Thus his soldiers saw him, after what he boastingly called his supper—that is to say, after the exercise of mastication reported by us at the commencement of this chapter—like Napoleon on the eve of Austerlitz, seated asleep in his rush chair, half beneath the light of his lamp, half beneath the reflection of the moon, commencing its ascent in the heavens, which denoted that it was nearly half past nine in the evening. All at once Monck was roused from his half sleep, fictitious perhaps, by a troop of soldiers, who came with joyous cries, and kicked the poles of his tent with a humming noise as if on purpose to wake him. There was no need of so much noise; the general opened his eyes quickly.
“Well, my children, what is going on now?” asked the general.
“General!” replied several voices at once, “General! you shall have some supper.”
“I have had my supper, gentlemen,” replied he quietly, “and was comfortably digesting it, as you see. But come in, and tell me what brings you hither.”
“Good news, general.”
“Bah! Has Lambert sent us word that he will fight tomorrow?”
“No; but we have just captured a fishing-boat conveying fish to Newcastle.”
“And you have done very wrong, my friends. These gentlemen from London are delicate, must have their first course; you will put them sadly out of humor this evening, and tomorrow they will be pitiless. It would really be in good taste to send back to Lambert both his fish and his fishermen, unless—” and the general reflected an instant.
“Tell me,” continued he, “what are these fishermen, if you please?”
“Some Picard seamen who were fishing on the coasts of France or Holland, and who have been thrown upon ours by a gale of wind.”
“Do any among them speak our language?”
“The leader spoke some few words of English.”
The mistrust of the general was awakened in proportion as fresh information reached him. “That is well,” said he. “I wish to see these men; bring them to me.”
An officer immediately went to fetch them.
“How many are there of them?” continued Monck; “and what is their vessel?”
“There are ten or twelve of them, general, and they were aboard of a kind of chasse-marée, as it is called—Dutch-built, apparently.”
“And you say they were carrying fish to Lambert’s camp?”
“Yes, general, and they seem to have had good luck in their fishing.”
“Humph! We shall see that,” said Monck.
At this moment the officer returned, bringing the leader of the fishermen with him. He was a man from fifty to fifty-five years old, but good-looking for his age. He was of middle height, and wore a justaucorps of coarse wool, a cap pulled down over his eyes, a cutlass hung from his belt, and he walked with the hesitation peculiar to sailors, who, never knowing, thanks to the movement of the vessel, whether their foot will be placed upon the plank or upon nothing, give to every one of their steps a fall as firm as if they were driving a pile. Monck, with an acute and penetrating look, examined the fisherman for some time, while the latter smiled, with that smile, half cunning, half silly, peculiar to French peasants.
“Do you speak English?” asked Monck, in excellent French.
“Ah! but badly, my lord,” replied the fisherman.
This reply was made much more with the lively and sharp accentuation of the people beyond the Loire, than with the slightly-drawling accent of the countries of the west and north of France.
“But you do speak it?” persisted Monck, in order to examine his accent once more.
“Eh! we men of the sea,” replied the fisherman, “speak a little of all languages.”
“Then you are a sea fisherman?”
“I am at present, my lord—a fisherman, and a famous fisherman, too. I have taken a barbel that weighs at least thirty pounds, and more than fifty mullets; I have also some little whitings that will fry beautifully.”
“You appear to me to have fished more frequently in the Gulf of Gascony than in the Channel,” said Monck, smiling.
“Well, I am from the south; but does that prevent me from being a good fisherman, my lord?”
“Oh! not at all; I shall buy your fish. And now speak frankly; for whom did you destine them?”
“My lord, I will conceal nothing from you. I was going to Newcastle, following the coast, when a party of horsemen who were passing along in an opposite direction made a sign to my bark to turn back to your honor’s camp, under penalty of a discharge of musketry. As I was not armed for fighting,” added the fisherman, smiling, “I was forced to submit.”
“And why did you go to Lambert’s camp in preference to mine?”
“My lord, I will be frank; will your lordship permit me?”
“Yes, and even if need be shall command you to be so.”
“Well, my lord, I was going to M. Lambert’s camp because those gentlemen from the city pay well—whilst your Scotchmen, Puritans, Presbyterians, Covenanters, or whatever you choose to call them, eat but little, and pay for nothing.”
Monck shrugged his shoulders, without, however, being able to refrain from smiling at the same time. “How is it that, being from the south, you come to fish on our coasts?”
“Because I have been fool enough to marry in Picardy.”
“Yes; but even Picardy is not England.”
“My lord, man shoves his boat into the sea, but God and the wind do the rest, and drive the boat where they please.”
“You had, then, no intention of landing on our coasts?”
“Never.”
“And what route were you steering?”
“We were returning from Ostend, where some mackerel had already been seen, when a sharp wind from the south drove us from our course; then, seeing that it was useless to struggle against it, we let it drive us. It then became necessary,
