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diff --git a/15259-8.txt b/15259-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8ac6cc7 --- /dev/null +++ b/15259-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9371 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Pearl of Pearl Island, by John Oxenham + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Pearl of Pearl Island + +Author: John Oxenham + +Release Date: March 4, 2005 [EBook #15259] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND *** + + + + +Produced by Steven Gibbs and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + +PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND + +BY JOHN OXENHAM + +HODDER AND STOUGHTON +PUBLISHERS LONDON +1908 + + + + +TO MY WIFE + + + + +CONTENTS + +PART THE FIRST PEARL +PART THE SECOND LOST PEARL +PART THE THIRD PEARL ISLAND +PART THE FOURTH PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND +PART THE FIFTH PEARL IN A RING +PART THE SIXTH SMALLER PEARLS + + + + + PEARL OF THE PEARL OF THE SILVER SEA! + + PEARL Iridescent! Pearl of the sea! + + Shimmering, glimmering Pearl of the sea! + White in the sun-flecked silver sea, + White in the moon-decked silver sea, + White in the wrath of the silver sea,-- + Pearl of the Silver Sea! + Lapped in the smile of the Silver Sea, + Ringed in the foam of the Silver Sea, + Glamoured in mists of the Silver Sea,-- + Pearl of the Silver Sea! + Glancing and glimmering under the sun, + Jewel and casket all in one, + Joy supreme of the sun's day-dream, + Soft in the gleam of the golden beam,-- + Pearl of the Silver Sea! + Splendour of Hope in the rising sun, + Glory of Love in the noonday sun, + Wonder of Faith in the setting sun,-- + Pearl of the Silver Sea! + + Gaunt and grim to the outer world, + Jewel and casket all impearled + With the kiss of the Silver Sea!-- + With the flying kiss of the Silver Sea, + With the long sweet kiss of the Silver Sea, + With the rainbow kiss of the Silver Sea,-- + + Pearl of the Silver Sea! + And oh the sight,--the wonderful sight, + When calm and white, in the mystic light, + Of her quivering pathway, broad and bright, + The Queen of the Night, in silver dight, + Sails over the Silver Sea! + + Wherever I go, and wherever I be, + The joy and the longing are there with me,-- + The gleam And the glamour come back to me,-- + In a mystical rapture there comes to me, + The call of the Silver Sea! + As needle to pole is my heart to thee, + Pearl of the Silver Sea! + + Pearl of the Pearl of the Silver Sea! + To some you are Margaret, but to me, + Always and ever, wherever I be, + You are Pearl of the Pearl of the Silver Sea! + + J.C.G. + + + + +PART THE FIRST + + +I + + NOTE.--_It would be impossible to depict the Sark of to-day + without using the names native to the Island. All such names + here employed, however, are used without any reference whatever + to any actual persons who may happen to bear similar names in + Sark. The characters are to be taken as types. The incidents are + in many cases fact._ + + +If you want murders, mysteries, or mud--pass on! This is a simple, +straightforward love-story. + + +"Jock, my lad," said Lady Elspeth softly, nodding her head very many +times, in that very knowing way of hers which made her look like a +Lord Chief Justice and a Fairy Godmother all in one, "I've found you +out." + +And when the shrewd old soul of her looked him gently through and +through in that fashion, he knew very much better than to attempt any +evasion. + +"Ah!" he said meekly, "I was afraid someone would, sooner or later. +I've been living in constant dread of it. But it's happened before, +you know, between you and me. What is it this time, dear Lady +Elspeth?" + +"Here have I been imputing grace to you for your kindly attentions to +a poor old woman whose race is nearly run, and setting you up above +the rest of them therefor, and lo, my idol----" + +"Ah!" he said again, with a reproving wag of the head, for he knew now +what was coming,--"idols are perverse, camstairy things at best, you +know, and a bit out of date too. And, besides,"--with a touch of +remonstrance--"at your age and with your bringing-up----" + +"Ay, ay, ye may be as insulting as ye choose, my laddie, and fling my +age and my upbringing in my face like a very man----" + +"There isn't a face like it in all England, and as to----" + +"I prefer ye to say Britain, as I've told ye before. Your bit England +is only a portion of the kingdom, and in very many respects the +poorest portion, notably in brains and manners and beauty. But ye +cannot draw me off like that, my laddie, whether it's meant for a +compliment or no. I was just about telling you you were a fraud----" + +"You hadn't got quite that length, you know, but----" + +"Will I prove it to you? Haven't you been coming here as regular as +the milkman for a month past----" + +"Oh, come now!--Only once a day. I've an idea milkie comes twice, and +besides----" + +"And what did ye come for, my lad?" with an emphatic nod and a +menacing shake of the frail white hand, pricelessly jewelled above, +comfortably black-silk-mittened below. "Tell me that now! What did ye +come for?" + +"To see the dearest old lady in England--Britain, I mean. And--" + +"Yes?--And?--" and she watched him, with her head a little on one side +and her eyes shining brightly, like an expectant motherly robin +hopping on treasure trove. + +He smiled back at her and said nothing. He knew she knew without his +telling. + +"And so I was only second fiddle--" she began, with an assumption of +scornful irascibility which became her less than her very oldest cap. + +"Oh, dear me, no! Leader of the orchestra!--Proprietor of the +house!--Sole director and manager and--" + +"Tuts! It was Margaret Brandt you came to see," and the twinkling +brown eyes held the merry gray ones with a steady challenge. + +"Partly,--and I was just about to say so when you interrupted me--" + +"Ay! Were you now? Ye can out with things quick enough at times, my +laddie!" + +"Well, you see, there are some things one does not speak about until +one feels one has an absolute right to." + +"You'd have told your mother, Jock." + +"Perhaps, I'm not sure,--not yet--not, at all events, until--" + +"And wasn't I to take her place when she left you all alone?" + +"And so you have. You're just the dearest and sweetest old--" + +"Second fiddle! Come away and we'll talk of Margaret, since that's all +you come for." + +"And isn't she worth coming for? Did you ever in all your life see +anything more wonderful than Margaret Brandt?" + +And she looked at him for half a minute with a twinkle in the shrewd +old eyes, which had surely seen many strange and wonderful things +since the first wonders passed and gave place to the common things of +life. Beautiful eyes they were still,--of a very tender brown, and +shining always with kindly feeling and deepest interest in the person +she was talking to. + +I do not know how it may be with you, but, personally, I detest people +whose eyes and thoughts go wandering away over your left shoulder +while you are talking with them. It may be, of course, that you are +not much of a talker and are simply boring them, but, all the same, +mental squinters are not to my liking. + +But Lady Elspeth was never bored--visibly, at all events, and while +you talked with her you were the one person in the world in whom she +was interested. + +Margaret's eyes had something of the same in them, but they were very +deep blue, and there was in them just that touch of maidenly reserve +which best becomes a maiden's eyes, until, to one at all events, she +may lay it aside and let her heart shine through. + +Lady Elspeth looked at him, then, for half a minute, with a starry +twinkle, and then said, with a finality of conviction that made her +dearer to him than ever-- + +"Never!" and he kissed her hand with fervour,--and not ungracefully, +since the action, though foreign to him, was absolutely spontaneous. + +"But--!" she said firmly. And he sat up. + +"But me no buts," he said. "And why?" + +"Well, you see, Margaret is by way of being an heiress--and you are +not." + +"I'm sorry. But, you see, I couldn't very well be if I tried. Still +I'm not absolutely penniless, and--" + +"Tuts, boy! What you have is just about enough to pay Jeremiah +Pixley's servants' wages." + +"D-hang Jeremiah Pixley!" + +"D-hang is not a nice expression to use before a lady, let me tell +you. What you have, as, I was saying, is just enough to make or mar +you--" + +"It's going to make me. I can live on it till things begin to come my +way." + +"Everyone writes nowadays," she said, with a dubious shake of the +head. "Who reads all the books passes my comprehension. I suppose you +have all just to buy one another's to make a bit of a living out of +it." + +"Like those washing people! But it's not quite as bad as all that. +There are still some intelligent people who buy books--good books, of +course, I mean." + +"Not many, I'm afraid. They read reviews and chatter as though they'd +read the books. And if they really want to read them they get them out +of a library. You don't see bought books lying on the tables, as you +used to do when I was a girl, and they were scarcer and dearer. How is +this last one going?" + +"I have reason to believe my publishers are not absolutely +broken-hearted over it, which leads me to think that they have +probably done pretty well out of it. They are not what you might call +a gushing race, you know, but they have given me a kind of cautious +half-hint that they might not refuse to look at my next if I offered +it to them on my bended knees. But let us get back to our--to Miss +Brandt. I had no idea she was an heiress. I have really never thought +of money in the matter, except as to how I could earn enough to offer +it to her." + +"She has a fair portion--about two thousand a year, I believe. Her +father was Danish Consul in Glasgow, and had a shipping business +there. I should not be surprised if Mr. Pixley had views of his own +concerning Margaret's portion and his son--and of course Margaret +herself." + +"Will you permit me to say, 'Hang Mr. Pixley!' dear Lady Elspeth? It +would be such a relief--if you're sure you don't mind." + +"You may say 'Hang Mr. Pixley!' though it is not an expression I am in +the habit of using myself. But please don't begin it with a D." + +"Hang Mr. Pixley, and Mr. Pixley's son, and all his intentions!" he +said fervently and with visible relish. + +"Yes," she nodded slowly, as though savouring it; and then added, with +a delicious twinkle of the soft brown eyes, "There is something in +that that appeals to me. Jeremiah Pixley is almost too good for this +world. At least--" + +"He is absolutely unwholesomely good. My own private opinion is that +he's a disreputable old blackg--I mean whited sepulchre." + +"Unwholesomely good!" She nodded again. "Yes,--that, I think, very +fairly expresses him. 