"
Arthur put the pistol back into his belt when the poor man begged for
mercy, and pulling the fallen oar out of the water, declared that he
would himself row round the island, and that the two old men might take
the other oar in turns. They agreed to this, and then he who had been
so frightened, and who was plainly the master of the two, told his tale
to them, as he filled Arthur's place in the bow of the boat.
"When they had heard," he said, "what his former occupation had been,
they would not wonder that the hard work at which they found him was
almost too much for him. He was," he said, "a priest, and had been
employed above twenty years as Cure in a small parish on the river side,
between St. Florent and Chaudron. The other man, who was working with
him, had been his sexton. He had, like other Cures, been turned out of
his little house by the Republic, but had returned to his parish when
he heard that the success of the Vendean arms seemed to promise
tranquillity to the old inhabitants of the country.
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