As I have already mentioned, some of the prisoners were sent to Haverfordwest Gaol—which, being situated in the old castle, was a commodious and roomy resort; others were placed, temporarily, in the churches of St. Mary, St. Thomas, and St. Martin: others again were sent to Carmarthen, under the escort of the Romney Fencible Cavalry, the officers being conveyed on horseback and allowed their parole; but the greater part of the French force finally found themselves confined in the Golden Prison at Pembroke. They were taken there and also to Milford by water; and not a few died on board the vessels, being closely shut up under deck. Finally, five hundred of them were safely landed and incarcerated in the Golden Prison, the state of which, with all this overcrowding, could hardly have been so delightful as its name might lead the imaginative to suppose.

Here we will leave them for awhile, returning once more to myself and my own belongings. My kind mother would not let me return at once to my master at St. David’s, she looked upon me as “her miraculously preserved boy,” and must keep me for a bit to gloat her eyes upon. My father, being a man who loved a quiet life, consented. And so I was still in Fishguard when the Royal Proclamation came down, which commanded us to set aside a day of general thanksgiving for our preservation from the dangers which threatened our beloved country. This command reached us about a fortnight after the danger had passed, posts being rather slow in those days. Indeed, had we had to wait so long for more substantial help, we had been in parlous straights long since. However, “All’s well that ends well”—and we had fared through, by the aid of Providence, our own exertions, and the brandy-laden wrecks.

So we all repaired to our several parish churches; my mother hanging proudly on my arm, and regarding me as one to be specially thanked for. Indeed, I was not ill-pleased myself to perceive some nods of heads and pointings of fingers among the old crones and young maids as we passed along. This feeling seemed also to actuate Davy Jones, who limped along arm in arm with Nancy; she, even then not assuming the dependent position, but giving him her arm, as it were, in order to help him along. She even explained to us that, it being her “Sunday out” she had come all the way from Trehowel for this purpose. I may own that I distrusted that limp of Davy’s; it struck me he liked to play the maimed hero.

“Why, Davy,” I remarked, very audibly. “I saw you at market on Friday, and you weren’t limping a bit. Do you want to have the old women to look at you or Nancy—.”

“To arm me?” said Davy, with a wink. “That’s it, my boy. What’s the old women to me? But Nancy—.”

Here Nancy stopped the dialogue by dragging her admirer forward in a most hasty manner, with but slight regard for his wounded limb. The service proceeded as usual. The hymns occasionally tailed off into one voice which quivered and sank, dying out into silence; for as it was well known that the parson’s daughter received a shilling from her sire for pitching up the tune again every time it died a natural death, no one liked to be so crooked as not to assist nature when the melody became weak and low. Then the clear young voice came forth and we started afresh. I need hardly say there was no instrumental music.

We proceeded, then, in spite of the special occasion in much our usual manner, leaving most of the thanksgiving to parson and clerk, and lolling about at our ease thinking of nothing, when attention! we heard galloping hoofs along the street, which ran outside the church. At the gate, the horse was suddenly reined up on his haunches—a man flung himself off heavily, and quick feet came tearing up the path to the porch. In an instant every man, woman, and child in the church stood upright, ready for fight or flight.

The door burst open, and the express messenger rushed in, booted, spurred, and breathless.

“The French! the French!” was all that he could gasp. He was surrounded in an instant by eager questioners, his voice was drowned in a very Babel of noise.

Our worthy divine then assumed command of his congregation. He despatched the clerk to the vestry for a drop of brandy, and then standing square and upright in the pulpit he commanded the people to be quiet, and to allow the man to come unhindered into the pulpit, from where he would himself announce the news. These orders were obeyed, and John Jones having returned with the spirit, the parson administered it, and then desired the man to deliver his message.

It was briefly this; sundry large ships of war, filled with French troops, were making their way up St. George’s Channel straight for the port of Fishguard.In an instant the cry rang through the church—“To arms! to arms!”

Then what a scene of confusion arose, fury, dismay, oaths and shrieks all mingled together, some women fainting, some in tears, the men roused and excited to the uttermost.

