, upstairs,
for a taller man than you to stretch his legs. You can go and look when
you have a mind; your valise will serve you as a pillow, and a sack with
some straw must be your mattress. Many a better man has slept in a
worse bed."

"I do not doubt it," answered Ronald, calmly. "My men and I will manage
well enough, but we are hungry, and shall be glad of food."

"All in good time," said the old woman, somewhat softening her tone, and
pleased at being spoken to in her own language. "You may carry your
baggage upstairs, and select any corner you like for your
sleeping-place. The girl will be in and give you a light presently.
See that there are no holes in the roof above you, in case it should
rain. You will find it warmer too if you avoid those in the floor
beneath you."

The old woman said this evidently with serious good-will. Ronald
thanked her, and directly afterwards a stout buxom girl came from the
further end of the hall, with a brass oil lamp in her hand. Taking the
advice of the old woman, Ronald went upstairs to select a corner where
he and his party might rest a night. The apartment consisted of the
entire upper floor, but as the old woman had warned him, it contained
not a particle of furniture, though, from its appearance, there was
little doubt that there would be a large number of inhabitants. In
several places through the roof he could see the stars shining, while
the faint rays of light, and odours anything but faint, which came up
through the floor, showed the numerous holes and rents which time had
made in the boards.

"This is a rum place for our lieutenant to sleep in," observed Bob Doull
to Job; "and as to the gentry below there, they are as cut-throat a crew
as I ever set eyes on. I'll not let his valise go out of my hands, for
it would be whipped up pretty smartly by one of these fellows, and we
should never see more of it. Looking at the land from aboard the
frigate, I never should have thought it was such an outlandish sort of a
country. Should you, Job?"

"Can't say much for their manners. May be they are better than they
look," answered the elder seaman; "but if it came to a scrimmage, I
can't say but what I wouldn't mind tackling a dozen of them."

These remarks were made while Morton was taking a survey of the
unpromising apartment. It had apparently been used as a barrack by the
French when, not long ago, they occupied the village, and very little
trouble had sin