Chapter XV

It was with Saboly's "Hou, de l'houstau!" that our singing began. It is one of the series in his history of the Nativity and is the most popular of all his noels: a dialogue between Saint Joseph and the Bethlehem inn-keeper, that opens with a sweet and plaintive long-drawn note of supplication as Saint Joseph timorously calls:

"O-o-oh, there, the house! Master! Mistress!
Varlet! Maid! Is _no_ one there?"

And then it continues with humble entreaties for shelter for himself and his wife, who is very near her time; to which the host replies with rough refusals for a while, but in the end grants grudgingly a corner of his stable in which the wayfarers may lie for the night.

Esperit and Magali sang this responsively; Magali taking Saint Joseph's part--in which, in all the noels, is a strain of feminine sweetness and gentleness. Then Marius and Esperit, in the same fashion, sang the famous "C'est le bon lever": a dialogue between an Angel and a Shepherd, in which the Angel--as becomes so exalted a personage--speaks French, while the Shepherd speaks Provencal.

"It's high time to get up, sweet shepherd," the Angel begins; and goes on to tell that "in Bethlehem, quite near this place," the Saviour of the world has been born of a Virgin.

"Perhaps you take me for a common peasant," the Shepherd answers, "talking to me like that! I am poor, but I'd have you to know that I come of good stock. In old times my great-great-grandfather was mayor of our village! And who are you, anyway, fine sir? Are you a Jew or a Dutchman? Your jargon makes me laugh. A virgin mother! A child god! No, never were such things heard!"

But when the Angel reiterates his strange statement the Shepherd's interest is aroused. He declares that he will go at once and steal this miraculous child; and he quite takes the Angel into his confidence--as though standing close to his elbow and speaking as friend to friend. In the end, of course, he is convinced of the miracle, and says that he "will get the ass and set forth" to join the worshippers about the manger at Bethlehem.

There are many of these noels in dialogue; and most of them are touched with this same quality of easy familiarity with sacred subjects, and abound in turns of broad humour which render them not a little startling from our nicer point of view. But they never are coarse, and their simplicity saves them from being irreverent; nor is there, I am sure, the least thought of irreverence on the part of those by whom they are sung. I noticed, though, that these lively numbers were the ones which most hit the fancy of the men; while the women as plainly showed their liking for those of a finer spirit in which the dominant qualities were pathos and grace.

Of this latter class is Roumanille's rarely beautiful noel "The Blind Girl" ("La Chato Avuglo")--that Magali sang with a tenderness which set the women to crying openly, and which made the older men cough a little and look suspiciously red about the eyes. Of all the modern noels it has come closest to and has taken the strongest hold upon the popular heart: this pathetic story of the child "blind from her birth" who pleads with her mother that she also may go with the rest to Bethlehem, urging that though she cannot see "the lovely golden face" she still may touch the Christ-Child's hand.

And when, all thrilling, to the stable she was come
She placed the little hand of Jesus on her heart--
And saw him whom she touched!

But without the music, and with only these crude translations in which is lost also the music of the words, I feel that I am giving very much less than the true effect of these Provencal Christmas songs. To be appreciated, to be understood, they must be heard as I heard them: sung by that Christmas company, with Magali's tenderly vibrant voice leading the chorus in which every one of those singing Provencaux joined. Even the old grandfather--still standing at the fire-place--marked the time of the music with the knife that he held in his hand; and his thin old voice piped in with the others, and had a gay or a tender ring in it with the changing melody, for all that it was so cracked and shrill.

I am persuaded, so thoroughly did they all enjoy their own carolling, that the singing of noels would have gone on until broad daylight had it not been for the intervention of the midnight mass. But the mass of Christmas Eve--or, rather, of Christmas morning--is a matter not only of pleasure but of obligation. Even those upon whom churchly requirements at other times rest lightly rarely fail to attend it; and to the faithful it is the most touchingly beautiful--as Easter is the most joyous--church festival of the year.

By eleven o'clock, therefore, we were under way for our walk of a mile or so down the long slope of the hill side to the village: a little clump of houses threaded by narrow crooked streets and still in part surrounded by the crusty remnant of a battlemented wall--that had its uses in the days when robber barons took their airings and when pillaging Saracens came sailing up the slack-water lower reaches of the Rhone. Down the white road in the moonlight we went in a straggling company, while more and more loudly came to us through the crisp night air the sound of the Christmas bells.

Presently some one started a very sweet and plaintive noel: fairly heart-wringing in its tender beseeching and soft lament, yet with a consoling under-note to which it constantly returned. I think, but I am not sure, that it was Roumanille's noel telling of the widowed mother who carried the cradle of her own baby to the Virgin, that the Christ-Child might not lie on straw. One by one the other voices took up the strain, until in a full chorus the sorrowingly compassionate melody went thrilling through the moonlit silence of the night.

And so, singing, we walked by the white way onward; hearing as we neared the town the songs of other companies coming up, as ours was, from outlying farms. And when they and we had passed in through the gateways--where the townsfolk of old lashed out against their robber Infidel and robber Christian enemies--all the black little narrow streets were filled with an undertone of murmuring voices and an overtone of clear sweet song.