“Don’t go, don’t go, my son,” sobbed my mother; but curiosity overcame prudence.

“I’m not going to fight, mother, never fear, but I must go and look on,” was my answer.

“Oh Dio, not again, not again!” urged Nancy, thinking of the single combats.

“I’m not going to walk across the sea to tackle a frigate, I promise you,” said Davy, with a laugh. But Nancy was not to be put off so.

“All right, come. I’m coming too,” she said, and in another instant they were without the church door, where, indeed, we all found ourselves shortly. We tore down to the cliffs as the possessed swine might have raced; many of us ran to man the fort, but I remained on the higher ground where I could have a better view and see further out to sea.

And soon there was indeed a fair sight to see. Coming round the headland to the west of us, their sails filled with the brisk March breeze, appeared a stately squadron moving proudly under British colours; but having seen something like this before, some of us still doubted. The fort saluted, and this compliment was returned by the men-of-war without any changing of colours. We began to feel reassured, and soon our hopes were verified. A boat put off from the nearest ship and was rowed to shore in a style that swore to “British tar.” The officer landed and explained that the squadron was part of the Channel Fleet, sent to our assistance, and that it was under the command of the brave Sir Edward Pellew. We were very proud of the help rendered us by England, even though it had come a little late, but that was the fault of our roads not their goodwill; and though it had occasioned a worse scare than the real thing, but that was only our disordered nerves which acted up to the old proverb—“A burnt child dreads fire.”

The officer inquired very particularly as to the probable whereabouts of the French ships—the three frigates and the lugger. About this we could give him no information whatever. All we could say was, that the French left their anchorage at Carreg Gwastad on Thursday, the 23rd of February, at noon, and took a course directly across the channel towards the coast of Ireland. Our little sloops did not care to venture too near since one of them, the Britannia, had been taken by the enemy, the cargo appropriated, and the sloop scuttled and sunk. They were, on the whole, persons to whom it was pleasanter to give a wide berth.

We heard afterwards that one of the ships struck on the Arklow Banks, she was much injured and lost her rudder; one of her companions took her in tow and made for France. They got as far as just off Brest, and then, in sight of home, cruel fate overtook them in the shape of two English ships, respectively under the commands of Sir H. B. Neale and of Captain Cooke. These two made short work of the Frenchmen, both ships were taken and brought over to Portsmouth, where they were repaired, commissioned in the British service, and sent to fight our battles, one of them—oh glory for our little town—bearing henceforth the name of “The Fishguard.”

The remaining frigate, accompanied by the lugger, got safely into Brest, where no doubt they were exceedingly relieved to find themselves after their disastrous expedition.

The scare that our squadron had caused extended from St. David’s to Fishguard, all along the coast, in fact, from which the big vessels could be seen approaching the land. There were one or two other scares besides this, for our nerves had been shaken, and our imaginations set going; and truly for many a long year after the little phrase “Look out for the French!” was enough to set women and children off at speed, and perhaps even to give an uncomfortable qualm in the hearts of the nobler sex.

CHAPTER XII.
INSIDE THE GOLDEN PRISON.

I went at Easter to pay a short visit to two maiden aunts who lived at Pembroke, where they kept a little millinery—shop I had almost said, but that would have vexed their gentle hearts—establishment. They were sisters of my mother, who came from this district, often called “Little England beyond Wales,” the people who live there being in fact Flemings, not Cymri, and the language they speak, being a Saxon dialect, is worth studying, not from its beauty, but from its quaintness and originality. Welsh is utterly unknown “down below,” as the North Pembrokeshire folks call the southern half of the county. My mother had great difficulty in acquiring even a superficial knowledge of Welsh, and she was always regarded as a stranger in Fishguard, though she lived there nigh upon fifty years. It was probably my early acquaintance with English (of a sort) that made my father decide to bring me up for the ministry.