'Unco' guid,' we would say up north. But, all +the same, he is Margaret's uncle and guardian and trustee. He is also +the kind of man whom nothing can turn from a line he has once +adopted." + +"I know. Pigheaded as a War-Office-mule," he side-tracked hastily. + +For she had looked at him with a momentary bristle of enquiry in the +gentle brown eyes, and he remembered, just in time, that her husband +had once held the reins in Pall Mall for half a year, when, feeling +atrophy creeping on, he resigned office and died three months later. + +He hastened to add,--"The ordinary Army-mule, you know, is specially +constructed with a cast-iron mouth, and a neck of granite, and a +disposition like--like Mr. Pixley's. I imagine Mr. Pixley can be +excessively unpleasant when he tries. To me he is excessively +unpleasant even to think of, and without any exertion whatever on his +part." + +"Yes. Mrs. Pixley would rather convey that impression. She is always +depressed and apprehensive-looking. But she is very fond of Margaret, +and that no doubt is why--But I suppose she really has no choice in +the matter, until she comes of age--" + +"Mrs. Pixley?" + +"Until Margaret comes into her own she is no doubt obliged to submit +to her guardian's views. It is difficult to imagine anyone not a +Pixley living in the Pixley atmosphere of their own free will. What is +the son like? I have only seen him once or twice. Does he take after +his father?" + +"He's about twice as tall, and several times as wide in some respects, +I should say,--certainly in the matter of the enjoyment of life. He's +not bad-looking--in a kind of a way, you know,--that is, for those who +like that kind of looks,--a trifle fleshy perhaps. But he's a fair +dancer, and sings a song well, and can talk about nothing as nicely +as any man I ever met. It's an accomplishment I often envy." + +"I wouldn't trouble about it, if I were you. There are things more +worth doing in the world. And that reminds me. We were talking of your +books. I've been wanting to tell you that your love-scenes are not +altogether to my liking. They are just a little--well, not quite--" + +"Yes, I know," he said sadly. "You see, I lack experience in such +things. Now, if Margaret--" + +"Don't tell me you want to use her simply as a model," she began, with +another incipient gentle bristle. + +"I want her as a model and a great many other things besides, dear +Lady Elspeth. I love Margaret Brandt with every atom of good that is +in me." + +"And she?" with a nod and a sparkle. + +"Ah! There now--that's what I don't know. She's not one to wear her +heart on her sleeve. At times I have dared to hope. Then again I have +feared--" + +"That is quite right. That is quite as it should be. Anything more, so +early as this, would imply unmaidenliness on her part." + +"Truly? You mean it? You are, without exception, the most charming old +lady in the world! You relieve my mind immensely. You see, she is +always so sweet and charming. But then she could not be anything +else, and it may really mean nothing. Do you really think I may hope?" + +"'White-handed Hope, thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings,'" +she quoted, with a smile. + +"That's Margaret," he murmured rapturously. + +"It's a poor kind of man that gives up hope until he lies in his +coffin, and even then--" and she nodded thoughtfully, as though +tempted to a descent into metaphysics. + +"Let us talk of bridal wreaths. They are very much nicer to think of +than coffins when one is discussing Margaret Brandt." + +"She is very sweet and very beautiful--" + +"There never was anyone like her in this world--unless it was my +mother and yourself." + +"Let Margaret be first with you, my boy. That also is as it should be. +Neither your dear mother nor I stand in need of empty compliments. +Margaret Brandt is worthy any good man's whole heart, and perhaps I +can be of some help to you. But, all the same, remember what I've +said. You may be too late in the field." + +"You are just the splendidest old lady in the world," he said +exuberantly; and added, with a touch of gloom, "She was talking of +going off to the Riviera." + +"Ah, then, I suppose I shall be in eclipse also, until she returns." + +"Oh no, you won't. We can talk of her, you know," at which Lady +Elspeth's eyes twinkled merrily. + +"What would you say to convoying a troublesome old lady to the +Riviera, yourself, Jock?" + +"You?" and he jumped up delightedly,--and just at that point old +Hamish opened the door of the cosy room, and announced-- + +"Miss Brandt, mem!" + + +II + +"Miss Brandt, mem!" announced old Hamish, in as dry and matter-of-fact +a voice as though it were only, "Here's the doctor, mem!" or "Dinner's +ready, mem!" and Margaret herself came in, rosy-faced and bright-eyed +from the kiss of the wind outside. + +Lady Elspeth laughed enjoyably at the sight of her, and touched the +bell for tea. + +"You are always like a breath from the heather to me, my dear, or a +glimpse of Schiehallion," said she, as they kissed, and Graeme stood +reverently looking on, as at a holy rite. + +"Oh, surely I'm not as rugged and wrinkled as all that!" laughed +Margaret. "And I certainly am not bald. How do you do, Mr. Graeme?" + +"There is no need to ask you that question, at any rate," he said, +with visible appreciation. + +"I have loved Schiehallion all my life," said Lady Elspeth. "To me +there is no mountain in the world to compare with it. You see how +one's judgment is biassed by one's affections. And how is Mrs. Pixley +to-day, my dear?" + +"She is much as usual, dear Lady Elspeth. She is never very lively, +you know. If anything, I think she is, perhaps, a trifle less lively +than usual just now." + +"And Mr. Pixley is as busied in good works as ever, I suppose." + +"As busy as ever--outside,"--at which gentle thrust the others smiled. + +"It's all very well to laugh," remonstrated Margaret, "but truly, you +know, philanthropy, like charity, would be none the less commendable +to its relations if it sometimes remembered that it had a home. I +sometimes think that if ever there was a deserving case it is poor +Aunt Susan." + +"And young Mr. Pixley? Doesn't he liven you up?" asked Lady Elspeth. +"He is very good company, I am told." + +"Oh, Charles is excellent company. If we didn't see him now and again +the house would be like a tomb. But he's not there all the time, and +we have relapses. He has his own rooms elsewhere, you know. And I'm +really not surprised. It taxes even him to lighten the deadly dulness +of Melgrave Square." + +"It must be a great comfort to Mrs. Pixley to have you with her, my +dear." + +"I can't make up for all she lacks in other directions," said +Margaret, with a shake of the head. "I get quite angry with Uncle +Jeremiah sometimes. He is so--so absorbed in benefiting other people +that he--Well, you can understand how delightful it is to be able to +run in here and find the sun always shining." + +"Thank you, my dear," said Lady Elspeth, with a twinkle in the brown +eyes. "Some people carry their own sunshine with them wherever they +go." + +"And some people decidedly don't," said Margaret, who was evidently +suffering from some unusual exhibition of Pixleyism. + +"It is generally possible to find a ray or so somewhere about, if you +know where to look for it," suggested Graeme. + +"I was just accusing Jock of coming here as regularly as the milkman," +twinkled Lady Elspeth. + +"We have a community of tastes, you see," he said, looking across at +Margaret. "I also have a craving for sunshine, and I naturally come +where I know it is to be found," and Lady Elspeth's eyes twinkled +knowingly again. + +"It's a good conceit of myself I'll be getting, if you two go on like +this." + +"I'm quite sure you will never think half as well of yourself as your +friends do," said Graeme. + +"Besides, you might even pass some of the credit on to us for the +excellent taste we display." + +"Ay, ay! Well, it's good to be young," said Lady Elspeth. + +"And it's very good to have delightful old sunbeams for friends." + +"To say nothing of the young ones," laughed the old lady. + +"They speak for themselves." + +"We are becoming quite a mutual admiration society," said Margaret. +"Have you been dining with your fellow Friars lately, Mr. Graeme?" + +"I'm sorry to say I've been neglecting my privileges in that respect. +I haven't been there for an age--not since that last Ladies' Dinner, +in fact. You see, I'm an infant there yet, and I scarcely know +anybody, and I've been very busy--" + +"Chasing sunbeams," suggested Lady Elspeth. + +"And other things." + +"You are busy on another book?" asked Margaret. + +"Just getting one under way. It takes a little time to get things into +proper shape, but once it is going, the work is very absorbing and +sheer delight. You were talking of going abroad again. Are you still +thinking of it?" + +"I was hoping to get away. I wanted Aunt Susan to come with me to the +Riviera, but she flatly refuses to leave home at present, so I'm +afraid that's off." + +"Well, now, that's curious. I've been feeling something of an +inclination that way myself," said Lady Elspeth. "I wonder if you'd +feel like coming with me, Margaret. I don't believe we would quarrel." + +"Oh, I would be delighted, dear Lady Elspeth, and I'll promise not to +quarrel whatever you do to me." + +"Who ever heard of sunbeams quarrelling?" said Graeme gaily, with Lady +Elspeth's earlier suggestion to himself dancing in his brain. "But +think of London left utterly sunless." + +"London will never miss us," said Margaret. "It still has bridge, and +we are neither of us players." + +And then, having an appointment from which he could not escape, and +knowing that they always enjoyed a little personal chat, he +reluctantly took his leave, and left them to the discussion of their +new plans. + + +III + +He had met Margaret Brandt for the first time at a Ladies' Banquet of +the Whitefriars Club. + +Providence,--I insist upon this. No mere chance set them next to one +another at that hospitable board,--Providence, forecasting the future, +placed them side by side, and he was introduced to her by his good +friend Adam Black, who had the privilege of her acquaintance and sat +opposite enjoying them greatly. + +For they were both eminently good to look upon;--Margaret, tall and +slender, and of a most gracious figure and bearing, with thoughtful, +dark-blue eyes, a very charming face accentuated by the +characteristics of her northern descent, and a wealth of shining brown +hair coiled about her shapely head;--Graeme, tall, clean-built, of an +outdoor complexion, with nothing of the student about him save his +deep, reflective eyes, and the little lines in the corners which +wrinkled up so readily at the overflowing humours of life. + +It was Charles Pixley--Charles Svendt Pixley, to accord him fullest +justice, which I am most anxious to do--who brought her, and to that +extent we are his debtors. + +Though why Pixley should be a Whitefriar passes one's comprehension. +His pretensions to literature were, I should say, bounded by his Stock +Exchange notebook and his betting-book. He had not even read Graeme's +latest, though it was genuinely in its second--somewhat +limited--edition, and he did not even smile affably when Adam Black +introduced them. Graeme, however, had no fault to find with him for +that. There were others in like dismal case. + +Pixley nodded cursorily at the introduction, with a +"How-d'ye-do-who-the-deuce-are-you?" expression on his face. He struck +Graeme as not bad-looking, in a somewhat over-fed and self-indulgent +fashion, and inclined to superciliousness and self-complacency, if not +to actual superiority and condescension. It occurred to him afterwards +that this might arise from his absorption in his companion, for he +turned again at once to Miss Brandt and began chattering like a lively +and intelligent parrot. + +Graeme was one of the silent and observant ones, and he could not but +think how beneficent Nature is in casting us in many moulds. If we +were all built alike, he thought, and all dribbled smart inanities, +and nothing but inanities, with the glibness of a Charles Pixley, what +a world it would be! + +However, it was Charles Pixley who brought Margaret Brandt to that +dinner, and Graeme sat on the other side of her there. And so, Charles +Svendt--blessings on thee, unworthy friar though thou be! + +And presently, Miss Brandt, wearying no doubt of _perdrix, perdrix, +toujours perdrix_,--that is to say of Charles's sprightly chatter, of +which she doubtless got more than enough at home,--essayed +conversation with the silent one at her other side, and, one may +suppose, found it more to her taste, or more of a novelty, than the +Pixley outflow. + +For, once started, she and Graeme talked together most of the +evening--breaking off reluctantly to drink various toasts to people in +whom they had, at the moment, no remotest interest whatever, and +recovering the thread of their conversation before they resumed their +seats. + +Only one toast really interested Graeme, and that was "The Ladies--the +Guests of the Evening"; and that he drank right heartily, with his +eyes on Miss Brandt's sparkling face, and if it had been left to +himself he would have converted it from plural to singular and drunk +to her alone. + +Adam Black, excellent fellow, and gifted beyond most with wisdom and +insight, and the condensed milk of human kindness, took upon himself +the burden of Pixley, and engaged that eminent financier so deeply in +talk concerning matters of import, that Miss Brandt and Graeme found +themselves at liberty to enjoy one another to their hearts' content. + +They talked on many subjects--tentatively, and as sounding novel +depths--in a way that occasioned one of them, at all events, very +great surprise. Indeed, it seemed to him afterwards that, for a silent +and observant man, he had been led into quite unwonted, but none the +less very enjoyable, ways. He went home that night feeling very much +as Columbus must have done when his New World swam before his eyes in +misted glory. He too had sighted a new world. He had discovered +Margaret Brandt. + +She had travelled widely over Europe, he learned, and was looking +forward with eagerness to another tour in the near future. They +discovered a common liking for many of the places she had visited. + +She was a wide and intelligent reader. To him it was a rare pleasure +to meet one. + +"New places, and new books, and new people are always a joy to me," +she said, in a glow of naïve enthusiasm. And then she blushed slightly +lest he should discover a personal application in the last-named, or +even in the last two. + +But Graeme was thinking of her, and was formulating her character from +the delicious little bits of self-revelation which slipped out every +now and again. + +"Yes," he said, "new things are very enjoyable, and in these times +there is no lack of them. The tendency, I should say, is towards +superfluity. But new places----! There are surely not many left except +the North Pole and the South. Everybody goes everywhere nowadays, and +you tumble over friends in Damascus and find your tailor picnicking on +the slopes of Lebanon." + +Now, as it chanced,--if you admit such a thing as chance in so tangled +a coil as this complex world of ours,--Adam Black had just tucked +Charles Pixley into a close little argumentative corner, and given him +food for contemplation, and catching Graeme's last remark, he smiled +across the table, and in a word of four letters dropped a seed into +several lives which bore odd fruit and blossom. + +"Ever been to Sark, Graeme?" he asked. + +"Sark? No. Let me see----" + +"Channel Islands. You go across from Guernsey. If ever you want relief +from your fellows--to finish a book, or to start one, or just to +grizzle and find yourself--try Sark. It's the most wonderful little +place, and it's amazing how few people know it." + +Then Charles Pixley bethought him of a fresh line of argument, and +engaged Black, and was promptly shown the error of his ways; and +Margaret Brandt and Graeme resumed their discussion of places and +books and people. And before that evening ended, with such affinity of +tastes, their feet were fairly set in the rosy path of friendship. + +Now that is how it all began, and that explains what happened +afterwards when the right time came. + +Chance, forsooth! We know better. + + +IV + +Not long after that dinner, Lady Elspeth Gordon came up to town for +the first time after her husband's death. + +She had been John Graeme's mother's closest friend, and when he was +left alone in the world, the dear old lady, before she had fully +recovered from her own sore loss, took upon herself a friendly +supervision of him and his small affairs, and their intercourse was +very delightful. + +For Lady Elspeth knew everybody worth knowing, and all that was to be +known about the rest; and those gentle brown eyes of hers had missed +little of what had gone on around her since she first came to London, +fifty years before. She had known Wellington, and Palmerston, and John +Russell, and Disraeli, and Gladstone, and Louis Napoleon, and +Garibaldi, and many more. She was a veritable golden link with the +past, and a storehouse of reminiscence and delightful insight into +human nature. + +And--since she knew everyone worth knowing, Graeme very soon +discovered that she knew Margaret Brandt, and Miss Brandt's very +frequent visits to Phillimore Gardens proved that she was an +acceptable visitor there. + +Upon that, his own visits to Lady Elspeth naturally became still more +frequent than before,--approximating even, as she had said, the record +of the milkman,--and, though his dear old friend might rate him gently +as to the motives for his coming, he had every reason to believe that +her sympathies were with him, and that she would do what she could to +further his hopes. + +He had never, however, openly discussed Margaret with her until that +afternoon of which I have already spoken. + +Miss Brandt, you see, was always most graciously kind and charming +whenever they met. But that was just her natural self. She was +charming and gracious to everyone--even to Charles Pixley, the while +he swamped her with inane tittle-tattle, and higher proof of grace +than that it would be difficult to imagine. + +And, since she was charming to all, Graeme felt that he could base no +solid hopes on her gracious treatment of himself, though the quiet +recollection of every smallest detail of it would set him all aglow +with hope for days after each chance meeting. And so he had never +ventured to discuss the matter with Lady Elspeth, and would not have +done so that afternoon had she not herself opened it. + +The dear old lady's encouragement, however, deepened and strengthened +his hopes, in spite of her insidious hints concerning Mr. Pixley's +possible intentions. For she was a shrewd, shrewd woman, and those +soft brown eyes of hers saw far and deep. And, since she bade him +hope, hope he would, though every brick in London town became a Pixley +set on thwarting him. + +The fact of Margaret's means being, for the present at all events, so +much larger than his own, he would not allow to trouble him. It was +Margaret herself he wanted, and had wanted long before he heard she +had money. The troublesome accident of her possessions should not come +between them if he could help it. He did not for one moment believe +she would ever think so ill of him as to believe that he wanted her +for anything but herself. And in any case, if kind Providence bestowed +her upon him, he would insist on her money being all settled on +herself absolutely and irrevocably. + +Since that never-to-be-forgotten dinner, they had come across one +another at Lady Elspeth's with sufficient frequency to open the eyes +of that astute old lady to the heart-state of one of them at all +events. Possibly she knew more of the heart and mind of the other than +she cared to say in plain words; but, as a woman, she would naturally +abide by the rules of the game. In the smaller games of life it is +woman's privilege, indeed, to stretch and twist all rules to suit her +own convenience, but in this great game of love, woman stands by woman +and the womanly rules of the game--unless, indeed, she craves the +stakes for herself, in which case---- + +And so--although Lady Elspeth favoured him, that afternoon, only with +vague generalities as to the pleasures of hope, and afforded him no +solid standing-ground for the sole of his hopeful foot, but left him +to discover that for himself, as was only right and proper--his heart +stood high, and he looked forward with joyous anticipation to the +future. + +The radiant sun of all his rosy heavens was Margaret Brandt, and he +would not for one moment admit the possibility of its clouding by +anything of the name of Pixley. + + +V + +Graeme had not the entrée of the Pixley mansion. + +Mr. Pixley he knew, by repute only, as the head of Pixley's, the great +law-firm, in Lincoln's Inn. Mrs. Pixley he had never met. + +Mr. Pixley was a bright and shining light--yea, a veritable +light-house--of respectability and benevolence, and bushel coverings +were relegated to their proper place outside his scheme of life. His +charities were large, wide-spread, religiously advertised in the +donation columns of the daily papers, and doubtless palliated the +effects of multitudes of other people's sins. + +He was a church-warden, president and honorary treasurer of numerous +philanthropical societies--in a word, at once a pillar and +corner-stone of his profession, his church, and his country. + +He was also a smug little man with a fresh, well-fed face, bordered by +a touch of old-fashioned, gray side-whisker, rather outstanding blue +eyes, and he carried, and sometimes used as it was intended to be +used, a heavy gold pince-nez, which more frequently, however, acted as +a kind of lightning-conductor for the expression of his feelings. A +pince-nez of many parts:--now it was a scalping-knife, slaughtering +the hopes of some harried victim of the law; and again, it was a bâton +beating time to a hymn or the National Anthem; possibly it was, in +moments of relaxation, a jester's wand poking fun at ancient cronies, +though indeed a somewhat full-blooded imagination is required for +that. I have heard that once when, in the fervour of a speech, Mr. +Pixley dropped his pince-nez among the reporters below, he was utterly +unable to continue until the fetish was recovered and handed back to +him. It is an undoubted fact that though you might forget the exact +lines of Mr. Pixley's face and even his words, you