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to one of the gendarmes in a manner that all might hear him, then went out to his horse, and in due time came into his meal. It is said that "fortune favours the brave," for it was evident that not one of the gendarmes were aware that there was a culprit and an enemy SO near to their elbows. It is true they were very busy getting ready their accoutrements, and appeared to be much pressed for time. In proceeding we passed several regiments bound for Russia. A Marshal and two outriders came up, and my friend could not get out of the way for the first outrider, and the second struck the horse in the eye, which no doubt made the unfortunate animal a blinker for the rest of his life.

At Châlons he took a place for me in the diligence for Paris. When I entered it I found to my horror it was occupied by seven officers, five of them decorated with the Legion of Honour.

The one by whose side I sat was a Colonel; and a lady at the farther end of the carriage said something to him which I could see related to me, and for which he rebuked her. When we stopped he asked me if I would join them in a bottle of wine, suggesting that if I changed places with a person who was sitting by the side of the driver, I should be more comfortable. I gladly took the hint, but found that I had changed from the frying

pan into the fire, for the guard asked me what countryman I was. I answered "Swiss." "What canton?" On my naming Berne, he exclaimed, "Ah, my own," but he had penetration enough to see that I was not disposed to talk, and did not trouble me more.

We went on to Paris. When landing in the yard, the lady, a very pretty woman, came to me, and in the kindest manner said, "if she could be of any service to me, she would render it with the greatest pleasure." I felt her kindness much, but my object was to go ahead; and I secured a place in the diligence for Caen and then took a voiture to drive about Paris to beguile the time, taking care to change my coachman once or twice.

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I started for Caen next morning, taking my seat by the guard. I kept my handkerchief to my mouth, hoping that my neighbours would believe me to be tormented with toothache. At the dinner-time who should sit alongside of me but the great man before whom I had been taken with Whitehurst. He said, Will any gentleman join me with a bottle of Burgundy? I saw that he had been eyeing me, so that I thought it best to put a good face on the matter, and signified my readiness to do So. He then left the room, and a gendarme came in and demanded to see our passports. I gave him mine-“Grieme, watchmaker," was the name on my passport-and he went

out with it. That I enjoyed my meal much in his absence cannot be supposed. However, he did not keep me long in suspense, for he soon returned and handed me my passport as well as the rest. Dinner over and the diligence ready, nothing occurred to interrupt our journey to Caen.

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Arrived there, I went out at once to my old friend, and made arrangements for getting on to the seaside. At the end of the week he brought me intelligence that he had found a man that would take me in until a fair wind offered. On the day when we were to leave Caen I was attacked with earache. However, that did not alter the hour-nine o'clock -when he punctually made his appearance. Heavy rain had set in just before started, and fell in torrents during the whole of our ninemile walk. Of course, we were wet through before we had accomplished one. It would not have signified, perhaps, if I had not been obliged to stop at the corner of a wall toward the end of our journey, where I had to wait for half an hour in the bitter cold wind. The night was pitch dark, and I dared not move, as my conductor had strictly enjoined silence. On his return he brought a man with him, and duly handed me over to him, and I took leave of my soundhearted friend.

My new acquaintance bade me follow him, and we went to a house with a sort of a

stable directly opposite it, in which was his horse. Above was a loft just high enough in the centre for me to stand (up. It was half full of straw, to which he pointed, signifying that it was my home, and that I must make the best of it. Then he wished me goodnight, and took away the lantern. There was I in agony with the earache, which soon doubled, for as my clothes dried on me, so did the pain increase in the other ear, and there I was for a fortnight. I could not hear a word, and I was in a state of utter wretchedness; while the discharge from my ears was so offensive that my hostess could scarcely bear to come near me. I thought I could not last long; and they were in a stew as to how to dispose of my body when dead.

However, at the end of three weeks I heard a bell, and in a few days, with plenty of food, became myself again in strength. One day the landlady asked me to let her bring her daughter, as she had never seen an Englishman, and at my next meal she made her appearance. A very pretty girl about fifteen or sixteen years of age came to me, as I sat on the straw, and presented her cheek for me to kiss, and twice turned it so that I had three; and she expressed much the same sentiment as her brother had done before. Their astonishment was great that an Englishman could be so good-looking, as I was

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the first they had ever seen. The compliment was equivocal. At last the hour arrived when the father and son came to me about ten o'clock at night, and helped me to launch a flat boat, and gave me a pole with which I poled my way to a fishing boat at anchor, and in quarter less no time " I had cut her cable, and was a free man on the ocean. I got an oar out, put her head the right way, and away she drifted. Of course, being in the dark, I had to feel for everything, so that it was some time before I could step the foremast and lash a light spar over the bows; but it was done in time to get out of sight of the land when daylight dawned.