However, to resume my story—which was strangely mixed up with that of the French prisoners—one of my chief pastimes during my visit to the worthy spinsters consisted in hanging about the entrance to the Golden Prison. The foreigners were allowed to employ their clever fingers in the manufacture of knick-knacks, made of straw, bones, beads, and other trifles, which they sold in order to provide themselves with anything they might require beyond the bare necessaries of life. My good aunts, Rebecca and Jane Johnson, permitted these articles to be exhibited on a little table in their show-room, where ladies while idling away their time in choosing and trying on finery, might perchance take a fancy to some little object, and bestow some of their spare cash in helping the poor prisoners. What made my aunts first think of doing this kindly act was the representations of their assistant, a pretty young girl named Eleanor Martin, a daughter of the gaoler of the Golden Prison, who had had such a sudden accession to his numbers and his responsibilities.

One day Nellie had occasion to go to the prison with the money produced by these trifles, and she asked me if I would like to accompany her and see the Frenchmen at work. My answer may be readily imagined. So we set forth, and the first person whom we saw when we reached the limbo of incarcerated bodies, if not of despairing souls, was not by any means a repulsive object, being a remarkably pretty young woman, as like Nellie as two peas are like each other.

“Is’t thee, Fan?” asked Nellie. “Where be feyther?” Then, remembering her manners, she added, “My sister Frances, Master Dan’l.”

Frances and I were speedily friends, in fact, the young woman saw too many strangers to be troubled by shyness.

“Feyther’s main busy, and mustn’t be spoke to,” she observed, with rather a knowing look at her sister. “But the turnkey’ll let us in. It’s a mort easier to get in nor to get out of this old coop, Mas’r Dan’l.”

I quite assented to this proposition, but remarked that I hoped the turnkey would not make any mistake about us.

“No fear,” said Frances, “I was born here and knows the ways on it.”“What’s that straw for, Frances?” I asked, for I loved to acquire information.

“For the Frenchers to make hats of. I brings them this much most days,” she answered, looking down on her big bundle.

I must really have been growing up lately, for (for the first time in my life) an instinct of gallantry seized me, and I offered to carry it for her. She declined in rather a hurried manner.

“I’d liefer car’ it myself, thanking you the same. It’s no heft at all, and maybe ye’d shed it about.”

“Not I,” said I, indignantly, my gallantry gone. “Do you think I’ve never carried a truss of straw before? That’s just like a girl. But what’s that in the middle of the bundle?” I continued, eyeing it curiously. “Why, it’s a bone, I believe!”

Frances threw the corner of her apron over the bundle in a very pettish manner, and to my great surprise grew as red as a poppy. What was there to blush about in a bone? Nell struck in hurriedly—

“Yes, of course it’s a bone, Dan. And what could they make their buttons and ivory boxes out of but bone?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said, not liking to suggest “ivory” for fear, as tempers were ruffled, they might leave me outside.

“Then don’t go for to ax silly questions,” retorted Nell. “Can us go in, Roche?”

“Ay, my honies,” returned Roche, the turnkey, whom we had now reached. “Leastwise you and Fan can, in the coorse of natur; but who be this young crut?” [209]

“Oh, missus’ nevvy he be, as wants to see the Frenchers at work. ’Tis only a young boy, but we’d just as lief let him stay if you’d liefer not let him in.”

I did not feel grateful to my young friend for this suggestion, which, however, was probably dictated by the wiliness of woman.

“Oh, take him in there, and leave him if you’ve a mind, my beauty. I reckon one more won’t make no odds in there.”

This he seemed to consider a first-class joke, for he guffawed till we were out of hearing.

After passing through a guard-room, in which there were several soldiers smoking and lounging about, who offered no opposition to our passing, Fan and Nell being of course well known in the prison, we found ourselves in a large and very dreary hall, paved with flag-stones and almost devoid of furniture. The inmates, however, seemed pretty cheery on the whole; there were apparently about a couple of hundred of them, of whom some were working, some singing, some playing cards or dominoes—all talking. Yes, even the singing ones talked between the verses. The spring sunshine came through the iron-barred, skied-up windows, and, in spite of other discouraging circumstances, these children of the South were (what we never are) gay as larks.