never forgot the +fascinating evolutions of his heavy gold pince-nez. Like a Frenchman's +hands, it told even more than his face or his words. + +He had a good voice, and a deportment which had, without doubt, been +specially created for the chairmanship of public meetings. And he was +Margaret Brandt's uncle by marriage, her guardian and trustee, and the +father of Charles Svendt, on whose account Lady Elspeth had thought +well to throw out warning hints of possible paternal intentions +respecting Margaret and her fortune. + +From every point of view Graeme detested Mr. Pixley, though he had +never passed a word with him. He was too perfect, too immaculate. His +"unco' guidness," as Lady Elspeth would have said, bordered on +ostentation. The sight and sound of him aroused in some people a wild +inclination towards unaccustomed profanity and wallowing in the mire. +He was so undisguisedly and self-satisfiedly better than his fellows +that one felt his long and flawless life almost in the nature of a +rebuke if not an affront. He was too obtrusively good for this world. +One could not but feel that if he had been cut off in his youth, and +buried under a very white marble slab and an appropriate inscription, +both he and the world would have been far more comfortably +circumstanced. And John Graeme devoutly wished he had been so +favoured, for, in that case, he could neither have been Margaret's +uncle, trustee, nor guardian, and it is possible that there would also +have been no Charles Svendt Pixley to trouble the course of his own +true love. + +But of Charles Svendt I have no harsh word to say. He could not help +being his father's son, and one must not blame him for the +unavoidable. And, in most respects, he was as unlike his worthy parent +as circumstances permitted. + +He was on the Stock Exchange and doing well there. He had very +comfortable rooms near St. James's Square, and enjoyed life in his own +way and at his own not inconsiderable expense. When Margaret Brandt +was at home, however, he was much at his father's house in Melgrave +Square. + +He made no pretence to unco' guidness whatever. He subscribed to +nothing outside the House, with two exceptions--the Dogs' Home at +Battersea, and the Home of Rest for Aged Horses at Acton--signs of +grace both these offerings, I take it! + +To all other demands he invariably replied,--"Can't burn the candle +at both ends, my dear sir. The governor charitables for the whole +family. He'll give you something if you'll let him head the list and +keep it standing." + +No, we have no fault to find with Charles Svendt. Time came when he +was weighed and not found wanting. + +Graeme and he had run across one another occasionally--at the +Travellers' Club and elsewhere--but their acquaintance had never +ripened to the point of introduction till that night at the +Whitefriars' dinner. After that they were on nodding terms, but not +much more, until--well, until later. + +So, though there was hope in his heart, born of Lady Elspeth's +approval and quiet suggestings, John Graeme was still somewhat +doubtful as to Margaret Brandt's feelings towards him, and quite at a +loss how to arrive at a more exact knowledge of them. + +Too precipitate an advance might end in utter rout. And opportunities +of approach were all too infrequent for his wishes. + +Their chance meetings were rare and exquisite pleasures,--to be looked +forward to with an eagerness that held within it the strange +possibility of pain through sheer excess of longing;--to be enjoyed +like the glory of a fleeting dream;--to be looked back upon with +touches of regret at opportunities missed;--to be dwelt upon for days +and nights with alternate hope and misgiving, with the rapturous +recalling of every tone of the sweet voice, of every word it had +uttered, of every gracious gesture, and every most minute and subtle +change in the sweetest face and the frankest and most charming eyes in +the world. + + +VI + +Their acquaintance had blossomed thus far, when a dire disaster +happened and justified all his fears. + +He ran gaily up the steps of Lady Elspeth's house one afternoon, +brimming with hope that kindly fortune might bring Margaret that way +that day, and was hurled into deepest depths of despair by old Hamish +as soon as he opened the door. + +"Ech, Mr. Graeme!" said the old man, with his grizzled old face tuned +to befitting concern. "Her leddyship's awa' to Inverstrife at a +moment's notice. She had a tailegram late last night saying the little +leddy--the Countess, ye ken--was very bad, and would she go at once. +And she and Jannet were off by the first train this morning. They aye +send for us, ye ken, when anything by-ordinar's to the fore. It's the +little leddy's first, ye understand, and ye'll mind that her own +mother died two years ago." + +"Well, well! I'm sorry you've had such an upsetting, Hamish. And +there's no knowing when Lady Elspeth will return, I suppose?" + +"It a' depends on the little leddy, Mr. Graeme. Her leddyship will +stay till everything's all right, ye may depend upon that. She told me +to give you her kindest regairds and beg you to excuse her not +writing. They were all on their heads, so to speak, as ye can +understand." + +"Yes, of course. Well, we must just hope the little lady will pull +through all right. If I don't hear from Lady Elspeth I will call now +and again for your latest news." + +"Surely, sir. Jannet'll be letting me know, if her leddyship's too +busy. Miss Brandt was here about hauf an hour ago," he added, with +unmoved face;--to think of any man, even so ancient a man as old +Hamish, being able to state a fact so great as that with unmoved face! +And there was actually no sign of reminiscent and lingering after-glow +perceptible in him!--but Graeme was not at all sure that there was not +a veiled twinkle away down in the depths of his little blue-gray eyes. + +"Ah! Miss Brandt has been here! She would be surprised too----" + +"She was that, sir,--and a bit disappointed, it seemed to me----" + +Yes, there _was_ a twinkle in the old fellow's eyes! Oh, he knew, he +knew without a doubt. Trust old Hamish for not missing much that was +to the fore. He and his old wife, Jannet Gordon, had been in Lady +Elspeth's service for over forty years, ever since her leddyship +married into the family, and Lady Elspeth trusted them both implicitly +and discussed most matters very freely with them. The dilatations of +those three shrewd old people, concerning things in general, and the +men and women of their acquaintance in particular, would have been +rare, rare hearing. + +"Well, I'll call again in a day or two, Hamish," and he went away +along the gloomy streets, which were all ablaze with soft April +sunshine, and yet to him had suddenly become darkened. For he saw at a +glance all that this was like to do for him. + + + + +PART THE SECOND + + +I + +The rare delight of his meetings with Margaret was at an end. Bluff +Fortune had slammed the door in his face, and White-handed Hope had +folded her golden wings and sat moping with melancholy mien. + +He wandered into Kensington Gardens, but the daffodils swung their +heads despondently, and the gorgeous masses of hyacinths made him +think of funeral plumes on horses' heads. + +He went on into the Park. She might be driving there, and he might +catch glimpse of her. But she was not, and all the rest were less than +nothing to him. + +He found himself at Hyde Park Corner and back again at Kensington +Gate. But the door was still closed in his face, and he longed for the +sight of somebody else's as he had never longed before. + +The post was of course open to him, but, at this stage at all events, +he felt that the written word would be eminently inadequate and +unsatisfying. + +He wanted, when he approached that mighty question, to look into her +eyes and see her answer in their pure depths before it reached her +lips,--to watch the fluttering heart-signals in her sweet face and +learn from them more than all the words in the world could tell. +Letters were, at best, to actual speech but as actual speech would be +to all that his heart-quickened eyes would discover if he could but +ask her face to face. + +And besides--he would have wished to make his footing somewhat surer +before putting everything to the test. + +But, since matters had gone thus far, it was quite out of the question +to let them stop there unresolved. Either the precious cargo must be +brought safely into port or the derelict must be sunk and the fairway +cleared. The question was--how to proceed? + +The unwritten laws of social usage would hardly permit him to carry +the Pixley mansion by assault and insist on seeing Miss Brandt. +Besides, that might expose her to annoyance, and that he would not +upon any consideration. + +And so, before he reached his rooms, his mind was groping clumsily +after written phrases which should in some sort express that which was +in him without saying too much too soon,--which should delicately hint +his regrets at this sudden curtailment of their acquaintance, and +leave it for her to say whether or no she regarded the matter in the +same light. + +Lady Elspeth's sudden summons to the north furnished an acceptable +text. Margaret was not to know that he knew of her call at Phillimore +Gardens. It was surely but a friendly act on his part to inform her of +a matter so nearly concerning one who was dear to them both. + +It took a considerable time, however, and the expenditure of much +thought and ink and paper, before he succeeded in producing a letter +in any degree to his liking. And even when it was written many +perusals only served to deepen his doubts. + +In any case, it was the best he could do under the circumstances, and +since he could not see her answer in her eyes or in her face, the +words she would send him in reply would surely afford his quickened +perceptions some indication of her feeling, though nothing to what her +presence would have told him. + +So he wrote-- + + "Dear Miss Brandt,--When I called at Lady Elspeth Gordon's this + afternoon, I learned, to my very great regret, in which I dare + to hope you may participate, that our dear old friend had been + summoned to Inverstrife at almost a moment's notice, by the + sudden illness of her niece, the Countess of Assynt. + + "I trust her visit may not need to be a very extended one, but + Lady Elspeth is such a tower of strength to all who seek her + help that she is not likely to return so long as she can be of + any possible assistance to her friends. + + "For reasons which, perhaps, I need not particularise, her + sudden departure is to me a loss beyond its apparent magnitude. + The hours I have spent at her house have been among the + brightest of my life. You also have enjoyed her friendship. I + venture to hope that you also will miss her. + + "Should I not have the pleasure of seeing you for some little + time, I would beg of you to bear me in your kindly + remembrance.