"Little son born last night. Is going on very well. Marie also. "CORENTIN KEREMENEN." When night came and we were in bed it was impossible to sleep. I heard Yves turning in his bed, "going about" as he said in his Breton accent. At the thought that on the morrow he would be on the road to Toulven to see his little firstborn, his honest manly heart overflowed with all kinds of sentiments which were quite new to him. Two days after him, I, too, would be due at Toulven for the baptism. And he made a thousand and one projects for this ceremony: "I hardly dare to say it, but, if you would like, at Toulven, to stay with us. . . . At my father-in-law's place, you know. . . . To be sure it is not like the town, as I need not tell you. . . ." CHAPTER XLIII BREST, 15_th June_, 1878. In the early morning I set out for Toulven where Yves has been awaiting me since yesterday. The weather is magnificent. Old Brittany is green and decked with flowers. Along the road are large woods and rocks. Yves is waiting for me on the arrival of the diligence which I caught at Bannalec. Beside him is a girl of eighteen or nineteen, who blushes, looking very pretty in her large coif. "This is Anne," says Yves to me, "my sister-in-law, the godmother." There is still some distance between the little town and the cottage in which they live at Trémeulé in Toulven. Some village lads lift my luggage on their shoulders, and I set out to make my visit to the sea-gull which has just been born; to make the acquaintance also of this Breton family, into which Yves has entered in his headlong way without very clearly knowing why. What will they be like, these new relations of my brother Yves--and this new country which is to become his? CHAPTER XLIV We make our way all three along sunken lanes, which vanish in front of us under the shade of beech trees and are overgrown with ferns. It is evening; the sky is overcast, and in these lanes there is a kind of night which is perfumed with honeysuckle. Here and there, on the roadside, are grey cottages, very old and covered with moss. From one of them comes a lullaby, sung in slow cadence by a voice which also is very old: "Boudoul, boudoul, galaïchen![4] Boudoul, boudoul, galaïch du!" "It is _he_ they are rocking," said Yves, smiling. "Come in!" This cottage of the old Keremenen people is half-buried and overgrown with moss. Above it the oaks and beeches spread their green vault; it seems as old as the earth of the lanes. Inside the light is dim; one sees the press-beds in line with cupboards along the rough granite of the walls. A grandmother in a large white collarette is within, singing beside the new-born son, singing an air of the time of her own childhood.