the citizens _se promenent sur la plage_. But all is not gay in this
world. Last winter a terrible misfortune befell me. I lost my
wife--my adored Philomene. I was desolated, inconsolable. For two
months I could not take up my _cornet-a-piston_. Always when I
blew--pouf!--the tears came also. Ah, what memories! Hippolyte, my--
what you call it--my _beau-frere_, came to me and said, 'Jean
Alphonse, you must forget.' I say, 'Hippolyte, you ask that which is
impossible.' 'I will teach you,' says Hippolyte: 'To-morrow night I
sail for Jersey, and from Jersey I cross to Dartmouth, in England,
and you shall come with me.' Hippolyte made his living by what you
call the Free Trade. This was far down the coast for him, but he
said the business with Rye and Deal was too dangerous for a time.
Next night we sailed. It was his last voyage. With the morning the
wind changed, and we drove into a fog. When we could see again,
_peste!_--there was an English frigate. She sent down her cutter and
took the rest of us; but not Hippolyte--poor Hippolyte was shot in
the spine of his back. Him they cast into the sea, but the rest of
us they take to Plymouth, and then the War Prison on the moor.
This was in May, and there I rest until three days ago. Then I break
out--_je me sauve_. How? It is my affair: for I foresee, Messieurs,
I shall now have to do it over again. I am _sot_. I gain the coast
here at night. I am weary, _je n'en puis plus_. I find this
_cassine_ here: the door is open: I enter _pour faire un petit
somme_. Before day I will creep down to the shore. A comrade in the
prison said to me, 'Go to Looe. I know a good Cornishman there--'"

"And you overslept yourself," Captain Paul briskly interrupted, alert
as ever to protect the credit of his Company. He was aware that
several of the Die-hards, in extra-military hours, took an occasional
trip across to Guernsey: and Guernsey is a good deal more than