They clustered around my companions with every mark of respect and admiration. I naturally didn’t understand their jabber, but one remark which was, I rather think, meant for English, caught my ear. “Zay are—some angels out of—ciel!”

“They say you’re angels out of the ceiling. What on earth do they mean?” I inquired.

“We knows what they mean well enough, don’t you trouble, my honey,” answered Nell, who was more friendly to me than her sister was.

I don’t think Fan had got over her annoyance about the bone; she still carried the bundle of straw with her apron thrown over it.We now went to the part of the room where the men were busy with their manufactures, and here I had really cause for astonishment. With no tools except some wretched little penknives, these skilful-fingered fellows were turning out most lovely work in bone, wood, and slate. Some of them executed beautiful mosaic work by letting-in pieces of various coloured stones on a bed of slate; they afterwards ground and polished the whole till it resembled the far-famed Florentine mosaic. I perceived a grindstone in the corner of the room, which the leniency of the authorities permitted them to have and to use.

Others of the prisoners were deftly plaiting the straw in many fanciful devices, these plaits again being rapidly transformed into hats for men, women, and even dolls. A great many toys were to be seen in various stages of their formation, wooden whistles, ships, dolls, windmills, and many other objects of delight to childhood.

I scanned eagerly the faces of all I saw to discover the countenances of any of my more particular assailants; but I did not succeed in recognising one of them. There was such a remarkable similarity among them, each man was as like his neighbour as could be; all haggard, all unwashed, all unshaven. They excited pity, even in a boy’s unsentimental heart; and withal, now that they were not drunk with greed and brandy, they were so lively and merry. I was quite sorry I could not understand their jokes.

Fan did not make over her straw to any of these men, as I fully expected that she would; nor did they seem to expect it. I heard a great deal of talk about Monsieur le Commissaire, and there was a good deal of pointing of fingers and something about “chambre voisine.”As Fanny sheered off I followed.

“Can’t I come into the voisin chamber?” I asked, not knowing the meaning of the word, “and see Mounseer the Commissary?”

Fan looked at me in a startled way, but Nell interposed hastily—

“Let him come, he’s main quick and might help; he’s not a cursed boy.”

I must explain that in this dialect cursed means malicious or ill-natured; it has the meaning, in fact, which Shakespeare followed when he spoke of “Kate the curst” in his “Taming of the Shrew.”

Frances looked doubtful, but went on, Nellie and I following. As we entered the little adjoining room a young man jumped up, and, running to Nellie, took her hand and kissed it with much fervour.

“Hallo!” I cried, “what d’you let that common fellow kiss your hand for?”

“He isn’t a common fellow—he’s an engineer!” cried Nell, angrily, “and you’re nothing but a dull young boy not to know a gentleman when you sees one!

“Beg pardon, mounseer,” said I, for Frenchy was bowing to me, and I wished to show we Welsh knew manners. But though he might be a gentleman, I still hold to it, he was grimy.

“I’ve brought you the money for the things sold in missus’ shop,” continued Nell; then turning to me, “This gentleman, as is an engineer, is main clever, and manages all the accounts.”

The engineer seemed to me to have been clever enough to have managed more than accounts; however for once discretion prevailed and I held my tongue. Then Nellie and this mounseer fell to their accounts, and seemed to have a great deal to say to each other in a mixture of French and English, which, not understanding very well, I found stupid, and turned to look for Fanny and her friend, another grimy individual, who proved to be the commissary himself.

They also seemed much taken up with each other, and were conversing in the same lingo. I noticed that Fan had made over her bundle of straw to this man, and she seemed very busy talking over some arrangements. I approached, being willing to know what it was all about.

“Who ze plague is zis garÇon?” asked the commissary.

“Oh, a young boy from down town—veal, savez-vous? Nong mauvais—a smart young chap obligant. Can portey kelke chose, vous savez.”

“Bon!” said the Frenchman, letting the word fly out like a shot, “we af some drifles to make car out of zis.”

I perceived at once that he had acquired his knowledge of English from Frances, as “car” for “carry” is pure Pembrokeshire.“I shall be very glad to be of use,” I remarked. “What sort of things, Frances—gimcracks, I suppose?”