As the day opened the wind lessened, and nearly all that day-Sunday-was a calm, so I had nothing to do but calculate my chances. One doubt was whether the rickety old thing I had got into would bear a sea. It was an old patched-up boat with a rudder belonging to some craft twice her size, and it took me four hours before I could ship it, although calm, it being so heavy that I could scarcely lift it. As to getting the mainmast up, it was quite out of the question. Towards evening the wind sprang up again from the south, and I gently glided over the silent waves, with the full moon shining surrounded with the largest halo I have ever seen; and as I had nothing else to occupy my mind, I speculated as to whether it

might prognosticate a storm or fine weather. I put up an oar, and made the top-sail fast to it to act as a mainsail, and then fixed the main yard-arm as far out over the quarter as I could rig it. Thus I contrived to get my small vessel to move over the water. Of course, through the night I steered by the North star, and in the forenoon of Monday I saw the Isle of Wight, and in the afternoon I could see I was approaching a convoy. As I neared them I put my black handkerchief up on an oar. On seeing a man-of-war brigthe Mutine-I stood towards her, and they soon recognised me, and to my delight I saw them draw towards me.

We soon closed off the Owers, and she ran alongside of me in a very pretty style, threw a rope into me, and two or three Midshipmen ran down, laid hold of me, and helped me up the side. Of course, I bowed to the Captain, and stated who I was. The officers of the gunroom invited me down to take some refreshment, and the purser, Mr Morgan, lent me a clean shirt. The Captain questioned me very much about the coast, and promised me that he would take back the boat, as it evidently belonged to a poor man though I heard afterwards he put her on the beach somewhere on the coast of Sussex. Being near a little gun brig going into Portsmouth, he put me on board her with the Lieutenant in command.

I went to the Admiral's

office, where I was introduced to the Flag-Lieutenant-a very kind-hearted old fellow, who saw that I was much fatigued, and said he knew my brother, and told me that if I would go over to the George Inn and get a good night's rest, he would have my brother there by nine o'clock the next morning. About that time I was handed into the presence of two Admirals, one resigning, Sir Roger Curtis, the other Sir Richard Bickerton, taking office. Neither of these important functionaries deigned to notice me. The Flag Lieutenant asked them if they had any commands for this gentleman, to which he received from each the curt answer "No," and he beckoned me to go out with him. He then told me that my brother had arrived, and on emerging from the Admiral's office, he discovered my brother,

saying to him at the instant,

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There, Jackson, that's what I've brought you.'

My brother was greatly affected at this unexpected meeting. He had been summoned by the Flag-Lieutenant that morning to appear at the Admiral's office, without being informed for what purpose, and as he had made up his mind that something unpleasant was afloat, the deception was all the more powerful. He had considered me dead long since, as it turned out that Captain Fane, to whom I had entrusted a message for my surviving parent-my mother, had forgotten to deliver it.

--

I now lost no time in going home to join my mother, and here I reaped, in the embraces of a kind and rejoicing parent, a full reward for the toils and hardships of the last few painful years of my life.

BORDEAUX AND ITS WINES.

BY STEPHEN GWYNN.

THE wine trade of Bordeaux must be one of the oldest branches of Atlantic commerce. Greeks from Marseilles taught the people of what the Romans (later) called Aquitaine to grow grapes and make wine: but the Aquitanians invented the wine-cask to replace the brittle amphora. That was the idea of a seafaring people. The oldest records of these islands of ours come through the Gaelic, but they make no mention of a first importation of wine: as far back as there is any transmitted tradition, Scots and Irish were drinking claret. Bordeaux laments bitterly that both these nations are falling away from this good custom.

Still there are persons (and institutions) in both countries maintaining their interest in Bordeaux's merchandise; and it has long been my desirewhich this year at last I fulfilled-to go and see these famous wines actually in the making.

In some ways the vintage of 1926 was a depressing occasion. No vineyard hoped to produce more than half its average yield, and many spoke of getting only a quarter. Also, it appears to be unusually hard to predict the development of what is vintaged after so long a drought. There is a possibility that the red wines may prove

harsh, and that the white wines may hold more sugar than the alcohol can absorb. On the other hand, there is the chance of wholly exceptional quality. I learnt one fact. After the vintage of 1921, another year of excessive sun, nobody would buy the output of Château Yquem, fearing, no doubt, that the excess of sugar would spoil the fermentation. Finally, one great merchant took the whole for 6000 francs a tonneau1500 francs a hogshead. He could have actually had it for less, but refused to, lest he should spoil the reputation of the famous vineyard. To-day, that wine of 1921 is about the highest priced wine in most lists; and its success has sent up the demand for Yquem of every and any year-and, to some extent, that for all similar wines.

One of the gentlemen to whom I was lucky enough to have an introduction told me that the taste and demand for sweet white wines are growing and no one could be in a better position to judge. But it was also clear that the Bordeaux trade must desire this change; for if a demand for the best red wines increased, they could not meet it. In the war period, Bordeaux's cellars were drunk to an ebb. The presence of the Americans,

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