A Maid of the Silver Sea. John Oxenham
said Peter Mauger.
"Come you along and see what kind of chap he is."
"Aw well, I don't mind," and they strolled away to inspect the new Mine Captain, who was to brace up the slackened ropes and bring the enterprise to a successful issue.
"Did you know he was going to stop with us, Nance?" asked Bernel, as they groped their way out after due interval.
"I heard father tell mother this morning."
"Where's he to sleep?"
"He's to have my room and I'm coming up into the loft. I shall take the dark end, and I've put up a curtain across."
"Shoo! We'll hear enough about the mines now," and they crept out behind a gorse bush, and went off across the common towards the clump of wind-whipped trees inside which the houses of Little Sark clustered for companionship and shelter from the south-west gales.
CHAPTER IV
HOW GARD MADE NEW ACQUAINTANCES
Old Tom Hamon gave the new arrival warm greeting, and pointed out such matters as might interest him as they climbed the steep road which led up to the plateau and the houses.
"Assay Office, Mr. Gard. … Captain's Office. … Forge. … Sark's Hope shaft. … Le Pelley shaft—ninety fathoms below sea-level. … Pump shaft … and yon to east'ard is Prince's shaft. … We go round here behind engine-house. … Yon's my house 'mong the trees."
"That's a fine animal," said Gard, stopping suddenly to look at a great white horse, which stood nibbling the gorse on the edge of the cliff right in the eye of the sun, as it drooped towards Guernsey in a holocaust of purple and amber and crimson clouds. The glow of the threatening sky threw the great white figure into unusual prominence.
"Yours, Mr. Hamon?" asked Gard—and the white horse flung up its head and pealed out a trumpet-like neigh as though resenting the imputation.
"No," said old Tom, staring at the white horse under his shading hand. "Seigneur's. What's he doing down here? He's generally kept up at Eperquerie, and that's the best place for him. He's an awkward beast at times. I must send and tell Mr. Le Pelley where he is."
The little cluster of white, thatched houses stood close together for company, but discreetly turned their faces away from one another so that no man overlooked or interfered with his neighbour.
Gard found himself in a large room which occupied the whole middle portion of the house and served as kitchen and common room for the family.
The floor was of trodden earth—hard and dry as cement, with a strip of boarding round the sides and in front of the fire-place. Heavy oaken beams ran across the roof from which depended a great hanging rack littered with all kinds of household odds and ends. Along the beams of the roof on hooks hung two long guns. One end of the room was occupied by a huge fire-place, in one corner of which stood a new iron cooking range, and alongside it a heap of white ashes and some smouldering sticks of gorse under a big black iron pot filled the room with the fragrance of wood smoke. In the opposite side of the fire-place was an iron door closing the great baking oven, and above it ran a wide mantel-shelf on which stood china dogs and glass rolling-pins and a couple of lamps.
A well-scrubbed white wooden table was set ready for supper. On a very ancient-looking black oak stand—cupboard below and shelves above—was ranged a vast assortment of crockery ware, and on the walls hung potbellied metal jugs and cans which shone like silver.
Two doors led to the other rooms of the house, one of them wide open.
One corner of the room was occupied by a great wooden bin eight feet square, filled with dried bracken. On the wide flat side, which looked like a form, a woman and a girl were sitting when the two men entered.
Hamon introduced them briefly as his wife and daughter, and, comely women as Gard had been accustomed to in his own country of Cornwall, there was something about these two, and especially about the younger of the two, which made him of a sudden more than satisfied with the somewhat doubtful venture to which he had bound himself—set a sudden homely warmth in his heart, and made him feel the richer for being there—made him, in fact, glad that he had come.
And yet there was nothing in their reception of him that justified the feeling.
They nodded, indeed, in answer to his bow, but neither their faces nor their manner showed any special joy at his coming.
But that made no difference to him. They were there, and the mere sight of the girl's fine mobile face and large dark blue eyes was a thing to be grateful for.
"You'll be wanting your supper," said Hamon.
"At your own time, please," said the young man, looking towards Mrs. Hamon. "I am really not very hungry"—though truth to tell he well might have been, for the food on the brig had left much to be desired even to one who had been a sailorman himself.
"It is our usual time," said Mrs. Hamon, "and it is all ready. Will you please to sit there."
At the sound of the chairs a boy of fourteen came quietly in and slipped into his seat.
His sister had gone off with a portion on a plate through the open door.
Gard was surprised to find himself hoping it was not her custom to take her meals in private, and was relieved when she came back presently without the plate and sat down by her brother.
"Ah, you, Bernel, as soon as you've done your supper run over and tell Mr. Le Pelley that his white stallion is on our common, and he'd better send for him."
"I'll ride him home," said the boy exultingly.
"No you won't, Bern," said his sister quickly. "He's not safe. You know what an awkward beast he is at times, and you could never get him across the Coupée."
"Pooh! I'd ride him across any day."
"Promise me you won't," she said, with a hand on his arm.
"Oh, well, if you say so," he grumbled. "I could manage him all right though."
Just then the doorway darkened and two young men entered, and threw their caps on the green bed, and sat down with an awkward nod of greeting to the company in general.
"My son Tom," said Mr. Hamon, and Tom jerked another awkward nod towards the stranger. "And Peter Mauger"—Peter repeated the performance, more shyly and awkwardly even than Tom, from a variety of reasons.
Tom was at home, and he had not even been invited—except by Tom. And strangers always made him shy. And then there was Nance, with her great eyes fixed on him, he knew, though he had not dared to look straight at her.
And then the stranger had an air about him—it was hard to say of what, but it made Peter Mauger and Tom conscious of personal uncouthness, and of a desire to get up and go out and wash their hands and have a shave.
Gard, they knew, was the new captain of the mine, chosen by the managers of the company for his experience with men, and he looked as if he had been accustomed to order them about.
His eyes were dark and keen, his face full of energy. Being clean-shaven his age was doubtful. He might be twenty-five or forty. Nance, in her first quick comprehensive glance, had wondered which.
He stood close upon six feet and was broad-chested and square-shouldered. A good figure of a man, clean and upstanding, and with no nonsense about him. A capable-looking man in every respect, and if his manner was quiet and retiring, there was that about him which suggested the possibility of explosion if occasion arose.