“Vat says he, lÀ?” inquired the commissary.

“Yes, gimcracks of a sort—rather heavy, though, we find them,” said Fan, not stopping to translate. “If you’ll lend a hand, we’d get along better.”

“All right,” said I.

“Zey is kep’ in ze bockat,” remarked Mounseer, luckily indicating some pails in the corner by a gesture of his hand.

“Adoo, Pierre, I think we’d better alley,” remarked Fan. This, I must say, was the sort of French I liked.

“To nex’ time, my cabbage!” said Pierre.

Then while they were busy over the buckets I turned suddenly and beheld the engineer bestowing on Nellie an unmistakable kiss.“Hallo!” I said.

“It’s only their foreign ways; like as if we was to shake hands,” cried Nellie, running forward and looking very rosy. “Come, catch a hoult on these pails, Dan’l; they’re main weighty for we maids.”

I did catch hold of a couple of pails, one in each hand, and found that the last part of Nell’s remark was true.

“Just feel the heft of un!” remarked Fanny.

I did feel it a good deal before I had done with it. Nellie also carried a pail, and Frances a large bundle, done up in some old sacking.

“What’s all that?” I inquired, as we made our way out of the prison.

“Dirty clothes,” said Frances, sharply. “They must have some clean linen, I suppose, though they are Frenchmen!”

It seemed to me that they managed to exist without it, but as the point was not material, and Frances appeared touchy, I held my tongue.

“This young boy has giv’ a hand with the sweepings, Roche,” said Frances, as we passed that functionary.

“Ay? Well, you and Nell be pretty well weighted too, surely,” drawled Roche.

“Oh, gimcracks, and clothes for the wash-’us (house),” answered the girl lightly, and in another moment we were in freedom—in the open air.

“Oh, poor chaps; how good it is!” said Nellie, drawing a long breath.

We went round to a piece of untidy waste land behind the prison.

“I’ll be bound your arms aches,” said Frances. “Drop the buckats, Dan’l, and thank ye.”

“Here!” said I, “drop your gimcracks on this dirty place—what for?”“Oh, never mind what for; don’t argufy, my boy, them’s prison sweepings; the gimcracks is in Nellie’s pail.”

“Oh, I thought these were mighty heavy gimcracks. Well, let me carry Nell’s pail to the shop.”

“No, no!” cried Nell, stepping back, “I’d liefer car my own, don’t you trouble.”

“Then I’ll take your dirty linen,” said I, making a sudden grab at Frances’ bundle.

To my great surprise some bits of stone and a cloud of mortar flew out.

“Hallo!” I said.

“Look here, Dan’l,” said Fan, firmly, “we are greatly beholden for your help, but we don’t want no more at present. You go on with Dan’l, Nell, and leave me here to empt the buckats.”

Nell put down her pail, took my arm, and marched me off. I was inclined to be offended, but she soothed me down as any woman can when she chooses. She assured me that both the engineer (whom she called Jack—probably Jacques was his name) and the commissary had taken a great fancy to me, and would undertake to teach me French if I would only go often enough.

I had not the least objection to going, as I found prison experiences amusing, but I could not quite understand the bucket-carrying part of it.

However, neither flattery nor a curiosity stimulus were unpleasing to me, so I went frequently.

CHAPTER XIII.
AWAY! AWAY!

A couple of weeks passed away thus, when one morning we were awakened early by a clamour in the street. All Pembroke was in an uproar. All that I could distinguish of the cries was one exclamation, “The French!”

Had they broken out, and were they going to sack the place? The panic reminded me of our feelings at Fishguard in the spring, but seemed more strange to me now, for in the interim I had become comparatively intimate with the foreigners, and had lost my fear of them. I jumped out of bed, dragged on a garment or two, and flung open my little lattice window.

“Where are the French?” I yelled.

“Away, away!” came the answer. “Clean gone.”

The idea occurred to me that if they had gone away clean they must have been in a very different state to their usual condition; however, my reflections were disturbed by the sudden appearance of my Aunt Jane; she burst in head foremost.

