[Under Wellington’s Command by G. A. Henty]@TWC D-Link book
Under Wellington’s Command

CHAPTER 7: A French Privateer
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We are simply two sailors on our way home for a time; but if we have to show our papers, with those Spanish names on them, we should be in a fix.

Of course, we might have run away from our ship at Saint Malo, but that would not explain our coming up this way.

However, I hope my French is good enough to answer any casual questions without exciting attention.

We will cross by the ferry boat, as soon as it begins to ply and, as Avranches stands some little distance up the river, we can avoid it altogether by keeping along the coastline." A score of peasants had assembled by the time the ferry boat man made his appearance from his cottage, and Terence and his companion, who had been lying down 200 yards away, joined them just as they were going down to the boat.
"You are from Saint Malo, I suppose ?" an old peasant said to Terence.
The latter nodded.
"We have got a month's leave from our ship," he said.

"She has been knocked about by an English cruiser, and will be in the shipwright's hands for five or six weeks, before she is ready for sea again." "You are not from this part of the country," the peasant, who was speaking in the patois of Normandy, remarked.
"No, we come from the south; but one of our comrades comes from Cherbourg and, as he cannot get away, we are going to see his friends and tell them that he is well.


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