streaks.  Over the manure heap floated a mist, opal-tinted and odorous, and the marauding hens would stop in their scratching to examine with a sudden glance of their round eye the two men, both lean and tall, talking in hoarse tones.  The old man, all twisted with rheumatism and bowed with years of work, the younger bony and straight, spoke without gestures in the indifferent manner of peasants, grave and slow.  But before the sun had set the father had submitted to the sensible arguments of the son.  “It is not for me that I am speaking,” insisted Jean-Pierre.  “It is for the land.  It’s a pity to see it badly used.  I am not impatient for myself.”  The old fellow nodded over his stick.  “I dare say; I dare say,” he muttered.  “You may be right.  Do what you like.  It’s the mother that will be pleased.”

The mother was pleased with her daughter-in-law.  Jean-Pierre brought the two-wheeled spring-cart with a rush into the yard.  The gray horse galloped clumsily, and the bride and bridegroom, sitting side by side, were jerked backwards and forwards by the up and down motion of the shafts, in a manner regular and brusque.  On the road the distanced wedding guests straggled in pairs and groups.  The men advanced with heavy steps, swinging their idle arms.  They were clad in town clothes; jackets cut with clumsy smartness, hard black hats, immense boots, polished highly.  Their women all in simple black, with white caps and shawls of faded tints folded triangularly on the back, strolled lightly by their side.  In front the violin sang a strident tune, and the biniou snored and hummed, while the player capered solemnly, lifting high his heavy clogs.  The sombre procession drifted in and out of the narrow lanes, through sunshine and through shade, between fields and hedgerows, scaring the little birds that darted away in troops right and left.  In the yard of Bacadou’s farm the dark ribbon wound itself up into a mass of men and women pushing at the door with cries and greetings.  The wedding dinner was remembered for months.  It was a splendid feast in the orchard.  Farmers of considerable means and excellent repute were to be found sleeping in ditches, all along the road to Treguier, even as late as the afternoon of the next day.  All the countryside participated in the happiness of Jean-Pierre.  He remained sober, and, together with his quiet wife, kept out of the way, letting father and mother reap their due of honour and thanks.  But the next day he took hold strongly, and the old folks felt a shadow—­precursor of the grave—­fall upon them finally.  The world is to the young.

When the twins were born there was plenty of room in the house, for the mother of Jean-Pierre had gone away to dwell under a heavy stone in the cemetery of Ploumar.  On that day, for the first time since his son’s marriage, the elder Bacadou, neglected by the cackling lot of strange women who thronged the kitchen, left in the morning his seat under the mantel of the fireplace, and went into the empty cow-house,