WILD SPORT IN BRITTANY. 217 



be astir, and that every man possessing a horn would not fail to 

 summon his neighbour and every dog in the town to the chase, 

 long before a streak of light appeared in the sky. 



" And you. mean to join them, of course ? " said Keryfan, 

 growing half savage at the prospect of not being allowed to 

 indulge in a long spell of sleep after so much fatigue. 



" Of course," rejoined Marseillier, with an air of unfeigned 

 astonishment on his good-natured face that such a question could 

 be asked him ; "to be sure I do. Why, it's the only day out 

 of the seven on which business will permit a poor bourgeois to 

 enjoy his life and give rest to his brain." 



The disregard of the sabbath as a day of rest being the 

 popular and general practice of that country, Keryfan had no 

 notion, on moral grounds, of interfering with his neighbours' 

 amusements on that sacred day. Its desecration was too habitual 

 among all classes of the community to arouse within him the 

 faintest scruple of conscience on the subject, for he had never 

 been taught in childhood what every village schoolboy learns, 

 ,as his first lesson, in this more favoured land those words of 

 "Poor Richard," that 



"A Sunday well spent brings a week of content, 



And strength for the toils of the morrow ; 

 But a Sunday profaned, whate'er may be gained, 

 Is the certain forerunner of sorrow." 



That the cup of sorrow has been drained, over and over again, 

 to its bitterest dregs, by that people who, of all others on earth, 

 do most dishonour to the sabbath-day, cannot be denied ; though 

 whether it be or be not for this very sin that the nation has been 

 so heavily visited by God's wrath, it is not for man to decide. 



Marseillier's renewed assurance that neither le point du Jour 

 nor le reveil should be sounded on his premises if he could 

 possibly prevent it (for he had a most voluminous and discordant 

 horn of his own, and was very fond of blowing it whenever he 



