rejoined: “O yes; you made me smile.”’

A more appreciative critic was the lady who after seeing Garrick and Barry severally play Romeo, observed that in the garden scene, Garrick's looks were so animated and his gestures so spirited, that had she been Juliet she should have thought Romeo was going to jump up to her; but that Barry was so tender, melting, and persuasive, that had she been Juliet she should have jumped down to him.

An old seaman after looking long at the picture of ‘Rochester from the River,’ cried: ‘Yes, that's it – just opposite old Staunton's, where I served my time – just as it used to look when I was a youngster no higher than my stick. It's forty years since I saw the old place; but if the haze would only clear off, I could point out every house!’

When M. Gondinet's Free was produced at the Porte St Martin Theatre, a Parisian critic commended the playwright for rendering a good deal of the dialogue inaudible by a liberal employment of muskets and cannon; and then conjugated Free thus: ‘I am free to go to the play; thou art free to be bored by the first act; he or she is free to be bored by act second; we are free to be bored by the third; you are free to be bored still more by the fourth and fifth acts; and they are free to stay away for the future.’

M. Gondinet's drama was seemingly as fitting a subject for the pruning-knife as the play of which Mark Twain, speaking for himself and partner, deposed: ‘The more we cut out of it, the better it got along. We cut out, and cut out, and cut out; and I do believe this would be one of the best plays in the world to-day, if our strength had held out, and we could have gone on and cut out the rest of it.’

An Ohio politician ‘on the stump,’ stayed the torrent of his eloquence for a moment, and looking round with a self-satisfied air, put the question: ‘Now, gentlemen, what do you think?’ A voice from the crowd replied: ‘Well, Mr Speaker, if you ask me, I think, sir, I do indeed, that if you and me were to stump the state together, we could tell more lies than any other two men in the country, sir; and I'd not say a word myself, sir, all the time.’ The orator must have felt as grateful as the actor whose impersonation of the hero of Escaped from Sing-Sing impelled a weary pittite to proclaim aloud that the play would have been better ‘if that chap hadn't escaped from Sing-Sing;’ or the Opera tenor whose first solo elicited from Pat in the upper regions the despairing ejaculation: ‘Och, my eighteen-pince!’

A young negro, carefully conducting an old blind woman through the Philadelphia Exhibition, stopped in front of a statue of Cupid and Psyche, and thus enlightened his sightless companion: ‘Dis is a white mammy and her babby, and dey has just got no clo' onto 'em at all, and he is a-kissin' of her like mischief, to be shuah. I's kind o' glad you can't see 'em, 'cause you'd be flustered like, 'cause dey don't stay in de house till dey dresses deyselves. All dese figures seem to be scarce o' clo', but dey is mighty pooty, only dey be too white to be any 'lation to you and me, mammy.’ Then turning to a statue in bronze: ‘Dere be one nigger among 'em which is crying over a handkerchief. Dey call him Othello. Mebbe his mother is dead, and he can't fetch her to de show, poor fellow!’

An American officer riding by the bronze statue of Henry Clay in Canal Street, New Orleans, was asked by his Irish orderly if the New Orleans ‘fellers’ were so fond of niggers that they put a statue of one in their ‘fashionablest’ street. ‘That's not a nigger, Tom; that's the great Clay statue,’ said the amused officer. Tom rode round the statue, dismounted, climbed upon the pedestal, examined the figure closely, and then said: ‘Did they tell yez it was clay? It looks to me like iron!’

Tom's ignorance was more excusable than that of the Yankee who, learning on inquiry that the colossal equestrian figure in Union Square, New York, was ‘General Washington, the father of his country,’ observed: ‘It is? I never heard of him before; but there is one thing about him I do like – he does set a horse plaguy well.’ A compliment to the artist, at all events.

Perhaps Salvini took it as a compliment when his Othello was compared to the awakening fury of the Hyrcanian tiger disturbed at his feast of blood, and his Hamlet described as ‘a magnificent hoodlum on his muscle, with a big mad on, smashing things generally;’ and the Boston actress was delighted to know her ‘subtle grace, flexible as the sinuosities of a morning mist, yet thoroughly proportioned to the curves of the character, was most especially noticeable.’ But the Hungarian prima donna must have felt a little dubious as to the intentions of the critic who wrote of her: ‘Her voice is wonderful. She runs up and down the scale with the agility of an experienced cat running up and down a house-top, and two or three fences thrown in. She turns figurative flip-flaps on every bar, tearing up the thermometer to away above two hundred and twelve, and sliding down again so far below zero that one feels chilled to the bone.’ The fair singer would probably have preferred something in this style: ‘Miss – wore a rich purple suit with a handsome shade of lavender, a white over-garment, tight-fitting, with flowing sleeves, and a white bonnet trimmed with the same shades of purple and lavender, and she sang finely.’

That has the merit of being intelligible. The writer was not in such a desperate condition as the Memphis theatrical reporter who lauded an actress as ‘intense yet expansive, comprehensive yet particular, fervid without faultiness; glowing and still controlled, natural but refined, daring anything, fearing nothing but to violate grace; pure as dew, soft as the gush of distant music, gentle as a star beaming through the riven clouds. With mystery of charms she comes near to us, and melts down our admiration into love; but when we take her to us as something familiar and delicious, she floats away to the far heights of fame, and looks down on our despair with countenance of peaceful lustre and smiles as sweet as spring.’ If the lady did not reciprocate, her heart must have been of adamant.