--Sincerely yours, + + "JOHN C. GRAEME." + +Did it say too much? Would she look upon it as an overstepping of the +limits their acquaintance had reached? + +Did it say enough? Could she possibly overlook the things he would so +dearly have liked to say but had left unsaid? + +Did it say too little? Could she possibly deem it an unnecessary +liberty, and cold at that? He did not think she could by any +possibility look at it in that light. + +But after it was at last surely lodged in the pillar-box, all these +doubts came back upon him with tenfold force, and his sleep that night +would have been short-commons for a nightingale. + +She would get his letter by the first post in the morning. Would she +answer it at once? Or would she wait half a day considering it? + +Either course held hopeful possibilities. A prompt answer would +surely suggest a concurrence of feeling. An answer delayed would +without doubt mean that she was pondering his words and reading +between the lines. So he possessed his soul in patience, of a somewhat +attenuated texture, and waited in hope. + +But the whole day passed, and the night, and the next morning's post +still brought him nothing,--nothing but an intimation from a publisher +of excellent standing that he would not decline to look over the +manuscript of his next book if he was open to an offer. And this +important document he tossed on one side as lightly as if it were a +begging letter or a tailor's advertisement. + +What were any other letters, or all the letters in the world, to him +when the one letter he desired was not there? + +All that bright April day he waited indoors, in order to get +Margaret's letter the moment it arrived. For how should he wander +abroad, in gloomy-blazing streets or desolate-teeming parks with that +anxiously-expected letter possibly awaiting him at home? + +The callous passage of the last post, after knocking cheerfully at +every door but his own, left him wondering and desperate. + +Could he by any possibility have addressed his letter wrongly? It was +not easy to make a mistake in No. 1 Melgrave Square. + +Could it have gone astray? The Post Office was abominably careless at +times. One was constantly hearing of letters slipping down behind +desks and monstrously delivered twenty years after date. What earthly +good would that letter be delivered when he was forty-seven and +Margaret Brandt somewhere in the neighbourhood of forty? Truly, it was +monstrous, it was abominable that such carelessness should be +permitted in the public departments! + +Could Margaret have taken umbrage at anything he had said? He conned +his rough draft with solicitous care. It seemed new and strange and +crude to him. He feared at each word to come upon the one that might +have offended her. But no word, no phrase, nothing even of all that he +had left unsaid sprang up before his horrified eyes to choke him with +a sense of inadequacy, or inadvertency, or trespass. + +No sleep got he that night for cudgelling his tired brains for reasons +why no answer had come from Margaret. + +Could she be ill? She was well enough, two days before, to call at +Lady Elspeth's house. But, of course, even in a day one may take a +chill and be prostrated. + +The possibility of that was brought home to him next morning by his +landlady's surprised stare and exclamation at sight of his face. + +"Law, Mr. John!"--she had been handmaid to his mother for many years +and he was still always Mr. John to her,--"Have you got the influenza +too? Everyone seems to have it nowadays." + +He reassured her on the point. But every friend he met that day +credited him with it, and suggested remedies and precautions +sufficient to have made an end of any ordinary man. + +He was vexed to think his face so clear an index of his feelings, but, +truly, his spirits were none of the best and the weather was +enervatingly warm. + +It was quite inconceivable to him that Margaret Brandt should, of +knowledge and intention, drop their pleasant acquaintance in this +fashion. He believed he knew her well enough to know that, even if she +had any fault to find with his letter, she would still have replied to +it, and would have delicately conveyed her feeling in her answer. + +Then, either she had never received it, or, for some good reason or +other, she was unable to reply. + +He went down to Melgrave Square to make sure that No. 1 was still +there. Possibly he might come across Margaret in the neighbourhood. If +he did he would know at a glance if she had received his letter. + +But No. 1 offered him no explanations. It stood as usual, large and +prim and precise, the very acme of solid, sober wealth and assertive +moral rectitude. He was strongly tempted to call and ask for Miss +Brandt, but it was only ten o'clock in the morning, and the house +looked so truly an embodiment in stucco of Mrs. Grundy and Jeremiah +Pixley, that he forbore and went on his melancholy way. + +First, to his rooms again, to see if by chance the letter had come in +his absence. Then, as it had not, to Lady Elspeth Gordon's for old +Hamish's latest news, which, in a letter from his wife, was +satisfactory as far as it went, but pointed to a protracted stay. And +then, with stern resolution, up to Baker Street and away by train to +Chesham, for a long day's tramp through the Buckingham hills and +dales, by Chenies to Chorley Wood and Rickmansworth, so to weary the +body that the wearier brain should get some rest that night. + +The sweet soft air and sunshine, the leisurely life of the villages, +and the cheerful unfoldings of the spring, in wood and field and +hedgerow, brought him to a more hopeful frame of mind. Every sparrow +twittered hope. The thrushes and young blackbirds fluted it +melodiously. It was impossible to remain unhopeful in such goodly +company. Something unexpected, accidental, untoward, had prevented +Margaret replying to his letter. Time would clear it up and set him +wondering at his lapse from fullest faith. + +Also--he would risk even further rebuff. He would write again, and +this time he would trust no precarious and problematical post-office. +He would drop his letter into the Pixley letter-box himself, and so be +sure that it got there. + +If then no answer,--to the winds with Mrs. Grundy and all her coils +and conventions! He would call and see Margaret himself, and learn +from her own eyes and face and lips how matters stood, and Mrs. Grundy +might dance and scream on the step outside until she grew tired of the +exercise. + +There was joy and hope in action once more. Patient waiting on +slowly-dying Hope is surely the direst moral and mental torture to +which poor humanity can be subjected. That is where woman +pre-eminently overpasses man. Woman can wait unmurmuringly on dying +Hope till the last breath is gone, then silently take up her burden +and go on her way--or, if the strain has been too great, fold quiet +hands on quiet heart and follow her dead hopes into the living hope +beyond. Man must aye be doing--and as often as not, such natural +judgment as he possesses being warped and jangled by the strain of +waiting, he succeeds only in making matters worse and a more complete +fool of himself. + +To be writing to Margaret again was to be living in hope once more. + +If nothing came of this, he would call at the Pixley house. + +If nothing came of that--he grew valiant in his new access of life--he +would beard Jeremiah Pixley in his den in Lincoln's Inn, state clearly +how matters stood, and request permission to approach his ward. + +After all, this is a free country, and all men are equal under the +law, though he had his own doubts as to whether he would find himself +quite equal to that gleaming pillar of light, Mr. Jeremiah Pixley. + +So he wrote-- + + "DEAR MISS BRANDT,--I wrote to you a few days ago, giving you + the information of our dear friend Lady Elspeth's sudden summons + to Inverstrife, to attend her niece, the Countess of Assynt. + + "I hope you will not consider it presumption on my part to + express the fear that my letter has somehow miscarried--probably + through some oversight of my own, or carelessness on the part of + the postal authorities. + + "You will, I know, be glad to hear that Lady Elspeth + accomplished her journey in safety and without undue discomfort. + But Lady Assynt's condition makes it probable that her stay may + be somewhat prolonged. + + "I venture to hope that you may regret this as much as I do. All + who enjoyed Lady Elspeth's friendship and hospitality cannot but + miss her sorely. + + "I hope, however, that I may still have the pleasure of meeting + you occasionally elsewhere. When one has not the habit of + readily making new friendships one clings the more firmly to + those already made.--Sincerely yours, + + "JOHN C. GRAEME." + +That letter he dropped into the Pixley letterbox himself that night, +and so was assured of its delivery. But two days passed in waning +hope, and the afternoon of the third found him on the doorstep of No. +1 Melgrave Square. + + +II + +"Miss Brandt?" + +The solemn-faced man-servant eyed him suspiciously as a stranger. He +looked, to Graeme, like a superannuated official of the Court of +Chancery. + +"Miss Brandt is not at home, sir." + +"Mrs. Pixley?" + +"Mrs. Pixley is not at home, sir." + +Was he right or wrong, he wondered, in thinking he detected a gleam of +satisfied anticipation, of gratified understanding, in the solemn +one's otherwise rigid eye--as of one who had been told to expect this +and was lugubriously contented that it had duly come to pass? + +However, there was nothing more to be done there at the moment. The +polite conventions, to say nothing of the law, forbade him the +pleasure of hurling the outcast of Chancery into the kennel and +forcing his way in. Instead, he hailed a hansom and drove straight to +Lincoln's Inn, boldly demanded audience of Mr. Pixley on pressing +private business, and presently found himself in the presence. + +Mr. Pixley stood on the hearthrug with his back to the fire, and +handled his gold pince-nez defensively. + +Here also Graeme had an intuition that he was expected, which was +somewhat odd, you know, unless his letters had been handed to Mr. +Pixley for perusal, which did not seem likely. + +Mr. Pixley bowed formally and he responded--the salute before the +click of the foils. + +Mr. Pixley stood expectant, but by no means inviting of confidences +such as his visitor was about to tender him. Rather he seemed fully +armed for the defence, especially in the matter of the heavy gold +pince-nez, which he held threateningly, after the manner of the +headsman of old towards the victim on whom he was about to operate. + +"I have taken the liberty of calling, Mr. Pixley," said Graeme,--and +Mr. Pixley's manner in subtle fashion conveyed his full recognition of +the fact that liberty it undoubtedly was, and that he had no smallest +shadow of a right to be there,--"to inquire after Miss Brandt." + +"Miss Brandt?" said Mr. Pixley vaguely, as though the name were new +and strange to him. Or perhaps it was an endeavour on his part to +express the impassable gulf which lay between his visitor and his +ward, and the profound amazement he felt at any attempt on his +visitor's part to abridge it. He also made a little involuntary +preliminary cut at him with the pince-nez, as much as to say, "If this +my weapon were of a size commensurate with my wishes and your +colossal impudence, your head would lie upon the ground, young man." + +"I have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Brandt at Lady Elspeth +Gordon's and elsewhere. I think I may claim that we were on terms of +friendship. Lady Elspeth has been called from home very suddenly to +the bedside of her niece, Lady Assynt, and I have written twice to +Miss Brandt and have had no reply. It struck me that she might be ill +and I have called to inquire." + +This was all lame enough no doubt, and so he felt it, but it was only +in the nature of preliminary feinting. They were not yet at grips. + +"Ah!" with ponderous deliberation, "you have called to inquire if Miss +Brandt is ill. I have pleasure in informing you that she is not." + +"I am glad to hear that, at all events. Might I ask if you are aware +of any reason why she should not have received my letters--or replied +to them?" + +"Two questions," said Mr. Pixley, cutting them in slices with his +pince-nez, as though they were to be charged up to his visitor at so +much per pound. "There is no reason whatever why Miss Brandt should +not have received your letters. There may be the best possible reasons +why she should not reply to them." + +"So far as I have been able to form an opinion of Miss Brandt it is +quite unlike her not to have, at all events, acknowledged them." + +"Ah! Your opportunities have probably been limited, Mr.