run across in three hours or so, with
favourable wind."

"That looks easy enough," Ryan agreed. "It seems to be about one
hundred and twenty miles from here to Avranches, and another thirty
or forty up to Coutances, so we should do it in a week, easily.
What stories shall we make up, if we are questioned?"

"I don't suppose the peasants we may meet on the road are likely to
question us at all, for most of the Bretons speak only their own
language. We had better always sleep out in the open. If we do run
across an official, we can show our papers and give out that we
have been ill treated on board the lugger, and are going to Saint
Malo, where we mean to ship on another privateer. I know that is a
port from which lots of them sail. I don't think we shall have any
difficulty in buying provisions at small villages. My French will
pass muster very well in such places, and I can easily remark that
we are on our way to Saint Malo to join a ship there and, if any
village functionary questions us, these papers will be good enough
for him.

"Or we can say that we got left ashore by accident, when our craft
sailed from Brest, and are going to rejoin her at Saint Malo, where
she was going to put in. I think, perhaps, that that would be a
better story than that we had run away. I don't know that the
authorities interest themselves in runaway seamen from privateers
but, at any rate, it is a likely tale. Drunken seamen, no doubt,
often do get left ashore."

"Yes, that would be a very good story, Terence, and I think that
there would be no great fear, even if we were to go boldly into a
town."

"I don't think there would; still, it is better to be on the safe
side, and avoid all risks."

Accordingly, the afternoon before the Belle Jeanne was to sail they
went ashore, bought enough bread and cold meat to last them for a
couple of days; and two thick blankets, as it was now November and
the nights were bitterly cold; and then left the town and followed
the road for Dinan. On approaching the village of Landerneau they
left the road, and lay down until it was quite dark. Then they made
a detour through the fields, round the village, came down on the
road again, walked all night--passing through Huelgoat--and then,
as morning was breaking they left the road again and, after going a
quarter of a mile through the fields, lay down in a dry ditch by
the side of a thick hedge, ate a meal, and went to sleep.

They did not start again