“Pauvre enfant! c’est dommage.”
The cabaret was full of conscripts and other people, so that the hostess had enough to do. At night we were shown by her into a small bedroom, adjoining the room we occupied. “You are quite alone here: the conscripts are to muster to-morrow, I find, in the Place d’Armes, at two o’clock: do you intend to go?”
“No,” replied O’Brien; “they will think that I am behind. It is of no consequence.”
“Well,” replied the woman, “do as you please, you may trust me; but I am so busy, without anyone to assist me, that until they leave the town, I can hardly find time to speak to you.”
“That will be soon enough, my good hostess,” replied O’Brien: “au revoir.”
The next evening, the woman came in, in some alarm, stating that a conscript had arrived whose name had been given in before, and that the person who had given it in had not mustered at the place. That the conscript had declared that his pass had been stolen from him by a person with whom he had stopped at St. Nicholas, and that there were orders for a strict search to be made through the town, as it was known that some English officers had escaped, and it was supposed that one of them had obtained the pass. “Surely you’re not English?” inquired the woman, looking earnestly at O’Brien.
“Indeed, but I am, my dear,” replied O’Brien; “and so is this lad with me; and the favour which your sister requires is that you help us over the water, for which service there are one hundred louis ready to be paid upon delivery of us.”
“Oh, mon Dieu! mais c’est impossible.”
“Impossible!” replied O’Brien; “was that the answer I gave your sister in her trouble?”
“Au moins c’est difficile.”