resignation, accustomed as she had been to the outbursts of the paternal abode, her calmness only exasperated him the more, and one night he gave her a thumping. After that life became a terrible affair in his house.
For ten years all the talk on the Retenue was of the kicks and cuffs that Patin gave his wife, and how he never spoke to her without swearing at her, with or without occasion. He had, in truth, a way of swearing that was all his own, a redundancy of idiom and a stentorian lung power such as were possessed by no other man in Fécamp. The moment that his boat was sighted off the entrance of the harbor, returning from the fishing-ground, folks waited to hear the first volley that he would let fly from his deck upon the wharf so soon as he should catch the first glimpse of his helpmate's white cap.
On days when there was a heavy sea on he would be standing at the stern managing his vessel, one eye on the bow and one on the canvas, and notwithstanding the care that was necessitated by the narrow and difficult passage, notwithstanding the great waves that came rolling into the contracted channel, mountain-high, he would manage to keep an eye on the women who stood there, drenched by the spray of the breaking waves, waiting for their sailor lads, so that he might recognize his own wife, old Auban's daughter, the good-for-nothing huzzy!
Then, as soon as he set eyes on her, unmindful of the roaring of the wind and waves, he would salute her with a deafening bellow of abuse, which detonated from his gullet with such explosive violence that every one laughed, though they all felt much compassion for