--er--"--with +a glance at the card--"Graeme, and you may possibly be--from your +calling upon me I judge you undoubtedly are--ignorant of the facts of +the case," and the gold pince-nez hammered that into the stolid young +man's head. + +"Perhaps you would be so good as to enlighten me." + +"It would perhaps be as well to do so. To be perfectly frank with you, +Mr. Graeme, my ward had the very best of reasons for handing your +letters to me and not replying to them herself." + +"Really! I would esteem it a favour, Mr. Pixley, if you would +enlighten me further." + +"Certainly!" with an airy wave of the pince-nez. "I intend to do so. +The simple fact of my ward's engagement to my son, and that they are +looking forward to the celebration of their marriage in something less +than three months, will probably suffice to explain Miss Brandt's +disinclination to enter into correspondence with a comparative +stranger,"--and the pince-nez shredded Graeme's hopes into little +pieces and scattered them about the floor. + +"Miss Brandt is engaged to your son?" he jerked, feeling not a little +foolish, and decidedly downhearted. + +"As I have informed you. It is a union to which we have been looking +hopefully forward for some time past--a most excellent conjunction of +hearts and fortunes. My ward possesses some means, as you are +doubtless aware,"--with an insolent thrust of the pince-nez at the +would-be suitor's honour,--"and my son is also well provided for in +that respect." + +"Then--I am afraid my visit is something in the nature of an +intrusion." Mr. Pixley bowed his fullest acquiescence in this very +proper estimate of his position, and the pince-nez intimated that the +way out lay just behind him and that the sooner he took advantage of +it the better. + +"I can only say, by way of apology," added Graeme, "that I was wholly +unaware of what you have just told me. I will wish you good-day, Mr. +Pixley." + +Mr. Pixley and the pince-nez wafted him towards the door, and the +lumpy cobbles of the courtyard outside seemed to him, for the moment, +absolutely typical of life. + +He went back home numbed and sore at heart. It was hard to believe +this of Margaret Brandt. + +And yet--he said to himself--it was wholly he who was to blame. He had +deceived himself. He had wished to believe what he had so earnestly +desired should be. Possibly he had closed his eyes to facts and +indications which might have enlightened him if he had been on the +look-out for them. Possibly--well, there!--he had played the fool +unconsciously, and he was not the first. It only remained for him now +to play the man. + +He felt sore, and bruised, and run down, and for the moment somewhat +at odds with life. He would get away from it all to some remote +corner, to rest for a time and recover tone, and then to work. For +work, after all, is the mighty healer and tonic, and when it is to +one's taste there are few wounds it cannot salve. + + + + +PART THE THIRD + + +I + +Six o'clock next morning found Graeme on the deck of the _Ibex_ as she +threaded her way swiftly among the bristling black rocks that guard +the coast of Guernsey. + +Herm and Jethou lay sleeping in the eye of the sun. Beyond them lay a +filmy blue whaleback of an island which he was told was Sark, and it +was to Sark he was bound. + +And wherefore Sark, when, within reasonable limits, all the wide world +lay open to him? + +Truly, it might not be easy to say. But this I know,--having so far +learned the lesson of life, though missing much else--that at times, +perhaps at all times, when we think our choice of ways our very +own,--when we stand in doubt at the crossroads of life, and then +decide on this path or that, and pride ourselves on the exercise of +our high prerogative as free agents,--the result, when we look back, +bears in upon our hearts the mighty fact that a higher mind than our +own has been quietly at work, shaping our ends and moulding and +rounding our lives. We may doubt it at times. We may take all the +credit to ourselves for dangers passed and tiny victories won, but in +due time the eyes of our understanding are opened--and we know. + +Possibly it was the rapt eulogiums of his friend Black--who had spent +the previous summer in Sark, and had ever since been seeking words +strong enough in which to paint its charms--that forced its name to +the front when he stood facing the wide world, that lacked, for him at +all events, a Margaret Brandt, and was therefore void and desolate. + +"If ever you seek perfect peace, relief from your fellows, and the +simple life, try Sark--and see that you live in a cottage!" he +remembered Adam Black murmuring softly, as they sat smoking at the +Travellers' one night, shortly after that memorable dinner of the +Whitefriars'. And then he had heaved a sigh of regret at thought of +being where he was when he might have been in Sark. + +Graeme knew nothing whatever of Sark save what his friend had let fall +at times. "Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, and Sark," recalled his +short-jacket and broad-collar days, and the last of the quartette had +always somehow conjured up in his mind the image of a bleak, +inaccessible rock set in a stormy sea, where no one lived if he could +possibly find shelter elsewhere,--an Ultima Thule, difficult of access +and still more difficult of exit, a weather-bound little spot into +which you scrambled precariously by means of boats and ladders, and +out of which you might not be able to get for weeks on end. + +But Sark was to hold a very different place in his mind henceforth. +The name of Calais burnt itself into the heart of Queen Mary by reason +of loss. Surely on John Graeme's heart the name of Sark may hope to +find itself in living letters, for in Sark he was to find more than he +had lost--new grace and charm in life, new hopes, new life itself. + +He had gone straight home from Lincoln's Inn, and packed his +portmanteau, knowing only that he was going away somewhere out of +things, caring little where, so long as it was remote and lonely. + +Fellow-man--and especially woman--was distasteful to him at the +moment. He craved only Solitude the Soother, and Nature the Healer. + +He packed all he thought he might need for a couple of months' stay, +and among other things the manuscript he had been at work upon until +more pressing matters intervened. He felt, indeed, no slightest +inclination towards it, or anything else, at present. But that might +come, for Work and he were tried friends. + +He wrote briefly to Lady Elspeth telling her how things were with him, +and that he was going away for a time. He did not tell her where, for +the simple reason that at the moment of writing he did not know +himself. Sark came into his mind later. + +He told his landlady that he was going away for a change, and she +remarked in motherly fashion that she was glad to hear it, and it was +high time too. He told her to keep all his letters till he sent for +them. He had no importunate correspondents, his next book was as good +as placed, and all he desired at the moment was to cut the painter, +and drift into some quiet backwater where he could lie up till life +should wear a more cheerful face. + +And so no single soul knew where he had gone, and he said to himself, +somewhat bitterly, and quite untruthfully, that no single soul cared. + +He had paced the deck all night. The swift smooth motion of the boat, +with a slight slow roll in it, was very soothing; and the first +tremulous hints of the dawn, and the wonder of its slow unfolding, and +the coming of the sun were things to be remembered. + +The cold gaunt aloofness, and weltering loneliness of the Casquets +appealed to him strongly. Just the kind of place, he said to himself, +for a heart-sick traveller to crawl into and grizzle until he found +himself again. + +As they turned and swung in straight between the little lighthouse on +White Rock and Castle Cornet, the bright early sunshine was bathing +all the rising terraces of St. Peter Port in a golden haze. Such a +quaint medley of gray weathered walls and mellowed red roofs, from +which the thin blue smoke of early fires crept lazily up to mingle +with the haze above! Such restful banks of greenery! Such a startling +blaze of windows flashing back unconscious greetings to the sun! This +too was a sight worth remembering. For a wounded soul he was somewhat +surprised at the enjoyment these things afforded him. + +A further surprise was the pleasure he found in the reduction of a +hearty appetite at an hotel on the front. Come! He was not as hard hit +as he had thought! There was life in the young dog yet. + +But these encouraging symptoms were doubtless due to the temporary +exhilaration of the journey. The workaday bustle of the quays renewed +his desire for the solitary places, and he set out to find means of +transport to the little whalebacked island out there in the golden +shimmer of the sun. + +There was no steamer till the following day, he learned, and delay was +not to his mind. So presently he came to an arrangement with an +elderly party in blue, with a red-weathered face and grizzled hair, to +put him and his two portmanteaux across to Sark for the sum of five +shillings English. + +"To Havver Gosslin," said the aged mariner, with much emphasis, and a +canny look which conveyed to Graeme nothing more than a simple and +praiseworthy desire on his part to avoid any possibility of mistake. + +"To Sark," said Graeme, with equal emphasis. + +"Ay, ay!" said the other; and so it came that the new-comer's initial +experience of the little island went far towards the confirmation of +the vague ideas of his childhood as to its inaccessibility. + +The ancient called to a younger man, and they strolled away along the +harbour wall to get the baggage. + + +II + +"Ee see," said the old gentleman, as soon as they had pulled out past +Castle Cornet, and had hoisted the masts and two rather dirty sprit +sails, and had run out the bowsprit and a new clean jib with a view to +putting the best possible face on matters, and were beginning to catch +occasional puffs of a soft westerly breeze and to wallow slowly +along,--"Ee see, time's o' consekens to me and my son. We got to arn +our livin'. An' Havver Gosslin's this side the island an' th' Creux's +t'other side, an' th' currents round them points is the very divvle." + +"That's all right, as long as you land me in Sark." + +"The very divvle," and the grizzled head wagged reminiscently. "I seen +'em go right up to Casquets and haf-way to Jarsey trying to get across +to Sark. An' when time's o' consekens an' you got to arn your livin', +you don' want to be playin' 'bout Casquets an' Jarsey 'stid of gittin' +'cross to Sark an' done wi' it." + +"Not a bit of it. You're quite right. Try some of this,"--as he began +fumbling meaningly with a black stump of a pipe. + +He filled up, and passed on the pouch to his son, who was lying on the +thwarts forward, and he also filled up and passed it back with a nod. + +"What's this?" asked Graeme. + +"Jetto. Mr. Lee--Sir Austin 'e is now--brother o' Passon Lee o' the +Port," with a backward jerk of the head, "'e rents it." + +"Live there?" + +"Naw--rabbits." + +"And the bigger island yonder?" + +"'At's Harm. 