he is not a good fuel maker; but the
young lady's especial talent only inspired disgust in Lethierry.

Besides, he had in his love matters a kind of rough country folks'
philosophy, a sailor-like sort of habit of mind. Always smitten but
never enslaved, he boasted of having been in his youth easily conquered
by a petticoat, or rather a _cotillon_; for what is now-a-days called a
crinoline, was in his time called a _cotillon_; a term which, in his use
of it, signifies both something more and something less than a wife.

These rude seafaring men of the Norman Archipelago, have a certain
amount of shrewdness. Almost all can read and write. On Sundays, little
cabin-boys may be seen in those parts, seated upon a coil of ropes,
reading, with book in hand. From all time these Norman sailors have had
a peculiar satirical vein, and have been famous for clever sayings. It
was one of these men, the bold pilot Queripel, who said to Montgomery,
when he sought refuge in Jersey after the unfortunate accident in
killing Henry II. at a tournament, with a blow of his lance, "_Tete
folle a casse tete vide_." Another one, Touzeau, a sea-captain at St.
Brelade, was the author of that philosophical pun, erroneously
attributed to Camus, "_Apres la mort, les papes deviennent papillons, et
les sires deviennent cirons_."

III

THE OLD SEA LANGUAGE

The mariners of the Channel are the true ancient Gauls. The islands,
which in these days become rapidly more and more English--preserved for
many ages their old French character. The peasant in Sark speaks the
language of Louis XIV. Forty years ago, the old classical nautical
language was to be found in the mouths of the sailors of Jersey and
Aurigny. When amongst them, it was possible to imagine oneself carried
back to the sea life of the seventeenth century. From that speaking
trumpet which terrified Admiral Hidde, a philologist might have learnt
the ancient technicalities of manoeuvring and giving orders at sea, in
the very words which were roared out to his sailors by Jean Bart. The
old French maritime vocabulary is now almost entirely changed, but was
still in use in Jersey in 1820. A ship that was a good plyer was _bon
boulinier_; one that carried a weather-helm in spite of her foresails
and rudder was _un vaisseau ardent_; to get under way was _prendre
aire_; to lie to in a storm, _capeyer_; to make fast running rigging was
_faire dormant_; to get to windward, _faire chapelle_; to