A Maid of the Silver Sea. John Oxenham
the Hamon family as a whole, or any member of it, would have put the matter quite in that way to itself, or herself. But that, vaguely, was the impression produced upon them—an impression of uprightness, intelligence, and reserved strength—and the more strongly, perhaps, because of late these characteristics had been somewhat overshadowed in the Island by the greed of gain and love of display engendered by the opening of the mines.
To old Tom Hamon his coming was wholly welcome. It foreshadowed a strong and more energetic development of the mines and the speedier realization of his most earnest desires.
To Mrs. Hamon it meant some extra household work, which she would gladly undertake since it was her husband's wish to have the stranger live with them, though in his absorption by the mines she had no sympathy whatever.
Nance looked upon him merely as a part of the mines, and therefore to be detested along with the noisy engine-house, the pumps, the damp and dirty miners, and all the rest of it—the coming of which had so completely spoiled her much-loved Sark.
Tom disliked him because he made him feel small and boorish, and of a commoner make. And feelings such as that inevitably try to disprove themselves by noisy self-assertion.
Accordingly Tom—after various jocular remarks in patois to Peter, who would have laughed at them had he dared, but, knowing Nance's feelings towards her brother was not sure how she would take it—loudly and provocatively to Gard—
"Expect to make them mines pay, monsieur?"
"Well, I hope so. But it's too soon to express an opinion till I've seen them."
"They put a lot of money in, and they get a lot of dirt out, but one does not hear much of any silver."
"Sometimes the deepest mines prove the best in the end."
"And as long as there's anybody to pay for it I suppose you go on digging."
"If I thought the mines had petered out—"
"Eh?" said Peter, and then coughed to hide his confusion when they all looked at him.
"I should of course advise the owners to stop work and sink no more money."
"It'll be a bad day for Sark when that happens," said old Tom. "But it's not going to happen. The silver's there all right. It only wants getting out."
"If it's there we'll certainly get it out," said Gard, and although he said it quietly enough, old Tom felt much better about things in general.
"You're the man for us," he said heartily. "We'll all be rich before we die yet."
"Depends when we die," growled Tom—in which observation—obvious as it was—there was undoubtedly much truth. And then, his little suggestion of provocation having broken like ripples on Gard's imperturbability, he turned on Peter and tried to stir him up.
"You don't get on any too fast with your making up to la garche, mon gars," he said in the patois again.
"Aw—Tom!" remonstrated Peter, very red in the face at this ruthless laying bare of his approaches.
"Get ahead, man! Put your arm round her neck and give her a kiss. That's the way to fetch 'em."
At which Nance jumped up with fiery face and sparks in her eyes and left the room, and Gard, who understood no word of what had passed, yet understood without possibility of doubt that Tom's speech had been mortally offensive to his sister, and set him down in his own mind as of low esteem and boorish disposition.
As for Peter, to whom such advice was as useless as the act would have been impossible at that stage of the proceedings, he was almost as much upset as Nance herself. He got up with a shamefaced—
"Aw, Tom, boy, that was not good of you," and made for his hat, while Tom sat with a broad grin at the result of his delicate diplomacy, and Gard's great regret was that it was not possible for him to take the hulking fellow by the neck and bundle him out of doors.
Old Tom made some sharp remark to his son, who replied in kind; Mrs. Hamon sat quietly aloof, as she always did when Tom and his father got to words, and Bernel made play with his supper, as though such matters were of too common occurrence to call for any special attention on his part.
Then Nance's face framed in a black sun-bonnet gleamed in at the outer door.
"Come along, Bern, and we'll go and tell the Seigneur where his white horse is," and she disappeared, and Bernel, having polished off everything within reach, got up and followed her.
"Will you please to take a look at the mines to-night?" asked old Tom of his guest, anxious to interest him in the work as speedily as possible.
"We might take a bit of a walk, and you can tell me all you will about things. But I don't take hold till the first of the month, and I don't want to interfere until I have a right to. I suppose my baggage will be coming up?"
"Ach, yes! Tom, you take the cart and bring Mr. Gard's things up. They are lying on the quay down there. Then we will go along, if you please!"
Old Tom marched him through the wonderful amber twilight to the summit of the bluff behind the engine-house—whence Gard could just make out his box and carpet-bag still lying on the quay below. And all the way the old man was volubly explaining the many changes necessary, in his opinion, to bring the business to a paying basis. All which information Gard accepted for testing purposes, but gathered from the total the fact that through ill health on the part of the departing captain, the ropes all round had got slack and that the tightening of them would be a matter of no little delicacy and difficulty.
Sark men, Mr. Hamon explained, were very free and independent, and hated to be driven. They did piecework—so much per fathom, and were constitutionally, he admitted, a bit more particular as to the so much than as to the fathom. While the Cornish and Welsh men, receiving weekly wages, had also grown slack and did far less work than they did at first and than they might, could, and should do.
"But," said old Tom frankly, scratching his head, "I don't know's I'd like the job myself. Your men are quiet enough to look at, but they can boil over when they're put to it. And our men—well, they're Sark, and there's more'n a bit of the devil in them."
"I must get things round bit by bit," said Gard quietly. "It never pays to make a fuss and bustle men. Softly does it."
"I'm thinking you can do it if any man can."
"I'll have a good try any way."
"Whereabouts does the Seigneur live?" he asked presently, and inconsequently as it seemed, but following out a train of thought of his own which needed no guessing at.
"The Seigneur? Over there in Sark—across the Coupée."
"What's the Coupée?"
"The Coupée?—Mon Gyu!"—at such colossal ignorance—"Why, … the Coupée's the Coupée. … Come along, then. Maybe you can get a look at it before it's too dark."
They had got quite out of sound of the clanking engine, and were travelling a well-made road, when their attention was drawn to a lively struggle proceeding on the common between the road and the cliff.
Tom, setting out after the troubled Peter, had caught sight of the Seigneur's white horse and had forthwith decided to take him home. Peter, agreeing that it was a piece of neighbourliness which the Seigneur would appreciate, had turned back to give his assistance.
By some cajolery they had managed to slip a halter with a special length of rope over the wary white head, and there for the moment matters hung. For the white horse, with his forelegs firmly planted, dragged at one end of the rope and the two men at the other, and the issue remained in doubt.
The doubt, however, was suddenly solved by the white horse deciding on more active measures. He swung his great head to one side, dragged the men off their feet and started off at a gallop, they hanging on as best they could.
Old Tom and Gard set off after them to see the end of the matter, and suddenly,