her daughter a good amount of French, so
that in a short time they were able to converse, though in a curious
fashion, it must be owned.

They soon got over their bashfulness, and asked the name of everything
they saw, which Jeannette was always ready to tell them. Their attempts
at talking French afforded her vast amusement.

Though kindly treated, they at length got tired of being shut up in the
house, and were very well pleased when one day Captain Turgot brought
them each a suit of clothes, and told them that he was going away to
fish, and would take them with him.

Next morning they went on board the cutter, and sail being soon
afterwards made, she stood out of the harbour.

CHAPTER SIX.

TAKEN PRISONERS.

Jack and Bill made themselves very useful in hauling the nets, and
cleaning the fish when caught. Jack was well up to the work, and showed
Bill how to do it. Captain Turgot was highly pleased, and called them
"bons garcons," and said he hoped that they would remain with him till
the war was over, and as much longer as they liked. When the cutter
returned into the harbour to land her fish, Jack and Bill were sent
below, so that the authorities might not see them and carry them off.
Captain Turgot was much afraid of losing them. They were getting on
famously with their French, and Bill could chatter away already at a
great rate, though not in very good French, to be sure, for he made a
number of blunders, which afforded constant amusement to his companions,
but Pierre was always ready to set him right.

Jack made much slower progress. He could not, he said, twist his tongue
about sufficiently to get out the words, even when he remembered them.
Some, he found, were wonderfully like English, and those he recollected
the best, though, to be sure, they had different meanings. One day the
cutter had stood out farther from the shore than usual, her nets being
down, when, at daybreak, a strange sail was seen in the offing. The
captain, after taking one look at her, was convinced that she was an
enemy.

"Quick! quick! my sons," he shouted: "we must haul the nets and make
sail, or we shall be caught by the English. They are brave people, but
I have no wish to see the inside of one of their prisons."

All hands worked away as if their lives depended on their exertions.
Jack and Bill lent a hand as usual. They scarcely knew what to wish.
Should the stranger prove to be an English ship, and come up wit