“Ah! very good; heave ahead, my lads,” said the captain to the men, who stood leaning against the cart, smoking their pipes and listening.
Julian pursued his course. “So,” thought he, soliloquising, “the Vengeance has met with some accident since her attempted capture. If Captain O’Loughlin knew she was repairing within this creek, he would assuredly land and burn her.”
He walked on, passing several persons, who paid no attention to him further than the usual “bon jour,” and entered the village, memory returning at the sight of some familiar object, and proceeding direct towards Dame Moret’s farm-house. Three or four women were busily occupied in various ways in the large yard before the dwelling-house; groups of turkeys, with “Maitre Jacques” at their head, were gabbling incessantly, answered in anything but harmonious tones by a flock of geese, whilst whole flocks of pigeons kept flitting about.
“Can I see Dame Moret?” asked Julian Arden to pretty Rose Moret, who just then came out of the house with a pail in her hand.
Rose looked up at the speaker, though she could scarcely have remembered the curly-haired and handsome boy of twelve years old, for she was then only eight years old herself; but she looked with something of surprise in her manner into the young man’s bronzed and handsome face, as she replied—
“Oui, monsieur; come in, and you will see my mother.”
“Can this be little Rose Moret?” said Julian, unintentionally half-aloud, as he gazed with earnest and almost watery eyes into the very pretty features of the maiden.
Rose Moret heard the words; she coloured to the temples as she started back; but Julian, with a smile, passed the surprised girl, and entered the lofty and wide kitchen.
Dame Moret turned round, with a large tureen in her hand, and looked up into the stranger’s face. The dame seemed also surprised, but she merely said—
“Well, monsieur, what can I do for you?”