e out and spoke to me, but I could not understand a
word she said, and then an old gentleman made his appearance, with white
hair, with a long red waistcoat and greatcoat, but he could not help on
the conversation. At last they went to the back of the house, and
called "Janette! Janette!" and a young girl, with her petticoats tucked
up, came tripping in, as if she had just been milking the cows, and she
asked me, in broken English, what I wanted; and when I replied that I
knew Jacob La Motte, and was a shipmate of his, they seemed very much
interested, and not a little agitated. When I saw this, I thought the
sooner I told them that he was all right and well the better, and then,
to their astonishment, I ran out of the house and called him, and he
soon had both them and several other young boys and girls all hanging
round his neck, and kissing him and asking him all sorts of questions.
I envied him--I could not help it. I had no father or mother, or
brothers or sisters, to care for me, so even at that moment I felt very
desolate and forlorn. However, they soon recollected me, and then they
all did their best to make me happy and comfortable.

The days passed very quickly away. I never had been so happy and merry
in my life. Though the old people could not speak English, they
understood it a little, and I soon picked up French enough to make out
what I wanted to say; and then all the younger people could talk
English, though among themselves they always spoke French. As we lived
on so quietly and peaceably in that pretty farm-house, no one would have
supposed that all the horrors of war were being enacted in the
surrounding seas. It might have been supposed that neither of us would
ever have wished to leave those quiet scenes, but after a time La Motte
began to grow fidgety, and said he must think of getting employment. At
last away he went to Peter-le-port, the only town in the island. He was
away three or four days, and when he came back he told me that he had
taken service on board a privateer, one of the fastest craft out of the
island. "She is called the _Hirondelle_," he said. "You never set eyes
on a more beautiful craft. She is lugger-rigged, mounts sixteen guns,
and will carry a hundred and twenty hands, all told, fore and aft.
There is nothing will look up to her. I could not resist the temptation
of joining her. Her crew will have six months' protection from the
pressgang. That alone is worth s