I feel sure that you can thank Heaven that your good
father started you in the right and proper direction."

Still, little Renee hung his head.

"Tut! Tut!" continued the old man. "You will leave, to-morrow, for the
college at Rheims, and, after you have been there but a short time, I
feel sure that you will like it. Tut! Tut!"

But still little Renee hung his head.

Again came the amiable "Tut! Tut!" and the chuckling Luc Trouin
wandered off into the garden to see how well the potatoes were
growing.

But little Renee still hung his head.

And--in spite of the fact that little Renee went to the Divinity
school at Rheims, he continued to hang his head. He hung his head for
three years. Then, news was brought to him, one day, that the good Luc
Trouin was dead, and, instead of holding his handkerchief to his eyes
to wipe away the tears, as one would expect of him, little Renee burst
into loud laughter.

"At last," cried he, "I can get away from the church and go to sea. At
last my freedom has come!"

And it was not many hours before little Renee was scudding away from
the school of Divinity, like a clipper-ship under a full spread of
canvas, before a rousing sou'west breeze.

For at least two hundred years before the birth of bad, little Renee,
the Trouin family had been well known and prosperous in the Breton
seaport of St. Malo. For many years a Trouin had been consul at
Malaga, Spain; and other members of the house had held excellent
positions with the King, so little Renee had no reason to be ashamed
of his forebears, in spite of the fact that his people were of the
"bourgeoisie:" ship-owners, traders, smugglers, privateers, and
merchants. And, as they were of the "bourgeoisie," they were somewhat
looked down upon by the proud and haughty aristocrats who fawned about
the weak and dissipated King.

Little Renee was the son of Luc Trouin and Marguerite Boscher but he
was called Du Guay-Trouin, in later years, and the reason for this is
plain. For--in accordance with the custom of the time--he was sent to
be nursed by a foster mother who resided in the little village of Le
Gue. So he was called Trouin du Gue; which shortly became Du
Guay-Trouin.

"I've come home, mother," shouted little Renee, when he had plodded
his weary way which lay between his temporary prison and the house of
his parents. "I've come home, mother, and I'm going to sea!"

But his mother did not take any too kindly to this bold and vali