tening
to all that he had to tell us. I will not tell you all this; but even
now, after so long an interval, I can trace how, week by week and month
by month, by this word and that deed, he moulded us all as he wished.

One of his first acts was to give my father the boat in which he had
come, reserving only the right to have it back in case he should have
need of it. The herring were down on the coast that autumn, and my
uncle before he died had given us a fine set of nets, so the gift was
worth many a pound to us. Sometimes de Lapp would go out in the boat
alone, and I have seen him for a whole summer day rowing slowly along
and stopping every half-dozen strokes to throw over a stone at the end
of a string. I could not think what he was doing until he told me of
his own freewill.

"I am fond of studying all that has to do with the military," said he,
"and I never lose a chance. I was wondering if it would be a difficult
matter for the commander of an army corps to throw his men ashore here."

"If the wind were not from the east," said I.

"Ah! quite so, if the wind were not from the east. Have you taken
soundings here?"

"No."

"Your line of battleships would have to lie outside; but there is water
enough for a forty-gun frigate right up within musket range. Cram your
boats with tirailleurs, deploy them behind these sandhills, then back
with the launches for more, and a stream of grape over their heads from
the frigates. It could be done! it could be done!"

His moustaches bristled out more like a cat's than ever, and I could see
by the flash of his eyes that he was carried away by his dream.

"You forget that our soldiers would be upon the beach," said I
indignantly.

"Ta, ta, ta!" he cried. "Of course it takes two sides to make a battle.
Let us see now; let us work it out. What could you get together?
Shall we say twenty, thirty thousand. A few regiments of good troops:
the rest, _pouf!_--conscripts, bourgeois with arms. How do you call
them--volunteers?"

"Brave men!" I shouted.

"Oh yes, very brave men, but imbecile. Ah, _mon Dieu_, it is incredible
how imbecile they would be! Not they alone, I mean, but all young
troops. They are so afraid of being afraid that they would take no
precaution. Ah, I have seen it! In Spain I have seen a battalion of
conscripts attack a battery of ten pieces. Up they went, ah, so
gallantly! and presently the hillside looked, from where I stood, like--