making their observations in respect to the land and the peasants whom they saw at work in the fields.

"Where do these people live?" asked Ned. "I don't see a house, although there are plenty of fields, and people at work in them. Only see the women shovelling sand and picking up rocks! As I live, if there ain't a horse and jackass working together!"

"Look over there," said Walter; "see those oxen, the yoke lashed to their horns."

"Wonder where they cut any hay!" said Ned; "don't see any mowing-fields."

"I don't suppose they need much; they have no snow to lie, and the cattle graze all winter."

"I should think so, by the looks of them."

"O, Ned, what kind of a tree is that, with those rough things on the branches? Let's go and see. Why, it's a chestnut! Here are some just such as they sell in the stores."

"Why, Walter, didn't you ever see a chestnut tree before?"

"No; they don't grow our way; only walnuts and butternuts."

"There's plenty of them in Massachusetts. But what are all these stone walls built round the sides of the hills for? and what is that growing on them?"

"Vines; I've seen those in Spain."

"But how do they ever get any manure up there?"

"Lug it on their backs in baskets."

"I guess this land must all belong to one man, for I don't see any division fences; only once in a while a ditch, or a little pile of stones. He must have an everlasting sight of land, for I can't see any house. What kind of a tree is that with pale green leaves?"

"An olive."

"Is that what they make oil from, Walter?"

"Yes."

"And that one next to it?"

"A fig tree."

"How do you know?"

"Jacques showed me one at Marseilles, last voyage, in a garden."

"And these others?"

"I don't know what they are."

"I think it's queer. Here are pines, beeches, and ash, just such as we have at home, and olives and figs growing right among them. I don't see, when we get all the rest, why we can't have the olives and figs."

They now ascended a hill, and, upon reaching the summit, looked down upon a vale, which presented so striking a contrast to the dry and barren soil they had passed over as to cause them to exclaim, "How beautiful!"

It was indeed a lovely spot. The place itself, the productions of the earth, and surrounding scenery, were so entirely different from anything the boys had ever witnessed, that they remained for some moments lost in silent wonder. It was sheltered from the mountain blasts by hills, whose sides were terraced and covered with vines. Skirting the base of the hills, on the north side, flowed a broad, deep brook, from which the water, conducted in canals in all directions, watered the whole vale. Not a fence, ditch, or hedge marred the beautiful harmony of the picture, where the soil, abundantly watered, sheltered, and beneath a fervid sun, manifested an exuberance unknown in more northern climes.

"Look, Walter. I see the spire of a church, or something that looks like it, between those two hills."

"Yes; I see it. Those people seem very kind. Let us go and have a talk with that old man who is at work at the foot of that tree with such a lot round him; all the family, I guess. You speak to him, Ned."

Walter knew that the French he had learned from the exiles at Salem was quite different from the patois of Provence, being the language of cultivated society, whereas Ned had picked his up from Peterson, Jacques, and Mr. Bell, and it was the very dialect of this locality,—the dialects, in different parts of France, differing almost as much as the climate. Walter had also learned many words from the same source as Ned.

"I'll speak to him; I can talk their lingo first rate now; but let us sit down and rest a while."

"I'm real tired; where shall we sleep to-night?"

"Under that high cliff, the other side of the valley; and we can drink from the brook. I see some trees there, and we can make our fire right under them, drive a stake into some crevice, hang our kettle, and have a cup of tea."

"Think we couldn't get some milk of those folks, Wal?"

"I expect it would be goat's milk, if we did."

"Goat's milk is first rate, I tell you. We had two goats aboard the Madras."

"Perhaps it is; but it always seemed to me that it must taste just as a goat smells."

"O, Wal, what a boy you are! Who ever heard of tasting a smell?"

"I don't care. There's a mighty difference between a cow and a goat. A cow's breath is as sweet as a rose."

CHAPTER IV.
GABRIEL QUESNARD.

As they lay with heads pillowed on their packs, "Ned," said Walter, "I wish we could imitate Charlie Bell, John Rhines, and Fred Williams in something besides building a platform in a tree-top, or getting coral and sponge to take home with us, or even obtaining information about the people and country we are in."

"I think this is first rate," said Ned, sticking his legs, which were stiff and swollen with walking, up in the air. "What would you have, Wal? I think we've both done pretty well. I made a hundred dollars a month clear, last voyage; you, twice that; which is more than they all did when they started."

"But we have been hired, and have only done what other people laid out for us; whereas they struck out for themselves, planned, worked, and built a vessel, as you may say, out of nothing, owned and loaded her to boot."

"There were four of them, and they had good advisers; but, when left on that rock alone, didn't you get hold of Jacques, and wasn't it due to your resolution and contrivance that the vessel got into Marseilles, and made all she did make?"

"Ned, do you think getting money or being smart is to be put before everything else?"

"I guess I don't," said Ned, rolling over, and putting his arm round Walter. "I think having friends to love who love you, and to do what is right, is to be put ever so much before that."

"Is there nothing else?"

"You mean," said Ned, in a subdued tone, "being what my mother calls pious."

"No. I never talk of that; I know nothing about it; wish I did."

"What do you mean, then?"

"I'll tell you. I don't suppose it is boasting to say that we have been smart, trusty, and filled the places we were put in, perhaps, as well, in our way, as they in theirs; but they have done other things that we have not."

"What are they?"

"They have done good. Isaac Murch persuaded Peterson to leave liquor alone, and taught him to read. How Charlie, John, and Fred helped old Mrs. Yelf after her husband died! and she, with her old fingers, wove the royal of the Hard-scrabble, and luck has followed that vessel from the day she was launched. Isaac Murch said he left his luck behind him when he left the Hard-scrabble; for Seth Warren has made double, in proportion to the cost of the two vessels, in her to what he has in the great ship. She has never lost a spar or a man; and it's my belief she never will be cast away, but die a natural death in the head of Captain Rhines's Cove, where the squirrels will make nests in her cabin, and hoard their acorns, the robins will build on her spars, the little children have her for a play-house, and the big boys to dive from. Uncle Isaac said he knew just as well before she sailed that she would be lucky as he did afterwards."

"Why?"

"Because a robin built her nest on the gammon-knee, under the bowsprit; and Captain Rhines put off rigging her a week, that the nest might not be disturbed."

"I never heard of that before, Walter; but Charlie Bell told me how much Captain Rhines and Uncle Isaac did for the widow Hadlock."

"There's one thing he never told you, I'll warrant: that Fred Williams was once one of the worst boys in town; and he and John reformed him, took all the money they had earned, and set him up in business."

"No, he never told me that. At home they praise us, and call us smart.