midnight
`` Why , bless ye , lads , when I left she made me this here present of a real gold watch . '' The better to show it them he threw it upon the table like a worthless toy . This was told with coarse words and oratorical flourishes of his own . Yet this commonplace of civilized life jarred sadly among such simple men , with the grand solemnity of the ocean around them ; in the glimmering of midnight , falling from above , was an impression of the fleeting summers of the far north country . These ways of Yann greatly pained and surprised Sylvestre . He was a girlish boy , brought up in respect for holy things , by an old grandmother , the widow of a fisherman in the village of Ploubazlanec . As a tiny child he used to go every day with her to kneel and tell his beads over his mother 's grave .