He acknowledged this; but after scratching his head for five minutes, and giving sundry tugs at his rather curious-looking breeches, he exclaimed: “I’ve hit it. I’ll go on crutches and follow in your wake; when no one is looking I’ll make play, and I’ll keep up with you, I’ll warrant. If I’m axed who I am, I’ll pretend that I’m a ’Talian, or some other furriner, who can’t speak the French lingo, and just make all sorts of gabblifications. Just you leave it to me, young gentlemen, if you’ll let me come with you.”
Though there was considerable risk in the plan, the midshipmen could think of no other. They agreed to go to the wood-cutter’s hut, and if, after talking the matter over, they could not improve on Reuben’s plan, to start the following evening. Having assisted him to load his cart, they set forward at once. The path led them for most of the way through the forest. It was still broad daylight when they approached the cottage. It stood at the edge of a green, on which a number of villagers were seen collected. They were themselves perceived before they had time to retreat, which it would have been wise for them, they felt, to do.
“Let us put a bold face on the matter and go forward!” exclaimed O’Grady. “Reuben, go on with the cart; we had better have nothing to say to you at present.”
They at once walked on towards the villagers without exhibiting any marks of hesitation. Reuben looked after them with as indifferent an air as he could assume, as he drove his cart up to the woodman’s cottage.
“I see a high road; let us turn towards it, and walk along it as if we were not going to stop at the village,” observed Paul; “we may thus avoid questions, and we may come back to the wood-cutter’s when it is dark; Reuben will prepare him for our appearance.”
O’Grady agreed to this plan, and they were walking along pretty briskly, hoping to pass an auberge, or inn, at the side of the road, when the aubergiste, or inn-keeper, who happened to be in very good humour after his evening potations, caught sight of them, and shouted out, “Come in, come in, mes garçons! there is no other auberge in the place, and you would not pass by the house of François le Gros!” And he patted his well-stuffed-out ribs, for there are fat Frenchmen as well as fat Englishmen.
Thus appealed to, the midshipmen thought it wiser to go up to the man, and Paul told him that as they had very little money, they preferred stopping out at night when the weather was fine.
“That will never do,” cried honest François. “Tell me all about yourselves, and you shall have board and lodging free. Numerous great people stop here, and so does the diligence, and as I am patronised by all around, I can afford at times to help young wayfarers like yourselves.”
Paul, anxious especially to avoid so public a place as an inn, made more excuses. While he was speaking the landlord looked very hard at him. Several other villagers did the same.
“Why, you do not look very like what you say you are!” he exclaimed. “Come nearer, and let me have a better look at you.”