"He poured them here on to my knees," said the old woman, holding out the skirt of her dress as if to receive them again, "and my apron was filled with them. Large golden coins of other countries, marked with all sorts of heads of kings and birds.[1] There were some of them quite new, with the portrait of a woman wearing a crown of feathers,[2] a single one of which was worth more than a hundred francs. Never had we seen so much gold. He gave a thousand francs to each of his sisters and a thousand to me, his mother, and bought me this little house in which we live. He squandered the rest in amusing himself at Paimpol and in doing things which, certainly, were not good. But they are all like that, sir, you know it better than I. For two months they spoke of none but him in the town. "Then he left us again and we have not seen him since. He is a brave sailor, sir, is my son Gildas, but he has been ruined as his father was by his fondness for liquor." And the old woman bowed her head sadly as she spoke of this incurable plague which destroys the families of Breton sailors. There was silence for a time, and then she spoke again to her daughter in an earnest voice, looking at me the while. "She asks, sir, if you will make her this promise . . . about my brother. . . ." Her anxious, searching gaze, fixed on me, affected me strangely. It is no doubt true that all mothers, however far apart in station they may be, have, in certain hours, the same expression. . . . And now it seemed to me that this mother of Yves had some resemblance to mine. "Tell her that I swear to look after him _all my life, as if he were my brother._" And the daughter repeated, translating slowly into Breton: "He swears that he will look after him all his life as if he were his brother." The old mother had risen, upright as ever, stern and brusque; she had taken from the wall a picture of Christ and had advanced towards me, addressing me as if she wished to take me at my word, there and then, with naïve, impulsive simplicity: "It is on this, sir, that she asks you to swear." "No, mother, no!" said Yves, in confusion, trying to interpose, to stop her. But I held out my arm towards this picture of Christ, a little surprised, a little moved, perhaps, and I repeated: "I swear to do what I have said." But my arm trembled a little because I foresaw that my responsibility would be a heavy one in the future. And then I took Yves' hand. His head was bowed in thought: "And you will do what I tell you, you will follow me . . . _brother?_" And he replied, in a low voice, hesitating, his eyes turned away, but with the smile of a child: "Why, yes . . . of course I will." [Footnote 1: The Chilean _Condors._] [Footnote 2: The twenty piastre piece of California (the whalers usually turn their savings into this money).] CHAPTER XXIII We had not long to sleep that night, _my brother and I_, in our little beds in the cupboard.