their customs are their own, and their costume is their own and
never changes. As soon as one of their boys can walk, he is
provided with a long bright red nightcap; and one of their men
would as soon think of going afloat without his head, as without
that indispensable appendage to it. Then, they wear the noblest
boots, with the hugest tops – flapping and bulging over anyhow;
above which, they encase themselves in such wonderful overalls and
petticoat trousers, made to all appearance of tarry old sails, so
additionally stiffened with pitch and salt, that the wearers have a
walk of their own, and go straddling and swinging about among the
boats and barrels and nets and rigging, a sight to see. Then,
their younger women, by dint of going down to the sea barefoot, to
fling their baskets into the boats as they come in with the tide,
and bespeak the first fruits of the haul with propitiatory promises
to love and marry that dear fisherman who shall fill that basket
like an Angel, have the finest legs ever carved by Nature in the
brightest mahogany, and they walk like Juno. Their eyes, too, are
so lustrous that their long gold ear-rings turn dull beside those
brilliant neighbours; and when they are dressed, what with these
beauties, and their fine fresh faces, and their many petticoats –
striped petticoats, red petticoats, blue petticoats, always clean
and smart, and never too long – and their home-made stockings,
mulberry-coloured, blue, brown, purple, lilac – which the older
women, taking care of the Dutch-looking children, sit in all sorts
of places knitting, knitting, knitting from morning to night – and
what with their little saucy bright blue jackets, knitted too, and
fitting close to their handsome figures; and what with the natural
grace with which they wear the commonest cap, or fold the commonest
handkerchief round their luxuriant hair – we say, in a word and out
of breath, that taking all these premises into our consideration,
it has never been a matter of the least surprise to us that we have
never once met, in the cornfields, on the dusty roads, by the
breezy windmills, on the plots of short sweet grass overhanging the
sea – anywhere – a young fisherman and fisherwoman of our French
watering-place together, but the arm of that fisherman has
invariably been, as a matter of course and without any absurd
attempt to disguise so plain a necessity, round the neck or waist
of that fisherwoman. And we have had no doubt whatever, standing
looking at their uphill streets, house rising above house, and
terrace above terrace, and bright garments here and there lying
sunning on rough stone parapets, that the pleasant mist on all such
objects, caused by their being seen through the brown nets hung
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across on poles to dry, is, in the eyes of every true young
fisherman, a mist of love and beauty, setting off the goddess of
his heart.
Moreover it is to be observed that these are an industrious people,
and a domestic people, and an honest people. And though we are
aware that at the bidding of Bilkins it is our duty to fall down
and worship the Neapolitans, we make bold very much to prefer the
fishing people of our French watering-place – especially since our
last visit to Naples within these twelvemonths, when we found only
four conditions of men remaining in the whole city: to wit,
lazzaroni, priests, spies, and soldiers, and all of them beggars;
the paternal government having banished all its subjects except the
rascals.
But we can never henceforth separate our French watering-place from
our own landlord of two summers, M. Loyal Devasseur, citizen and
town-councillor. Permit us to have the pleasure of presenting M.
Loyal Devasseur.
His own family name is simply Loyal; but, as he is married, and as
in that part of France a husband always adds to his own name the
family name of his wife, he writes himself Loyal Devasseur. He
owns a compact little estate of some twenty or thirty acres on a
lofty hill-side, and on it he has built two country houses, which