truth about him--I found them woundily out of condition, and
restored them, as Mr. Grylls would put it, to their native element."

"You don't tell me that the Vicar is here, too?" I asked, prepared at
this time to be surprised at nothing.

"He is not, lad, though I pleaded with him very earnestly to come,
being, as you may guess, put to my wits' end by your father's
message."

"But how, then, have you managed?"

"Pretty well, Prosper--pretty well. But come and see for yourself.
The _Gauntlet_ lies at her old anchorage--or so Captain Pomery tells
me--and 'tis but a step down the creek to where my boat is waiting."

We walked down beside the stream, my uncle, as we went, asking a
score of questions about our adventures and about my father and his
plans--questions which I was in no state of mind to answer
coherently. But this mattered the less since he had no leisure to
listen to my answers.

I felt, as I said just now, ready to be surprised at nothing.
But in this I was mistaken, as I found when we rounded the corner by
the creek's head, and my eyes fell on a boat waiting, a stone's throw
from the landing-place, and on the crew that manned her.

"Good Lord!" I cried, and stood at a halt.

They were seven--six rowers and a coxswain--and all robed in russet
gowns that reached to their ankles. The Trappist monks!

CHAPTER XXI.

OF MY FATHER'S ANABASIS; AND THE DIFFERENT TEMPERS OF AN ENGLISH
GENTLEMAN AND A WILD SHEEP OF CORSICA.

"Bright thoughts, clear deeds, constancy, fidelity, bounty, and
generous honesty are the gems of noble minds; wherein
(to derogate from none) the true heroick English Gentleman hath
no peer."--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.

"La domesticite n'a eu aucune influence sur le developpement
intellectuel des _mouflons_ que nous avons possedes. . . .
Les hommes ne les effrayaient plus; il semblait meme que ces
animaux eussent acquis plus de confiance dans leur force en
apprenant a nous connaitre. Sans doute on ne peut point
conclure de quelques individus a l'espece entiere; mais on peut
assurer sans rien hasarder, que le _mouflon_ tient une des
dernieres places parmis les mammiferes quant a
l'intelligence.--"
SAINT-HILIAR ET CUVIER, _Histoire Naturelle des Mammiferes_.

"You will find them very good fighters," said my uncle. "The most of
them, as I understand from Dom Basilio, were soldiers at one time or
another before