ment.
The rector of the parish, the Rev. Ebenezer Caudray, had become rich.
His uncle, the magnificent Dean of St. Asaph, had just died in London.
The news had been brought by the mail sloop, the _Cashmere_, arrived
from England that very morning, and the mast of which could be perceived
in the roads of St. Peter's Port. The _Cashmere_ was to depart for
Southampton at noon on the morrow, and, so the rumour ran, to convey the
reverend gentleman, who had been suddenly summoned to England, to be
present at the official opening of the will, not to speak of other
urgent matters connected with an important inheritance. All day long St.
Sampson had been conversing on this subject. The _Cashmere_, the Rev.
Ebenezer, his deceased uncle, his riches, his departure, his possible
preferment in the future, had formed the foundations of that perpetual
buzzing. A solitary house, still uninformed on these matters, had
remained at peace. This was the Bravees.

Mess Lethierry had jumped into his hammock, and lay down in his
clothing.

Since the catastrophe of the Durande, to get into his hammock had been
his resource. Every captive has recourse to stretching himself upon his
pallet, and Mess Lethierry was the captive of his grief. To go to bed
was a truce, a gain in breathing time, a suspension of ideas. He neither
slept nor watched. Strictly speaking, for two months and a half--for so
long was it since his misfortune--Mess Lethierry had been in a sort of
somnambulism. He had not yet regained possession of his faculties. He
was in that cloudy and confused condition of intellect with which those
are familiar who have undergone overwhelming afflictions. His
reflections were not thought, his sleep was no repose. By day he was not
awake, by night not asleep. He was up, and then gone to rest, that was
all. When he was in his hammock forgetfulness came to him a little. He
called that sleeping. Chimeras floated about him, and within him. The
nocturnal cloud, full of confused faces, traversed his brain. Sometimes
it was the Emperor Napoleon dictating to him the story of his life;
sometimes there were several Deruchettes; strange birds were in the
trees; the streets of Lons-le-Saulnier became serpents. Nightmares were
the brief respites of despair. He passed his nights in dreaming, and his
days in reverie.

Sometimes he remained all the afternoon at the window of his room, which
looked out upon the port, with his head drooping, his elbows on th