“_Fi donc! vous devriez avoir honte, milord_,” cried Thurot, somewhat disturbed, I saw, at this reckless levity. “Ashamed!” said his lordship, laughing; “why, 'tis for his Royal Highness who has taken a diligence to the devil, and left us poor dependants to pay the bill at the inn. But no matter, Master Greig, I'll be cursed if I say a single word more to spoil a charming picture of royalty under a cloud.” And so saying he lounged away from us, a strange exquisite for shipboard, laced up to the nines, as the saying goes, parading the deck as it had been the Rue St. Honoré, with merry words for every sailorman who tapped a forehead to him. Captain Thurot looked at him, smiling, and shrugged his shoulders. “_Tête-de-mouche!_ There it is for you, M. Paul--the head of a butterfly. Now you--” he commanded my eyes most masterfully--“now _you_ have a Scotsman's earnestness; I should like to see you on the right side. _Mon Dieu_, you owe us your life, no less; 'tis no more King George's, for one of his subjects has morally sent you to the bottom of the sea in a scuttled ship. I wish we had laid hands on your Risk and his augers.” But I was learning my world; I was cautious; I said neither yea nor nay. CHAPTER XIV IN DUNKERQUE--A LADY SPEAKS TO ME IN SCOTS AND A FAT PRIEST SEEMS TO HAVE SOMETHING ON HIS MIND Two days after, the _Roi Rouge_ came to Dunkerque; Horn the seaman went home to Scotland in a vessel out of Leith with a letter in his pocket for my people at Hazel Den, and I did my best for the next fortnight to forget by day the remorse that was my nightmare. To this Captain Thurot and Lord Clancarty, without guessing 'twas a homicide they favoured, zealously helped me. And then Dunkerque at the moment was sparkling with attractions. Something was in its air to distract every waking hour, the pulse of drums, the sound of trumpets calling along the shores, troops manoeuvring, elation apparent in every countenance. I was Thurot's guest in a lodging over a _boulangerie_ upon the sea front, and at daybreak I would look out from the little window to see regiments of horse and foot go by on their way to an enormous camp beside the old fort of Risebank. Later in the morning I would see the soldiers toiling at the grand sluice for deepening the harbour or repairing the basin, or on the dunes near Graveline manoeuvring under the command of the Prince de Soubise and Count St. Germain. All day the paving thundered with the roll of tumbrels, with the noise of plunging horse; all night the front of the _boulangerie_ was clamorous with carriages bearing cannon, timber, fascines, gabions, and other military stores.