Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1891-08-14
THE DRUW NED MAN.

Every one in Fecamp knew the story Of
Mother Patin. She had certainly not been
happy with her man, had Mother Patin,
for her man used to beat her, when he was
alive, as they thresh the wheat on the
threshing floors.
He was master of fishing smack, and
had married her long ago because she was
pleasant, although she was poor
Patin, good sailor, but brutal, fire.
,quented the drinking shop of old Auban,
where he drank regularly every day his
four or five little nips, and on days of luck
at sea, eight or ten Or even more, just ac-
cording to how good he felt, as he said.
The drink was served to patrons by old
Auban's daughter, a brown girl, good to
look at and who drew custom by her pleas
ant manners solely-for no one had ever
limited word against her.
Patin, when he came into the shop, was
content with looking at her, and his con-
versation was polite, the civil remarks of a
decent fellow. After he had drunk his
first glass of brandy he began to find her
more attractive; at the second he winked
his eye at her; at the third he would say,
'If only you liked, Mamzelle Desiree"-
without ever finishing his sentence; with
the fourth he tried to catch her by the
Sk1rCS, W KISS utT, anu WHeH uc WeuO DIS
high as ten her father brought him the
other ones.
The old wine seller, who was up to all
the tricks, sent Desiree round among the
tables to stimulate the orders; and Desiree,
who was not her fathers favorite for moth
ing, fitted in and out among the custom
ers, joking with them, with a laughing
mouth and swapping eye.
What with drinking his little nips, Patin
became so used to the face of Desiree that
he kept thinking of her even out at sea,
when he was casting his nets, far out,
windy nights and calm, nights of moon
light and nights of cloud. He thought on
her. gripping the helm in the stern of his
boat, while his four comrades were sleep
ing, their heads on their arms He saw
her, always smiling, pouring him the yell
low brandy with swing of the shoulder,
then saying as she went:
''There! Does that suit your"
And ut last, keeping her thus in eye and
mind, he was seized with such longing to
marry her that, unable to fight any longer
against it, he asked for her hand.
He was well off, owner of his boat, of his
nets and of house at the foot of the hill
on the Reserve, while old Auban had moth
ing. So he was received with enthusiasm,
and the wedding came off at the earliest
possible day, both parties wishing to hurry
matters for different reasons.
But three days after the marriage Patin
was utterly unable to conceive how he
could have thought Desiree different from
any other woman. Well, he must have
been fool! to tie himself up with girl
without a cent who had bewitched him
with her rum, for sure, liquor that she'd
put some filthy charm into for him.
And he swore, up and down the tide,
breaking his pipe between his teeth, abus-
ing his outfit; and having cursed copiously
in all the customary terms at everything
he could think of, he spit forth the rest of
his choler on the fish and the Holsters
taken one by one from his nets, never
throwing them into the basket without an
accompaniment Of scolding and bad names.
Then, home again, having within reach
of tongue and hand his wife, old Auban's
girl, it was not long before he was treating
her like the lowest Of the low In his speech
Then, as she heard him resignedly, used to
that sort of thing already from her father,
he grew exasperated at her silence, and one
evening struck her. After that their life
was frightful.
For ten years they talked of nothing else
on the Reserve but the thrashings Patin
gave his wife, and his way of swearing at
her whenever he addressed her. He swore,
in fact, in an individual style, with rich
| ness of vocabulary and a sorority of organ
equaled by no other man in Fecamp
From the moment his boat appeared at the
entrance of the harbor, coming back from
the fishing, they awaited the first volley he
would launch from his deck to the jetty as
soon as he saw the white cap of his help
mate.
He stood up in the stern, steering, his
eye ahead or on the sail when the sea was
high, and, spite of the preoccupations of
the narrow and difficult channel, spite of
the waves from the deep that piled up in it
like mountains, he sought to make out
among the women waiting for the fishers
under the spray of the surges, his own old
Auban's girl, the jade!
Then, when hesaw her, for all the clamor
of the waves and wind, he turned out on
her string of abuse, with such strength
of throat that every onelaughed, although
they were honestly sorry for her. Then
when the boat came in at the quay, he had
way of discharging his ballast of civil
ties, as he called it, all the while unloading
his fish, that drew around his tying up
place all the rapscallions and loafers of the
port.
1t came out of his mouth sometimes like
cannon shots, short and awful, sometimes
like peals of thunder that rolled out for
five minutes such hurricane of objurga-
lions that he seemed to have in his lungs
all the storms of heaven.
Then when he was off his boat and found
himself face to face with her, in the middle
of crowd of oilers and fishwomen, he
fshed out of the bottom of his hold a
whole new cargo of insults and abuse, and
escorted her home with these, she in front,
he behind; she crying, he shouting.
Alone with her, the doors shut, he struck
her on the slightest pretext. Anything
was enough to make him lift his hand, and
once began he never stopped, casting then
in her face the real grounds of his hate
With each slap, with each thlmp he vo-
ciferated: "Ah! We penniless wench! ahi
We ragged, hungry jade! A pretty thing
did the day I ever washed my mouth with
the rotgut of your thief of a fatherp'
She lived, poor woman, in state OF in
cessant terror, in a constant tremble of
soul and body, in affrighted expectation of
outrage and blows And this lasted for
ten years. She was so timorouS that she
would grow pale when talking to any one,
and she thought of nothing save the beat
ings hanging over her, and she had become
lean. dry and yellow.
II v
One night, when her man was at sea, she
was awakened suddenly by that wild
beasts growl which the wind makes when
it comes on like hound unleashed. She
sat up in bed, alarmed; then, hearing moth
ing more, lay down again, but almost at
once there came a believing in her chin
ney that shook the whole house, spreading
throughout the entire heavens as if herd
Of maddened cattle were rushing through
space, snorting and lowing.
She rose and hastened to the harbor.
Other women were coming from every di-
rection with lanterns. The men focked
out, and all watched, lighting up in the
night on the sea the foaming white caps OF
the SUBMITS of the waves
The storm lasted fifteen hours Eleven
sailors did not come back. and Patin was
among them.
They found on the Dieppe coast the
wreckage of the Young Amelia, his sloop.
They recovered down by Saint-Valery the
bodies of his sailors, but never found his.
AS the hull of his boat seemed to have been
cut in two his wife for long time waited
in dread for his return, for if there had
been a collision it might have happened
| IL