right for you, at all
events. Then I went back to my hole, and thinks I to myself, if I goes
wandering about in this guise I'll sure to be taken: so I remembers that
I'd got in my pocket the housewife my old mother gave me, and which the
rascally privateer's-men hadn't stolen; so out I takes it and sets to
work to make up my clothes in a new fashion. I couldn't make myself
into a mounseer--little or big--by no manner of means, so I just
transmogrified my clothes as you see them, that I mightn't be like a
runaway prisoner. It took me two days before I was fit to be seen--
pretty smart work; and that's how the servant the old gentleman sent out
missed me. At last I set out for the sea; but I was very hungry, and I
can't say if I'd fallen in with a hen-roost what I'd have done. I got
some nuts and fruit though, enough to keep body and soul together.
Three days I wandered on, when I found myself in this very wood. I was
getting wickedly hungry, and I was thinking I must go out and beg, when
I sees a cart and a man coming along, so I up and axes him quite civilly
if he'd a bit of a dinner left for a poor fellow. I was taken all aback
with astonishment when he speaks to me in English, and tells me that
he'd been some months in a prison across the Channel, and knows our
lingo, and that he was treated so kindly that he'd sworn he'd never bear
arms against us again, if he could help it. With that he gives me some
bread and cheese and wine, and when his day's work was over he takes me
to his house, at the borders of the forest, near a village. As I
wouldn't eat the bread of idleness, I offered to help him, and as I can
handle an axe with most men, I have been working away ever since as a
wood-cutter. Now I know that if you'll come with me to his cottage,
he'll gladly give you lodging and food as long as you like to stay, and
then, of course, I must pack up and be off with you."

The midshipmen told Reuben how glad they were to find him, though they
agreed that by his travelling on with them their difficulties would be
somewhat increased, as they were puzzled to know what character he could
assume. He was so thoroughly the English sailor that even his very walk
would betray him.

He acknowledged this; but after scratching his head for five minutes,
and giving sundry tugs at his rather curious-looking breeches, he
exclaimed: "I've hit it. I'll go on crutches and follow in your wake;
when no one is looking I'll make pl