356 An Adventure near Granville. [Aprit, 
—I know not which—by a shrug of the shoulders, and a long-drawn 
* Ah!” inimitable by any save a Frenchman. I was astonished in my 
turn. 
“You don’t seem to admire my house, friend ; what fault do you see 
in it?” 
It should be observed that this conversation was carried on in French, 
—indifferently enough, I dare say, on my part,—but still we could con- 
trive to understand each other. 
“ What fault? Does Monsieur say what fault >” 
« Ay; what fault?” Ireplied. “The house is stout enough to last 
my time ; is it not?” 
Another long-drawn “ Ah!” with a corresponding shrug of the shoul- 
ders. and elevation of the eyebrows, was the only answer. 
“ If you have any thing to say,” I exclaimed, “ say it out at once 
plainly, that I may understand you.” 
He had nothing to say—* nothing in the world.” 
This of course did not satisfy me. I pressed him yet more closely, 
and at last brought him to confess that he looked upon the house as 
unlucky. At first I thought he was laughing at me; but he protested 
again, with great earnestness, that the house was truly and notoriously 
unlucky.—* In three years it had been possessed by four different pro- 
prietors, who had all come to an untimely end. One had been found 
dead in his bed in the morning, after having gone to rest on the night 
previous in perfect health. A second had tumbled into the well, and 
been drowned.”—That I by no means wondered at, considering the state 
of the wood-work about it; and, though I had not given it a thought 
before, I now mentally resolved to have it repaired without delay, that 
I might not be added to the list of casualties—« A third, in an English ~ 
fit of despondency, had hung himself on a pear-tree in the orchard.” 
Here I interrupted his list of disasters, telling him, jestingly, that to 
prevent the repetition of any such accidents, I would have the pear-tree 
cut down. 
«‘ There are many trees, besides pear-trees, in that orchard,” replied 
my sailor, significantly. 
“ But your fourth proprietor,” I said; “ what became of him ?” 
“ He was found dead in the high-road, with a bullet in his body.— — 
So Monsieur may see I had some reason for calling his house unlucky. 
If it were mine, I would sell it before the day was over.” 
** And who is to become the purchaser ?” I asked ; for I had little 
doubt that the rascal was employed by some greater rascal, who expected, 
by alarming my fears, to get a good bargain of the house—perhaps the 
tailor himself; he was like enough to do such a thing if he at all re- 
pented of the sale. Had I been a jot less angry, I should have laughed | 
in the fellow’s face for his excessive impudence. 
« Who is to become the purchaser ?” I repeated. 
“Not I, for one,” replied the seaman ; “ Monsieur may be sure of 
that.” 
And, so saying, he set off on the road for Granville, just as the punc-_ 
tual Madelon came to summon me in to dinner, which, to her great 
annoyance, I had already kept waiting nearly a quarter of an hour—_ 
enough, as she said, to spoil any thing but English cookery. 4 
But Madelon’s disappointments were not to'end here. Just as I sate ) 
down to table, in came an agent of the police, at sight of whom the poor - 
