is great back
against the mast to disentangle it. Oh, what will he do next? He has
knocked down two, in reply to excessive cordiality. What wonderful
creatures Frenchmen are! How kind it is of you to show me this! But
excuse me, Mr. Carne; there will be twenty people coming to the house
before I can get back almost. And the ship will salute the battery,
and the battery will return it. Look! there goes a great puff of smoke
already. They can see me up here, when they get to that corner."

"But this spot is not private? I trust that I have not intruded.
Your father allows a sort of foot-path through this upper end of his
grounds?"

"Yes, to all the villagers, and you are almost one of them; there is
no right of way at all; and they very seldom come this way, because it
leads to nowhere. Faith is fond of sitting here, to watch the sea, and
think of things. And so am I--sometimes, I mean."

CHAPTER XXVI

LONG-PIPE TIMES

Daily now the roar and clank of war grew loud and louder, across the
narrow seas, and up the rivers, and around the quiet homes of England.
If any unusual cloud of dust, any moving shade, appeared afar, if the
tramp of horses in the lane were heard, or neigh of a colt from the
four-cross roads, people at dinner would start up and cry, "The French,
the French have landed!" while the men in the fields would get nearer
the hedge to peep through it, and then run away down the ditch.

But the nation at large, and the governing powers, certainly were not
in any great fright. Nay, rather they erred, if at all, on the side
of tranquillity and self-confidence; as one who has been fired at with
blank-cartridge forgets that the click of the trigger will not tell him
when the bullet has been dropped in. The bullet was there this time; and
it missed the heart of Britannia, only through the failure of the powder
to explode all at once.

It was some years before all this was known; even Nelson had no
perception of it; and although much alarm was indulged in on the sly,
the few who gave voice to it were condemned as faint-hearted fellows
and "alarmists." How then could Springhaven, which never had feared
any enemies, or even neighbours, depart from its habits, while still
an eye-witness of what had befallen the Frenchman? And in this state of
mind, having plenty to talk of, it did not (as otherwise must have been
done) attach any deep importance to the strange vagaries of the London
Trader.

That great Ins