The Death-Fires of Les Martigues by Thomas A. Janvier

All the devils are let loose on earth on All Souls Eve -- that is a fact known to everybody here in Provence. But whether it was one of those loosed devils, or the devil that had grown big in my own inside, that made me do what I did I do not know. What I do know, certainly, is that about dusk on All Saints Day the thought of how I could force things to be as I wanted them to be came into my heart.

My thought was not a new thought, exactly. It was only that I would do what we had planned to do to make my mother give in to us: get Magali into my boat and carry her off with me for a day or two to Les Saintes. But it came to me with the new meaning that in that way I could make Magali give in to me too. When we came back she would be ready enough to marry me, and my mother would be for hurrying our marrying along. It all was as plain and as sure as anything could be. And, as I have said, nobody would think the worse of Magali afterward; because that way of cutting through such difficulties is a common way with us in Provence.