Assignment in Brittany Read Online Free PDF

him, for even the early-rising villagers would not yet be stirring. He paused on the path which had brought him so quickly round the curves of these last gentle hills, past the endless slate-roofed farm-houses, past the orchards and well-tilled fields. And right there, just below where he stood, lay Saint-Déodat: fifty, or less, stone houses clustered near the church and its soaring towers. Nothing moved. There was no sound. It seemed a deserted village, asleep in its sheltered hollow.
    Hearne repressed his excitement. He had better see how far wrong he had been in his idea of the place, before he started congratulating himself. He had two choices: either he could keep to this path on the hill, rising to the west of the village, until he reached the Corlay farm, or he could cut down to the road and enter the village at the north end. He chose the secondcourse. It was safe enough with the village still asleep. Even if some early bird did see him it would be noted that be came from the north, which fitted in very nicely with his story of walking from the coast. Also, he would feel surer of reaching the Corlay farm if he followed the road through the village, for there were many small farms all remarkably alike scattered over the hillside. It would take some explaining if he were to approach the wrong house and claim it as his. Slight shell-shock would hardly be an adequate excuse. Finally—and this was the chief reason, he admitted to himself quite cheerfully—he just wanted to see Saint-Déodat. He had thought of it constantly in the last three weeks; he had examined drawings, memorised descriptions, made his own sketches. He knew it forwards, backwards, sideways—on paper. Now he had the chance to walk quietly, slowly, through Saint-Déodat, and in the greying light he would see it as it really stood.
    It was a compact little village. First, there had been the church, built in the tenth or eleventh century: the two Romanesque towers bore testimony to that. Then, gradually, houses had grouped themselves round it; and a narrow road found its way up between the little hills, from the flat plains of the north-east. By the fourteenth century, Saint-Déodat was a flourishing community. It had a proud castle on the western hill, and feudal overlords to bring it relics from the Holy Land. In the market-place which had formed itself opposite the church, the country people from miles around came to buy and sell. That was when the Gothic part of the church had been added by the prosperous, and grateful, villagers.
    “Nothing changes” had been the proud motto of the castle. Saint-Déodat kept faith with it, although the castle now lay inruins since its last overlord had abandoned the village for the richer graces of Versailles. Hearne wondered if he had still said “Nothing changes” when he had mounted to the guillotine. If he were a true Breton he probably did, just to spite the howling mob. Even as the blade descended, and the unchanging Comte had change thrust upon him, his village asserted itself for the last time in its history. Its people joined the desperate Vendée revolt against the Revolution, and were rewarded by the despoiling of their castle, the burning of their houses, the slaughter of their young men in the market-place. Yet their church, although bruised and crippled, still stood.
    The people took courage from it, and when they came back from their hiding-places they rebuilt enough of the destroyed houses to suit their diminished numbers. The market-place once more heard weekly gossip. But after that bloody 1793, the inhabitants of Saint-Déodat avoided trouble by strictly minding their own business. And they had succeeded, at the price of becoming a forgotten village.
    Hearne stopped thinking of Saint-Déodat’s past as he reached the narrow road which entered the village. Now he was concentrating on its present. He passed fourteen houses, five of them empty (not only a forgotten village, he amended then, but