Carette of Sark. John Oxenham
gripped the small boy's two hands in his big brown one, and the youngster with a shout threw back his body and planted his feet on his grandfather's leg, and walked up him until the strong right arm encircled him and he was seated triumphantly in the crook of it. Whatever the old man might have against his son-in-law there was no doubt as to his feeling for the boy.
"He is gone," he said, with a grave nod, in response to his daughter's questioning look. "But I misdoubt him. You had much better come with me to Belfontaine for a time, Rachel."
She shook her head doubtfully.
"He's an angry man, and if he should get back—" said her father.
"In his right mind he would be sorry—"
"I misdoubt him," he said again, with a sombre nod. "I shall have no peace if you are here all alone. … "
But she shook her head dismally, with no sign of yielding.
"It has been very lonely," he said. "You and the boy—"
And she looked up at him, and the hunger of his face seemed to strike her suddenly. She got up from the fern-bed and said, "Yes, we will come. My troubles have made me selfish."
"Now, God be praised! You lift a load from my heart, Rachel. You will come at once? Put together what you will need and we will take it with us."
"And the house?"
"It will be all safe. If you like I will ask George Hamon to give an eye to it while you are away. Perhaps—" Perhaps she would decide to remain with him at Belfontaine, but experience had taught him to go one step at a time rather than risk big leaps when he was not sure of his footing.
So, while she gathered such things as she and the boy would need for a few days' stay, he strode back down the sunny lane to La Vauroque, to leave word of his wishes with Hamon's mother.
And Philip Carré's heart was easier than it had been for many a day, as they wound their way among the great cushions of gorse to his lonely house at Belfontaine. And the small boy was jumping with joy, and the shadow on his mother's face was lightened somewhat. For when one's life has broken down, and untoward circumstances have turned one into a subject for sympathetic gossip, it is a relief to get away from it all, to dwell for a time where the clacking of neighbourly tongues cannot be heard, and where sympathy is all the deeper for finding no expression in words. At Belfontaine there was little fear of oversight or overhearing, for it lay somewhat apart, and since his daughter's marriage Philip Carré had lived there all alone with his dumb man Krok, who assisted him with the farm and the fishing, and their visitors were few and far between.
Now that jumping small boy was myself, and Rachel Carré was my mother, and Philip Carré was my grandfather. But what I have been telling you is only what I learned long afterwards, when I was a grown man, and it had become necessary for me to know these things in explanation of others.
CHAPTER III
HOW TWO FOUGHT IN THE DARK
When George Hamon told me the next part of the story of those early days, his enjoyment in the recalling of certain parts of it was undisguised. He told it with great gusto.
As he lay that night on the fern-bed in the cottage above the chasm, he thought of Rachel Carré, and what might have been if Martel's father had only been properly drowned on the Hanois instead of marrying the Guernsey woman. Rachel and he might have come together, and he would have made her as happy as the day was long. And now—his life was empty, and Rachel's was broken—and all because of this wretched half-Frenchman, with his knowing ways and foreign beguilements. The girls had held him good-looking. Well, yes, he was good-looking in a way, but it passed his understanding why any Sercq girl should want to marry a foreigner while home lads were still to be had. He did not think there would be much marrying outside the Island for some time to come, but it was bitter hard that Rachel Carré should have had to suffer in order to teach them that lesson.
Gr-r-r! but he would like to have Monsieur Martel up before him just for ten minutes or so, with a clear field and no favour. Martel was strong and active, it was true, but there—he was a drinker, and a Frenchman at that, and drink doesn't run to wind, and a Frenchman doesn't run to fists. Very well—say twenty minutes then, and if he—George Hamon—did not make Monsieur Martel regret ever having come to Sercq, he would deserve all he got and would take it without a murmur.
He was full of such imaginings, when at last he fell asleep, and he dreamt that he and Martel met in a lonely place and fought. And so full of fight was he that he rolled off the fern-bed and woke with a bump on the floor, and regretted that it was only a dream. For he had just got Martel's head comfortably under his left arm, and was paying him out in full for all he had made Rachel Carré suffer, when the bump of his fall put an end to it.
The following night he fell asleep at once, tired with a long day's work in the fields. He woke with a start about midnight, with the impression of a sound in his ears, and lay listening doubtfully. Then he perceived that his ears had not deceived him. There was someone in the room—or something—and for a moment all the superstitions among which he had been bred crawled in his back hair and held his breath.
Then a hand dropped out of the darkness and touched his shoulder, and he sprang at the touch like a coiled spring.
"Diable!"
It was Martel's voice and usual exclamation, and in a moment Hamon had him by the throat and they were whirling over the floor, upsetting the table and scattering the chairs, and George Hamon's heart was beating like a merry drum at feel of his enemy in the flesh.
But wrestling blindly in a dark room did not satisfy him. That which was in him craved more. He wanted to see what he was doing and the full effects of it.
He shook himself free.
"Come outside and fight it out like a man—if you are one," he panted. "And we'll see if you can beat a man as you can a woman."
"Allons!" growled Martel. He was in the humour to rend and tear, and it mattered little what. For the authorities in Guernsey, after due deliberation, had decided that what was not good enough for Sercq was not good enough for Guernsey, and had shipped him back with scant ceremony. He had been flung out like a sack of rubbish onto the shingle in Havre Gosselin, half an hour before, had scaled the rough track in the dark, with his mouth full of curses and his heart full of rage, and George Hamon thanked God that it was not Rachel and the boy he had found in the cottage that night.
Hamon slipped on his shoes and tied them carefully, and they passed out and along the narrow way between the tall hedges. The full moon was just showing red and sleepy-looking, but she would be white and wide awake in a few minutes. The grass was thick with dew, and there was not a sound save the growl of the surf on the rocks below.
Through a gap in the hedge Hamon led the way towards Longue Pointe.
"Here!" he said, as they came on a level piece, and rolled up the sleeves of his guernsey. "Put away your knife;" and Martel, with a curse at the implication, drew it from its sheath at his back and flung it among the bracken.
Then, without a word, they tackled one another. No gripping now, but hard fell blows straight from the shoulder, warded when possible, or taken in grim silence. They fought, not as men fight in battle—for general principles