“Where’s Eleanor?” she gasped.

“Where are the French?” I answered lightly, “Away, away!”

“Are ye cursËd, boy, or only dull?” [223] queried my angry relative. “What d’ye mean?”

“Nothing,” I answered; “only I know no more about Nell than I do about the French. Isn’t she in the shop?”“In the shop! My patience—she isn’t in the house, nor hasn’t been for hours. Her bed is cold; I doubt she never got into un, only topsy-turvied un a bit.”

“Nellie really gone!” I was beginning to grasp the situation. “Oh, Aunt Jane; she must have gone with Jack.”

“Who’s Jack, name o’ fortune? I heard tell of a Billy and a Tommy, but norra Jack.”

“Oh, this wasn’t a Pembroke Jack, but Mounseer Jacques Roux, Esq., an engineer.”

“A Mounseer!” Words failed my venerable relative; she sat down and went off into hysterics, which brought Aunt Rebecca to the rescue, and in the confusion I sidled down the stairs and escaped.

I made my way through the crowd to the Golden Prison, and here a light dawned, and many things became clear to me. A crowd of people were standing at what appeared to me to be a hole in the ground, about sixty yards from the wall of the prison. I edged myself through the lookers-on till I had reached the hole; it was one end of a subterranean passage, the other end of which doubtless emerged—but a sick qualm came over me, and to make matters worse at this moment I espied—and was seen by—Roche the turnkey. He was looking very small, but assumed an air of bluster when he perceived me.

“Arrest that young chap there,” he ordered his assistants. “He was a helping o’ they sneaking scoundrels; I see un.”

In another moment the two men had me in tow, and being also propelled by the crowd in a few minutes, I found myself inside the Golden Prison. I did not find the place at all entertaining this time. However, there were some magistrates there, and one of them, a Dr. Mansell, ordered the men to loose their hold while he questioned me.I told all I knew, and at the end was relieved, but mortified to hear him say, “There is no occasion to detain him, the boy evidently knew nothing about it. He was a young ass, but he is not the first of us who has been befooled by a woman.”

At this there was a general guffaw in which I tried to join, but I felt as small as Roche the turnkey. It appeared that all those pails and bundles had been full of earth, stones, and mortar, which the men had scraped out in making the tunnel. I went into the little inner room, and there in the floor, just behind where Pierre Lebrun used to sit, surrounded with bundles of straw, blocks of wood, etc., was the other end of the subterranean passage. They had absolutely scratched through the thick wall of the prison, and then grubbed like moles through sixty yards of earth, with no other implement than the bones of horses’ legs.I did not care for the remarks of the bystanders, and I got out of that gaol as quickly as I could, but not before Dr. Mansell had asked me another question or two.

“I hear Frances Martin has absconded,” he said. “Can you tell me anything about Eleanor? She lives with your aunts, I think.”

“She is not to be found, sir,” I answered. “She is off with Jack, no doubt.”

“Jack?”

“Mounseer Jacques Roux, the engineer.”

“Ah, the fellow who managed the tunnelling. Why do you pitch upon him?”

“I didn’t—she did, because he used to kiss her.”

“Kiss! By George, didn’t that rouse your suspicions?” cried the doctor.

“No, sir, they said it was the French way of shaking hands.”

“Go along, softy!” cried the crowd, and I went. But as I went I heard the stentorian voice of Dr. Mansell proclaim—

“Five hundred guineas reward for the recovery of those two young women, dead or alive!”

In a few hours handbills to this effect were posted all over the place, and, as soon as practicable, in every town in the kingdom; by which the names of Frances Martin and Eleanor Martin must have become well known. Whenever I saw one of these placards it seemed to me as if I had had something to do with a great crime, and that part of the five hundred guineas would perhaps be given for my body some day—dead or alive.

