CHAPTER II
ICELANDERS
Their smack was named /La Marie/, and her master was Captain Guermeur.
Every year she set sail for the big dangerous fisheries, in the frigid
regions where the summers have no night. She was a very old ship, as
old as the statuette of her patron saint itself. Her heavy, oaken
planks were rough and worn, impregnated with ooze and brine, but still
strong and stout, and smelling strongly of tar. At anchor she looked
an old unwieldy tub from her so massive build, but when blew the
mighty western gales, her lightness returned, like a sea-gull awakened
by the wind. Then she had her own style of tumbling over the rollers,
and rebounding more lightly than many newer ones, launched with all
your new fangles.
As for the crew of six men and the boy, they were "Icelanders," the
valiant race of seafarers whose homes are at Paimpol and Treguier, and
who from father to son are destined for the cod fisheries.
They hardly ever had seen a summer in France. At the end of each
winter they, with other fishers, received the parting blessing in the
harbour of Paimpol. And for that fete-day an altar, always the same,
and imitating a rocky grotto, was erected on the quay; and over it, in
the midst of anchors, oars and nets, was enthroned the Virgin Mary,
calm, and beaming with affection, the patroness of sailors; she would
be brought from her chapel for the occasion, and had looked upon
generation after generation with her same lifeless eyes, blessing the
happy for whom the season would be lucky, and the others who never
more would return.
The Host, followed by a slow procession of wives, mothers,
sweethearts, and sisters, was borne round the harbour, where the boats
bound for Iceland, bedecked in all colours, saluted it on its way. The
priest halted before each, giving them his holy blessing; and then the
fleet started, leaving the country desolate of husbands, lovers, and
sons; and as the shores faded from their view, the crews sang together
in low, full voices, the hymns sacred to "the Star of the Ocean." And
every year saw the same ceremonies, and heard the same good-byes.
Then began the life out upon the open sea, in the solitude of three or
four rough companions, on the moving thin planks in the midst of the
seething waters of the northern seas.
Until now /La Marie/ followed the custom of many Icelanders, which is
merely to touch at Paimpol, and then to sail down to the Gulf of
Gascony, where fish fetches high prices, or farther on to the Sandy
Isles, with their salty swamps, where they buy the salt for the next
expedition. The crews of lusty fellows stay a few days in the
southern, sun-kissed harbour-towns, intoxicated by the last rays of
summer, by the sweetness of the balmy air, and by the downright
jollity of youth.
With the mists of autumn they return home to Paimpol, or to the
scattered huts of the land of Goelo, to remain some time in their
families, in the midst of love, marriages, and births. Very often they
find unseen babies upon their return, waiting for godfathers ere they
can be baptized, for many children are needed to keep up this race of
fishermen, which the Icelandic Moloch devours.
