"I'm afraid," I said to Sweetheart, "that there is a bar sinister
upon his escutcheon, but possibly it is only the indelible mark of the
conquering British foxhound." Sweetheart said, "Nonsense!" and the expedition moved, Luff leading
with a series of ear-splitting orders in the dog language which we
perfectly understood. In ten minutes we stood on the cliffs, the salt wind whipping our
faces. Saint-Gildas-des-Prés lay at our feet. "I know," observed Sweetheart calmly, "all about this place. Captain
Ylven told me at breakfast." "Well," said I, "what's that island on the horizon?" Then she overwhelmed me with erudition, until I longed for Baedeker and
revenge. "That is the Isle de Groix, and all about us is the Bay of Biscay. This
little hamlet on the cliff is St. Julien, and if we follow the coast
far enough we come to Lorient." "Follow the coast? Which way?" Sweetheart had forgotten, and I triumphed in silence, until she stamped
her foot and marched off to assist Luff in investigating a suspicious
hole in the cliff. I went to the edge of the plateau and looked over. The surf thundered
against the rocks, tossing long strands of seaweed over the pebbly
beach. A man with a wooden rake stood in the water up to his knees. He
raked the seaweed from the breakers as a farmer rakes weeds from the
lawn. The salt wind began to sting my lips and eyes. My throat felt dry
and salty. I turned toward the hamlet of St. Gildas. I had not imagined
it so small. Besides our house there were but three others clustered
under the river bank. Behind it stretched woods and grain fields broken
by patches of yellow gorse. Across the river stood a stone chapel
almost lost in the miles of moorland. To the east and west the downs
covered with gorse and heather rolled to the horizon. Here and there
along the cliffs stood what appeared to be the ruins of ancient forts,
and on a rock, just where the river sweeps out into the sea, rose a
dirty white signal tower. The tower was low and squatty and wet. It
looked like some saline excrescence which had slowly exuded from the
brine-soaked rock. On the bar hundreds of white gulls rose and settled
as the tide encroached; curlew were running along the foam-splashed
shore under the eastern cliffs across the river. On our side of the river the cliffs were covered with blackthorn and
hawthorn, with here and there a stunted oak, probably so placed by
Providence as general rendezvous for all the small twittering birds of
Finistère. Birds were everywhere. From the clouds came the ceaseless
carol of skylarks; from the grain fields and the flowering gorse rose
an unbroken chorus, taken up and repeated by flocks of microscopical
songsters among the blackthorns on the cliffs. "This is paradise, this wilderness," I thought. Then, as I heard Sweetheart's mocking voice from the cliff:

  O frère Jacques,
  Dormez vous! "I'm not asleep!" I cried in answer. "What is it?" "Luff has unearthed a poor little mole, but I won't allow him to hurt
it." "Jack, dear," she said, as I came up, "couldn't we keep it as a pet? See, the poor little thing is blind." As it was blind we called it "Love," which later was changed to
"Cupid," and finally, when we discovered it true gormandizing
character, for "Cupid" we substituted "Cupidity," by which name it
flourished and fattened. "What a change," said Sweetheart sadly, "from Blind Love to Blind
Greed!" The mole grew very fat. XVII. When the winds stir the leaves among the poplars, and the long shadows
fall athwart the fields; when the winds rise at night, and the branches
scrape and crack above the moonlit snow; when in the long hot days
the earth is bathed in fragrance, and all the little creatures of
the fields are silent; when in the still evenings the flowers perfume
the air, and the gravel walks shine white in the moonlight; when the
breezes quicken from the distant coast; when the sand shakes beneath
the shock of the breakers, and every wave is plumed with white; when
the calm eye of the beacon turns to mine, lingers, and turn away, and
the surf is yeasty and thick; when I start at the sound of a voice from
the cliffs, and my eyes are raised in vain; when the white gulls toss
and drift in the storm-clouds, and the water hurries out in the black
ebb tide; when I rise and look from the window; when I dress; when I
work with pen and colour; when I rest; when I walk; when I sleep--there
is one face before my eyes, one name on my lips. For the white shadow
is turning gray, and God alone knows the end. XVIII. And God alone knows the end, for the mists are crowding, brooding
like angry-browed clouds, and I hear the whistle of unseen winds, and
my life-flame wavers and sinks and flares, blown hither and thither,
tossing, fading, leaping, but fading, always fading. In a flash, like a printed picture on a screen, illuminated, keenly
etched in the white glare, I see the bed, and the people around me,
the black gowns, the pale eyes of the doctor, the sponge and basin, the
rolls of lint. Voices, minute but clean-cut and clear as picked harp-strings, tinkle
in my ears; the voice of the doctor, other voices, but always the
voice of the doctor--"The splinter of bone on the brain; the splinter
pressing on the tissues; the depression." The doctor! That is the man! That is the man who comes to my side, who
follows, follows where I go, who seeks me throughout the world! I saw
him as I lay flung on the turf, limp, unconscious, below the cliffs
on the Aspen hills; I felt his presence in the studio; I heard him
creeping at my heels across the gorse thickets of St. Gildas. And now
he has come to cut short the magic second, to turn back time--back,
back, into the old worn channels, rock-ribbed and salt with tears. As a leaf of written paper torn in two, so shall my life be torn in
two; and the long tear shall mangle the chapter written in rose and
gold. Then, too, my shadow, already turned from white to gray, shall fall
with a deeper stain wherever I pass; and I shall see the yellow gorse
glimmer and turn to golden-rod, and the poplars turn to oaks; and the
twin towers of Notre Dame, filmy, lace-carved, and gray with centuries,
shall dwindle as I look--dwindle and sway and turn to pines, singing
pines that murmur to the winds, blowing across the Aspen hills. *       *       *       *       *

All that is fair shall pass away; all that I love, all that I fear
for--these shall the doctor take away, lifting them from my memory on
the point of a steel blade. What has he to give in return? A hell of
vapour, distorting sight; a hell of sound, drowning the soul. *       *       *       *       *

Gigantic apparitions arise across the world of water, wavering like
shadows on the clouds. Steel-clad, clothed in skins, casqued in steel,
their winged heads bend and nod and move against the clouds. And even
they are changing as clouds change shape. I see steel limbs turn red
and naked. I see winged casques trail to the earth, feathered, painted
in colours of earth. Ihó!