I walked down to the shore to a little port on the outside of the town, the very place to which I had been on the previous Sunday with Nell. I remembered, with another qualm, the interest which she had taken in the shipping, and how she had even begged me to ask some questions of the sailors, who, as usual, lounged about where they could smell tar. She said it was awkward for a girl to talk to these rough fellows, but that it was a pleasant variety for a young man. So, of course, I asked all the questions she desired about incoming sloops. I, thinking these questions referred to some sailor sweetheart, took no account of the matter at all. As we looked and talked we perceived a sloop in the offing coming in. The men said she would be in shortly, and that she was bringing culm for the use of Lord Cawdor’s household.

Nellie seemed very pleased and happy as she watched the sloop coming rapidly nearer, a brisk breeze from the south filling her sails and urging her onwards. The only boat actually in the harbour was Lord Cawdor’s yacht.His lordship’s yacht was now nowhere to be seen; the sloop was still there, for owing to the breeze and the sailors’ hurry to get ashore on Sunday, they had run her aground, and there she was hard and fast, but not in the same state as on Sunday. A hundred Frenchmen had made their escape, creeping through their tunnel and jumping out at the other end like so many jack-in-the-boxes. Some of the fugitives made at once for the yacht, some for the sloop, which, to their great disappointment, they found aground. They boarded it, lashed the sailors’ hands and feet (these men now recounted the story, each man to a listening crowd, which we must hope was a slight solace for their sufferings)—they took compass, water casks, and every scrap of food and clothing they could find; then conveyed them aboard the yacht which they launched, and off they were. The tied-up sailors had seen nothing of any women, but between darkness and surprise it was a wonder they had noted as much as they had.

This was all that we could gather at the time; it was only enough to make us very uncomfortable about the fate of the two rash girls. My position was not made more comfortable by the constant reproaches of my two old aunts, who seemed to think me in some way responsible for Nell’s escapade. Altogether I was not sorry that it was decided to send me back at once to St. David’s; school was better than scorn. But the very night before I left Pembroke, my uncomfortable feelings were doomed to be deepened. The stern of the yacht was washed ashore with other timbers, on one of which his lordship’s name was inscribed. There could be little doubt of the fate of those on board. The weather had been rough and foggy, and these French soldiers were probably little skilled in navigation. So I departed to St. David’s with a heavy heart.

Some weeks passed in the usual course of classics and mathematics rammed in by main force, when one day there came a letter to me in Aunt Jane’s handwriting. I was surprised, for my aunts were not given to composition; but on opening the envelope I found Aunt Jane had written—nothing. She had merely enclosed, oh, greater surprise, a foreign letter. I had never had, and never expected to have, a foreign correspondent. What language would he write in—a quick hope flashed through me that it might not be Latin, any other I would give up quietly.

I opened the letter and perceived it was in English. It ran as follows:—

“Dear Mastr Danl,—I hope as this finds you well as it leaves me at present. You was main good to we, so I pens this line to say as I am no longer Eleanor Martin but Madam Roux. [Oh joy! I didn’t care what her name was as long as she wasn’t drowned.] Yes, me and Jack have married, only he likes it writ Jacques which is a mort of trouble. Howsomever we gets along lovely so likewise do Frances and her young man Peter which were a commisser and she is now Madam Lebrun. We did a main lot for they lads—which they was grateful. Praps you’d like to hear that after we got safe away in his ludship’s yat, after you’d kindly helpd we to burrow out o jail, we come in for three days fog. Short commons there was till we overtook a brig, gave out as we was shiprackt and was took aboord, Fan and me dressed as lads. That night we was too many for the crew of the brig, as nocked under and us made them steer for France, so here we be. The brig had corn aboord, so we wasnt clemmed. We let the yat go. Hoping to see you soon, I remains,

“Your humbel servant to command,
“Nellie.”

Her ending wish was granted some years after, when peace was settled between England and France. Nellie and her husband, the engineer, came back to Wales and settled for a time in Merthyr, where they opened a large inn, he following his profession in the mines, both he and his wife roasting me unmercifully when I went to stay with them (a full-fledged curate), on the assistance I had once rendered to the French prisoners in a mining operation; but I hope all will understand that this assistance was unintentional on my part, and that I greatly condemn the unpatriotic conduct of the sisters.

The Gresham Press.

UNWIN BROTHERS,
CHILWORTH AND LONDON.