While the boy was musing sadly, the farmer admired the noble face, white and pearly; the fiery eye, fine and ironical mouth, eagle nose and vigorous chin, revealing nobility of race and of spirit.
"You say your father has been put in the Bastile? why?" he inquired.
"Because he is a friend of Washington and Lafayette; has fought with the sword for the Independence of America; and with the pen for France; is known in the Two Worlds as a hater of tyranny: because he has cursed this Bastile where others were suffering—and now he is there himself."
"How long since?"
"He was arrested the moment he landed at Havre; at least at Lillebonne, for he wrote me a letter from the port."
"Don't be cross, my boy: but let me have the points. I swear to deliver your father from the Bastile or leave my bones at the foot of its walls."
Sebastian saw that the former spoke from the bottom of his heart and he replied:
"He had time at Lillebonne to scribble these words in pencil in a book:
"'Sebastian: I am taken to the Bastile. Patience, Hope and Labor. 7th July, 1789. P. S.—I am arrested for Liberty's cause. I have a son at Louis-the-Great College, Paris. The finder of this book is begged to bear this note on to my son Sebastian Gilbert, in the name of humanity.'"
"And the book?" inquired Billet, breathless with emotion.