Some of the
younger black gowns and blue blouses attempted to walk across over the
sands; we could see the girls sitting down on the edge of the shore,
to take off their shoes and stockings and to tuck up their thick
skirts. When they finally started they were like unto so many huge
cheeses hoisted on stilts. The bare legs plunged boldly forward,
keeping ahead of the slower-moving peasant lads; the girls' bravery
served them till they reached the fringe of the incoming tide; not
until their knees went under water did they forego their venture. A
higher wave came in, deluging the ones farthest out; and then ensued a
scampering toward the dike and a climbing up of the stone embankment.
The old route across the sands, that had been the only one known to
kings and barons, was not good enough for a modern Norman peasant. The
religion of personal comfort has spread even as far as the fields.
Other aspects of the hill, on this day of the pilgrimage, made those
older dead-and-gone bands of pilgrims astonishingly real. On the tops
of bastions, in the clefts on the rocks, beneath the glorious walls
of La Merveille, or perilously lodged on the crumbling cornice of a
tourelle, numerous rude altars had been hastily erected.
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