will cry the whole way now, and, if we meet anyone, betray our secret," grumbled the baron.
"Well, I'd rather it cried than have it suffocated, as it infallibly would have been but for me. Baby, in future years you may thank your uncle Léon for saving your life. Perhaps if I whistle it will stop howling. I'll try," said Léon, whistling, in which art he was a great adept.
But whistling had no effect on the baby, unless it was to make it cry louder, and Léon was in despair, and the baron getting furious, until it suddenly occurred to the former to jump the child up and down, as he had seen Mathilde do. This was successful; as long as Léon danced it about it was quiet; the moment he stopped it began to cry.
"I wish old Pierre joy if he has to spend the next twenty-four hours in this way. Drive on, Arnaut; my arms are aching so I can't keep this game up much longer," said Léon, as they entered the village of Carolles, where, luckily for them, all the inhabitants had already gone to bed, and they met no one till they reached the place where the yacht was lying.
A boat was waiting to take Léon on board with Pierre and the English carpenter, to whom Léon spoke in English, asking him if he were quite sure the baby would be well looked after where he proposed to place it, and on Smith's answering that he was certain it would, Léon turned to the baron, who did not understand a word of English, and told him he need have no anxiety about the child.
"All right; I don't want to know where you are going to take it; make any arrangements you like. If you want more money than I have given you, let me know and you shall have it. When do you expect to be back here, Léon?"
"Oh, not for a month at least; I shall keep away till all the fuss Mathilde will make about the baby is over; meanwhile, if you change your mind and want the baby back, write to me at my agent's and he will forward your letter. Adieu."
And Léon, who had handed the baby to Pierre as soon as they met, now kissed his brother on both cheeks and then sprang into the boat. Smith pushed her off and sculled them across the moonlit sea to the yacht, the baron watching them until they reached her and the boat was drawn up to its davits, when he turned and drove back to the château, wondering greatly how the baroness would bear the loss of her baby, and fearing a very bad quarter of an hour was in store for him when she learnt what had become of it.
A stiff breeze was blowing, but with wind and tide in her favour the yacht sailed smoothly across the Channel, all on board her, except the baby, being too inured to the sea to feel ill, and, luckily, the movement of the yacht seemed to lull the child to sleep. When she woke Pierre was always at hand with some milk, so that she was scarcely heard to cry during the whole passage, spending the time in sleeping and eating, and thereby enabling Pierre to earn for himself the character of a first-rate nurse.
From time to time during the next day Léon came into the cabin to look at his tiny charge, for whom an impromptu cradle had been made with some pillows in an easy chair, and who seemed to have the happy knack of adapting herself to circumstances, for she slept quietly on, with a smile on her little face, all unconscious of the waves from which a few planks divided her.
"Poor little mite; I hope they'll be kind to her, Smith, these friends of yours. I am half sorry I brought her, though the baron wished it," said Léon, as he left the cabin; but the next moment he was whistling on deck as though no such thing as the baby existed.
Towards evening they came in sight of Brighton, whose long sea front, even in those distant days, stretched for a mile or two along the coast, and Léon, who knew the town well, and considered it one of the few English towns in which he could spend a few days without dying of ennui, was anxious to put in there, but Smith dissuaded him.
"If we put in here, sir, they'll be sure to trace the child; it would be far better to let me go ashore with it in the gig, while you lay outside."
"But where are we to put in then? Having come to England, I mean to go ashore for a day or two."
"Why not run up to Yarmouth, sir; the wind is fair; it is south-west now. You have never been there, have you? And there'll be no fear of anyone tracing the child there. If madame sees in the paper that we touched at Yarmouth, she may inquire all over that part of the country without finding the baby down in Sussex."
Léon considered the matter for a few minutes, and finally consented to this arrangement; and about eight o'clock that evening the gig was lowered, and Pierre, who would not abandon his charge till the last minute, went ashore with John Smith and the baby.
They landed on a quiet spot between Brighton and Rottingdean, and here Smith insisted on Pierre's remaining in charge of the boat while he deposited the baby with his friends. Pierre protested against this; but the carpenter was firm. It would not be safe, he argued, to leave the boat alone for two or three hours, and he might be gone as long as that; and there could be no danger in leaving Pierre there, for if anyone did question him about his business, he would not be able to understand them, as he knew no English.
Pierre found it was useless to make any further objections, so, reluctantly handing the baby over to the carpenter, he prepared to make himself as comfortable as circumstances permitted during Smith's absence. It was a beautiful warm midsummer evening, but Pierre began to feel chilly and tired of waiting long before Smith came back, though he managed to get several naps, curled up in the bottom of the boat. At last, about eleven o'clock, just as Pierre was getting very nervous, and dreading every minute that one of the white ladies of Normandy (those dames blanches who are so cruel to the discourteous) should appear to him, or a hobgoblin or a ghost, in all of which he was, like most Norman peasants, a firm believer, to his intense relief he heard the carpenter whistling in the distance, and a minute or two later Smith arrived, hot and tired, and by no means in a communicative frame of mind, only vouchsafing to tell the anxious Pierre that the baby was safe.
To Léon he was bound to be less reserved, and, according to his own account, he had had no difficulty in persuading his friend the shepherd to take charge of the child. He had asked no awkward questions, and was quite satisfied with the sum of money Smith had left with him. Léon carefully entered the name and address of the shepherd in his pocket-book, and then dismissed the matter from his mind, and gave himself up to enjoying his cruise.
A day or two later they put into Yarmouth, and the arrival of the French yacht, L'Hirondelle, owner M. Léon de Thorens, was duly mentioned in the shipping news of the daily papers. Yarmouth was not a place after Léon's heart, and he would have left the next day, but John Smith had gone ashore and had not returned, so their departure was delayed at first for a few hours; but as Smith still did not appear, Léon began to get anxious, and made inquiries in the town for him, but in vain. At last, after delaying several days, it became evident the man had deserted, and finally Léon set sail without him. His intention on leaving Brighton was to cruise round the coast of Great Britain, visiting the principal seaports on the way; but on finding Smith did not return, his suspicions were awakened as to the safety of the child, and he determined to go back at once to Brighton and see if the child had really been left with the shepherd whose address Smith had given him.
But that night a dense fog came on, and a day or two later a paragraph in the English papers announced a collision had taken place off Harwich with an English trading vessel and the French yacht, L'Hirondelle, in which the latter sunk at once with all hands, not a soul remaining to tell the tale, but some life-belts and spars of wood which were picked up afterwards led to the identification of the yacht, which was known to have left Yarmouth the morning before the collision took place.
DINNERS FOR TWO
Many housekeepers complain of the difficulty of providing a change of dishes where the family is small. Really, the number of things that may be served for one or two people is very great, but the serving is important. The writer has
