“Take umbrellas,” cried Madame Hellard, prudently, from the doorway.  “Remember your drenching that day, and what fatal consequences might have happened.”

But we saw no necessity for umbrellas to-day, for there was not a cloud in the sky.

“Still, to please you, I will take my macintosh,” said H.C.; “it is hanging up in the hall.”

But the macintosh had disappeared.  A traveller who had left by the last train had good-naturedly appropriated it to his own use and service.  It was that admirable macintosh that has already adorned these pages, with the cape finished off with fish-hooks for carrying old china, brown paper parcels and headless images; and as the invention was not yet patented, the loss was serious.  H.C. lamented openly.

“I only hope,” he said, “that the man who has taken it will put it on inside out, and that all the fish-hooks will stick into him.”  The most revengeful saying his gentle mind had ever uttered.

“C’est encore le chat!” screamed Catherine, who was leaning out of a first-floor window of the salle a manger, quite undaunted by Madame Hellard’s reproving “Voyons, voyons, Catherine!”

But Catherine was loyal, for all her mild sarcasm, and we knew that if ever the delinquent turned up again he would have a mauvais quart d’heure at her hands, whilst M. Hellard would certainly enforce restitution.

Some months later on, at a subsequent visit we paid to Morlaix, we asked after the fate of the macintosh and its borrower.

“Ah, monsieur,” cried our host, sadly, “his punishment was even greater than we could have wished; two months afterwards the poor fellow died of la grippe.”

But to return.  We started for St. Thegonnec.  It was a longish drive; the road undulated a good deal, and the horse seemed to think that whether going up hill or down a funereal pace was the correct thing.  It took us half our time to rouse our sleepy driver to a sense of his duty.  At last we tried a severe threat.  “If you are not back again by table d’hote time, you shall have no pourboire,” we said, in solemn and determined tones.  The effect was excellent.  We had no more trouble, but the unfortunate horse had a great deal of whip.

There was very little to notice in the country we passed through.  The most conspicuous objects were the large stone crucifixes erected here and there by the roadside or where two roads met:  ancient and beautiful; and throwing, as we have remarked, a religious tone and atmosphere over the country.  It was wonderfully picturesque to see, as we occasionally did, a Brittany peasant kneeling at the foot of one of these old crosses, the pure white Brittany cap standing out conspicuously against the dark grey stone:  a figure wrapped in devotion, apparently lost to the sense of all outward things.  It all adds a charm to one’s wanderings in Brittany.

St. Thegonnec at last, announced some time before we reached it by its remarkable church, which is very visible in the flatness of the surrounding country.  The small town numbers some three thousand inhabitants, but has almost the primitive look of a village.  Many of the people still wear the costumes of the place, especially on a Sunday, when the interior of the church at high mass looks very picturesque and imposing.