Our Lady of Refuge by Bernard Capes — Read

When Luc Caron and his mate, whom, officially, he called Pepino, plodded with their raree-show into the sub-Pyrenean village of San Lorenzo, their hearts grew light with a sense of a haven reached after long stress of weather. Caron sounded his bird-call, made of boxwood, and Pepino drummed on his tabor, which was gay with fluttering ribbons, and merrily they cried together:

"Hullo, gentles and simples! hullo, children of the lesser and the larger growth-patriots all! Come, peep into the box of enchantment! For a quarter-real one may possess the world. See here the anti-Christ in his closet at Fontainebleau, burning brimstone to the powers of evil! See the brave English ships, ‘Impérieuse' and ‘Cambrian,' dogging the coast from Rosas to Barcelona, lest so little as a whiff of sulphur get through! Crowd not up, my children-there is time for all; the glasses will not break nor dim; they have already withstood ten thousand ‘eye-blows,' and are but diamonds the keener. Come and see the ships-so realistic, one may hear the sound of guns, the wind in the rigging-and all for a paltry quarter-real!"