354 An Adventure near Granville. [ Apri, 
than that of boiling or stewing never, as I suppose, having entered into 
the head of a French cock. The rest of the house was in perfect keep- 
ing with these arrangements; the sashes were about the size of four 
panes in the window of a fourth-rate London house; the bed-rooms 
were floored with brick, and the furniture, which was to be included in 
the purchase-money, was such as may be found in most English cottages, 
—not, to use Porson’s phrase, “cottages of gentility,” but those of the 
Yorkshire farmer, which are a very different matter. Still the extreme 
cheapness of the house tempted me, and on the second day I entered into 
possession of my new abode, perfectly out of humour with myself and 
every thing about me. I would have given the whole of my domain, 
with its acre of garden and orchard for a first floor in London, or, what 
I should have rather prized, a snug little cottage in my favourite Isle of 
Wight. But the thing was not to be. 
Upon the recommendation of the tailor, I had taken into my service 
a girl from Granville, who, like Scrub, was every thing to her master— 
cook, housemaid, valet, and even gardener. Nay, had I wanted a groom 
or coachman, I have no doubt she would have been both willing and 
able to officiate in either character. Madelon, for such was her name, 
was about twenty years old, and no less strange to my eyes, at least, in 
her costume than in her manner. Of the first, the principal singularity 
was in the head-gear, which, I believe, is peculiar to Granville and the 
parts adjacent. It consisted of two, or even more yards of coarse white 
ealico, folded something like a dinner-napkin, in which form it lies flatly 
upon the head, with the square corners brought down to either ear, and 
then turned back again upon the crown. A red handkerchief was 
crossed over her neck down to her waist, and there fastened. This last 
was joined, and partly covered by a white apron, with pockets in it, into 
which her hands were constantly inserted when she had no employment 
for them, or rather when she indulged them with a holiday, that she 
might talk with the greater vigour. Her gown was made of chintz, 
and open ; her stockings were of grey woollen, smuggled probably from 
Jersey, and her shoes were nearly the same as those worn by our ~ 
English ploughmen. 
Madelon spoke English, as her friend the tailor said, and as she her- 
self swore, “ bien—trés-bien !”—To give a correct idea of it would be 
utterly impossible; but when I say it was picked up in the school of 
the Guernsey and Jersey seamen, the reader will easily imagine it could 
be no other than elegant. 
Madelon was a rogue, that was clear; I read it in her eyes and face, 
the first of which were remarkably handsome, and the latter would have 
been equally so had it been less exposed to the weather ; for beauty, 
after all, is a hot-house plant, and requires no little nursing to its perfec- 
tion. But then the tailor gave her an excellent character, and she her- 
self confirmed his account after a manner, that in any one else had been 
downright impudence, but in her, by some strange alchymy, was 
converted into humour and simplicity. Madelon, therefore, upon her 
own guarantee, even more than that of her friend, the tailor, was duly 
installed in her four-fold office, being thus one degree better than the 
tripartite, Hecate; and I who, in England, could not contrive to keep — 
one servant, had now my cook, housemaid, valet, and gardener. In 
spite, however, of these advantages, and wine at tenpence a bottle, I was 
far from being comfortable, and twenty times a day I had to undergo © 