'T's a Garman man has that--Prince Bloocher, they calls +him. Keeps kangyroos there an' orstrichers an' things. Don't let +annybody ashore there now 'cept just to Shell Beach, which he can't +help." + +They struck straight across to the long high-ridged island in front, +and Graeme's untutored eyes found no special beauty in it. + +There was about it, however, a vague gray aloofness which chimed with +his spirit, a sober austerity as of a stricken whale,--a mother-whale +surely, for was not her young one there at her nose,--fled here to +heal her wound perchance, and desirous only of solitude. + +But, as they drew nearer, the vague blue-gray bloom of the whaleback +resolved itself into a mantle of velvet green, which ran down every +rib and spine until it broke off sharp at varying heights and let the +bare bones through; and all below the break was clean naked +rock--black, cream-yellow, gray, red, brown,--with everywhere a tawny +fringe of seaweed, since the tide was at its lowest. Below the fringe +the rocks were scoured almost white, and whiter still at their feet, +like a tangled drapery of ragged lace, was the foam of the long slow +seas. + +And the solid silhouette of the island broke suddenly into bosky +valleys soft with trees and bracken, and cliff-ringed bays, with +wide-spread arms of tumbled rock whose outer ends were tiny islets and +hungry reefs. + +"Brecqhou," said the ancient mariner, as they swung past a long green +island with beetling cliffs, and yawning caverns, and comet-like +rushes of white foam among the chaos of rocks below. + +Then they swirled through a tumbling race, where the waters came up +writhing and boiling from strife with hidden rocks below,--past the +dark chasm between Brecqhou and the mainland of Sark, through which +the race roared with the voice of many waters--and so into a quiet +haven where hard-worked boats lay resting from their labours. + +There was a beach of tumbled rocks and seaweed at the head of the bay, +and there the grim cliffs fell back into a steep green gully which +suggested possibility of ascent. But instead of running in there, the +sails were furled and the boat nosed slowly towards the overhanging +side of the cliff, where a broad iron ladder fell precariously into +the water with its top projecting out beyond its base, so that to +climb it one had to lie on one's back, so to speak. + +The ancient one eyed his passenger whimsically as the boat stole up to +the rungs, so Graeme permitted himself no more than a careless glance +at the forbidding ladder and asked, "How about the baggage?" + +"We'll see to et," grinned the ancient, and stood, hands on hips and +face twisted into a grim smile, while the stranger laid hold of the +rusty iron and started upwards, with no slightest idea where the end +of the venture might land him. + +With the after-assistance of a neighbour of somewhat more genial +construction,--inasmuch as it at all events stood upright, and did not +lean over the opposite way of ladders in general,--the top rung landed +him on a little platform, whence a rope and some foot-holes in the +rock, and finally a zigzag path, invited further ascent still. + +The portmanteaux were hauled up by a rope and shouldered by his +guardian angels, and they toiled slowly up the steep. + +Each step developed new beauties behind and on either side. At the top +he would fain have rested to drink it all in, but his guides went +stolidly on,--towards drink of a more palpable description, he doubted +not; and he remembered that time was of consekens, and tore himself +away from that most wonderful view and panted after them. + +The zigzag path led round clumps of flaming gorse to a gap in a rough +stone wall, and so to a tall granite pillar which crowned the cliff +and commemorated a disaster. It was erected, he saw, to the memory of +a Mr. Jeremiah Pilcher who had been drowned just below in attempting +the passage to Guernsey. He had but one regret at the moment--that it +was not instead to the memory of Mr. Jeremiah Pixley. + + +III + +Down verdant lanes--past thatched cottages, past a windmill, past +houses of more substantial mien, with a glimpse down a rolling green +valley---- + +"Hotel?" asked the ancient abruptly, from beneath his load. + +"No, I want rooms in some cottage. Can you----" + +"John Philip," said the ancient one didactically, and trudged on, and +finally dumped his share of the burden at the door of what looked like +a house but was a shop, in fact the shop. + +He went inside and Graeme followed him. A genial-faced elderly man, +with gray hair and long gray beard and gray shirt-sleeves, leaned over +the counter, talking in an unknown tongue to a blue-guernseyed +fisherman, and a quiet-faced old lady in a black velvet hair-net stood +listening. + +They all looked up and saluted the ancient one with ejaculations of +surprise in the unknown tongue, and Graeme stared hard at the +gray-bearded man, while they all discussed him to his face. + +"Mr. De Carteret," said the ancient at last, with a jerk of the head +towards Gray-Beard. "He tell you where to find rooms." + +"Thanks! Do you speak any English, Mr. De Carteret?" + +The pleasant old face broke into a smile. "I am En-glish," he said, +with a quaint soft intonation, and as one who speaks a foreign tongue, +and beamed genially on his young compatriot. + +"That's all right then. Do you know you're very like Count Tolstoi?" + +"I haf been told so, but I do not know him. What is it you would like, +if you please to tell me?" + +"I want a sitting-room and a bedroom for a month or so, perhaps +more,--not at an hotel. I want to be quiet and all to myself." + +"Ah--you don' want an hotel. You want to be quiet," and he nodded +understandingly. "But the hotels is quiet joost now--" + +"I'd sooner have rooms in a cottage if I can get them." + +Count Tolstoi turned to the fisherman to whom he had been speaking, +and discussed the matter at length with him in the patois. + +Then, to Graeme, "If you please to go with him. His wife has roomss to +let. You will be quite comfortable there." + +Graeme thanked him, and as soon as he had settled satisfactorily with +his boatmen, his new keeper picked up both his bags, and led him along +a stony way past the post-office, to a creeper-covered cottage, which +turned a cold shoulder to the road and looked coyly into a little +courtyard paved with cobble-stones and secluded from the outer world +by a granite wall three feet high. + +And as they went, the young man asked his silent guide somewhat +doubtfully, "And do you speak English?" + +"Oh yes. We all speak English," he said, with a quiet smile, "except a +few of the older folks, maybe, and they mostly understand it though +they're slow to talk." + +"And your name?" + +"John Carré,"--which he pronounced Caury. + +"Now that's very odd," laughed Graeme, and stood to enjoy it. "My name +is Corrie too, and John Corrie at that." + +"So!" said the other quietly, with a glance from under his brows which +might mean surprise or only gentle doubt as to the stranger's +veracity. And, so odd was the coincidence, that the newcomer saw no +necessity to spoil it by telling him that his forebears had left him +also the family name of Graeme. + +A large brown dog, smooth of hair and of a fine and thoughtful +countenance, got up from the doorstep and gave them courteous +greeting, and a small, white, rough-coated terrier hurried out of the +kitchen and twisted himself into kinks of delight at sound of their +voices. And that decided it before ever Graeme looked at the rooms. +For if there was one thing he liked when he wanted to be alone, it was +the friendly companionship of a couple of cheerful dogs. + +And that is how he came,--without any special intent that way, but +through, as one might say, a purely accidental combination of +circumstances--to be living in that cottage in the Rue Lucas in the +little isle of Sark, and under a name that was indeed his own but not +the whole of his own. And herein the future was looking after itself +and preparing the way for that which was to be. + + +IV + +The cottage was apparently empty. His guide and namesake looked into +the kitchen, and called up a stair which led out of it, but got no +answer. + +"She will be up at the house," he said, and turned and went off up the +garden behind, while the dogs raced on in front to show the way. + +Through a cleft in the high green bank topped by a thick hedge of +hawthorn, they came out into a garden of less utilitarian aspect. Here +were shrubs and flowers, palms and conifers and pale eucalyptus trees, +clumps of purple iris and clove pinks, roses just coming to the bud, +and beyond, a very charming bungalow, built solidly of gray granite +and red tiles, with a wide verandah all round. A pleasant-faced woman +in a large black sunbonnet came out of the open front door as they +went up the path. + +"My wife," murmured Carré, and proceeded quietly to explain matters in +an undertone of patois. + +"I hope you speak English also, Mrs. Carré," said Graeme. + +"Oh yess," with a quick smile. "We are all English here." + +"Surely you are Welsh," he said, for he had met just that same +cheerful type of face in Wales. + +"Noh, I am Sark," she smiled again. "I can gif you a sitting-room and +a bet-room"--and they proceeded to business, and then the dogs +escorted them back to the cottage, to see the stranger fairly inducted +to his new abode, and to let him understand that they rejoiced at his +coming and would visit him often. + +He thought he would be very comfortable there, but why the +sitting-room was not the bedroom he never could understand. For it was +only a quarter the size of the other, and its single window looked +into a field, and a rough granite wall clothed with tiny rock-weeds +hid all view of the road and its infrequent traffic. While the bedroom +was a room of size, and its two windows gave on to the covered well +and the cobbled forecourt, and offered passers-by, if so inclined, +oblique views of its occupant in the act of dressing if he forgot to +pull down the blind. + +The windows of both rooms were set low in the massive granite walls, +and being always wide open, they offered, and indeed invited, easy +access to--say, a grave-faced gentlemanly brown dog and a spasmodic +rough-coated terrier without a tail, whenever the spirit moved them to +incursion, which it invariably did at meal-times and frequently in +between. + +These two new friends of his--for they were never mere acquaintances, +but adopted him into fullest brotherhood at sight--proved no small +factors in Graeme's extrication from the depths. + +Human companionship, even of the loftiest, most philosophic, most +gracious, would, for the time being, have jarred and ruffled his +naturally equable spirit. Two only exceptions might have been +conceivably possible--some humble, large-souled friend, anxious only +to anticipate his slightest wish, desirous only of his company, +and--dumb, and so unable to fret him with inane talk; or--Margaret +Brandt. + +The first he could have endured. The latter--ah, God! How he would +have rejoiced in her! The spirit groaned within him at times in +agonised longing for her; and the glories of the sweet spring days, in +a land where spring is joyous and radiant beyond most, turned gray and +cheerless in the shadow of his loss. What Might Have Been stabbed What +Was to the heart and let its life-blood run. + +But, since neither of these was available, a benignant Providence +provided him with friends entirely to his taste. For the great brown +hound, Punch, was surely, despite the name men had given him, a +nobleman by birth and breeding. Powerful and beautifully made, the +sight of his long lithe bounds, as he quartered the cliff-sides in +silent chase of fowl and fur, was a thing to rejoice in; so exquisite +in its tireless grace, so perfect in its unconscious exhibition of +power and restraint. For the brown dog never gave tongue, and he never +killed. He chased for the keen enjoyment of the chase, and no man had +ever heard him speak. + +He was the first dumb dog Graeme had ever come across, and the +pathetic yearning in his solemn brown eyes was full of infinite appeal +to one who suffered also from an unforgettable loss. He answered to +his name with a dignified appreciation of its incongruity, and the +tail-less white terrier, more appropriately, to that of Scamp. + + +V + +They were on the very best of terms, these two friends of his, +possibly because of their absolute unlikeness,--Punch, large, solemn, +imperturbable, with a beautifully-curved slow-waving tail and no +voice; Scamp, a bundle of wriggling nerves moved by electricity, with +a sharp excited bark and not even the stump of a tail. When he needed +to wag he wagged the whole of his body behind his front legs. + +These two were sitting watching him expectantly as Mrs. Carré brought +in his dinner that first day, and she instantly ordered them out. + +Punch rose at once, cast one look of grave appeal at Graeme, as who +would say--"Sorry to leave you, but this is the kind of thing I have +to put up with,"--and walked slowly away. Scamp grovelled flat and +crawled to the door like a long hairy caterpillar. + +"Oh, let them stop," said Graeme. "I like them by me," and the +culprits turned hopefully with pricked ears and anxious faces. + +"Mais non! They are troublesome beasts. Allez, Ponch! Allez, Scamp! A +couche!"--and their heads and ears drooped and they slunk away. + +But, presently, there came a rustling at the wide-open window which +gave on to the field at the back, and Graeme laughed out--and he had +not smiled for days--at sight of two deprecatingly anxious faces +looking in upon him,--a solemn brown one with black spots above the +eloquent grave eyes, and a roguish white one with pink blemishes on a +twisting black nose. And while the large brown face loomed steadily +above two powerful front paws, the small white face only appeared at +intervals as the nervous little body below flung it up to the sill in +a series of spasmodic leaps. + +"We would esteem it a very great favour, if you are quite sure it +would not inconvenience you," said Punch, as plain as speech. + +"Do, do, do, do, do give us leave!" signalled Scamp, with every twist +of his quivering nose, and every gleam of his glancing eyes, and every +hair on end. + +A click of the tongue, a noiseless graceful bound, and Punch was at +his side. A wild scrambling rush, a wriggle on the sill, a patter over +the window-seat, and Scamp was twisting himself into white +figure-eights all over the room, with tremendous energy but not a +sound save the soft pad of his tiny dancing feet. + +Then, as he ate, the great brown head pillowed itself softly on his +knee, and the eloquent brown eyes looked up into his in a way that a +stone image could hardly have resisted. The while Scamp, on his hind +legs, beat the air frantically with his front paws to attract +attention to his needs and danced noiselessly all over the floor. + +He gauged their characters with interest. When he gave them morsels +turn about, Punch awaited his with gentlemanly patience, and even when +purposely passed by in order to see what he would do, obtruded his +claims by nothing more than a gentle movement of the head on his +friend's knee; while Scamp, in like case, twisted himself into knots +of anxiety and came perilously near to utterance. + +The difference between them when, through lack of intimate knowledge +of their likes and dislikes, they got something not entirely to their +taste, was also very typical. Punch would retire quietly into +obscurity, and having disposed of the objectionable morsel +somehow--either by a strenuous swallow or in some corner--would +quietly reappear, lay his head on Graeme's knee again, and work it up +to his lap with a series of propitiatory little jerks that never +failed of their object. Scamp, on the other hand, would hold it in his +mouth for a moment till he had savoured it, then place it meekly on +the floor, bow his head to the ground, and grovel flat with +deprecatory white-eyed up-glances, and as clearly as dog could say, +would murmur,--"Oh, Man, Lord of all that go on four legs, forgive thy +humble little servant in that he is unable with enjoyment to eat that +thou hast of thy bounty tendered him! The fault is wholly his. Yet, of +thy great clemency, punish him not beyond his capacity, for his very +small body is merely a bundle of nerves, and they lie so very close to +the skin that even a harsh word from thee will set them quivering for +an hour." But, at a comforting word, he was up in a flash dancing and +sparring away as gaily as ever. + +Then, when Mrs. Carré brought in the next course, they both retired +discreetly below the tent of the tablecloth. But she, knowing them of +old perhaps, found them out at once and cried, "Ah you! I see you +there! You are just troublesome beasts!" But, seeing that her guest +was in the conspiracy, she permitted them for that once; and in time, +seeing that he really desired their company, she allowed them to +remain as a matter of course and without any preliminary harrying. + + +VI + +One other acquaintance he made during these dark days,--perhaps one +ought to say an acquaintance and a half, if indeed the half in this +case was not greater than the whole, a matter which Graeme never fully +decided in his own mind,--a small person of grim and gloomy +tendencies, whose sombre humours chimed at times with his own,--and +that small person's familiar. + +His name was Johnnie Vautrin, and, as far as Graeme could make out, he +was about eight years old in actual years, but aged beyond belief in +black arts which made him a terror to his kind. And his familiar, in +the person of an enormous black cat, which came and went, was named +Marielihou. + +Johnnie, and presumably Marielihou, lived with an ancient dame who was +held by some to be their great-grandmother, and by some to be +Marielihou herself. This was a moot and much-discussed point among the +neighbours. What was beyond dispute was that Johnnie was said to be +grievously maltreated by her at times, and to lead her a deuce of a +life, and she him. The family came originally from Guernsey and had +married into Sark, and, for this and other reasons, was still looked +askance at by the neighbours. + +Both Johnnie and his ancient relative were popularly--or +unpopularly--credited with powers of mischief which secured them +immunities and privileges beyond the common and not a little prudently +concealed dislike. + +Old Mrs. Vautrin could put the evil eye on her neighbours' cows and +stop their milk, on their churns and stop their butter, on their +kettles and stop their boiling. + +Johnnie claimed equal powers, but excelled in forecasts of bad weather +and ill luck and evil generally, and, since there was no end to his +prognostications, they occasionally came true, and when they did he +exulted greatly and let no one forget it. + +He had a long, humorously snaky, little face, a deep sepulchral voice, +which broke into squeaks in moments of excitement, and curious black +eyes with apparently no pupils--little glittering black wells of ill +intent, with which he cowed dogs and set small children screaming and +grown ones swearing. His little body was as malformed as his twisted +little soul, and he generally sat in the hedge taking his pleasure off +the passers-by, much to their discomfort. + +Johnnie also saw ghosts, or said he did, which came to much the same +thing since none could prove to the contrary. He had even slept one +night in an outhouse up at the Seigneurie, and had carefully locked +the door, and so the little old lady in white, who only appears to +those who lock their doors of a night, came to him, and, according to +Johnnie, they carried on a long and edifying conversation to their +mutual satisfaction. + +He had also a cheerful habit of visiting sick folks and telling them +he had seen their spirits in the lanes at night, and so they might +just as well give up all hopes of getting better. On payment of a +small fee, however, he was at times, according to his humour, willing +to admit that it might have been somebody else's ghost he had seen, +but in either case his visitations tended to cheerfulness in none but +himself. He was great on the meanings--dismal ones mostly--of flights +of birds and falling stars and fallen twigs. And he had been known to +throw a branch of hawthorn into a house which had incurred his +displeasure. + +The men scoffed at him openly, and occasionally gave him surreptitious +pennies. The women and children feared him; and the dogs, to the last +one, detested him but gave him wide berth. + +Graeme had very soon run across the little misanthrope and, in his own +black humour, found him amusing. They rarely met without a trial of +wit, or parted without a transfer of coppers from the large pocket to +the small. Wherefore Johnnie made a special nest in the hedge opposite +the cottage, and waylaid his copper-mine systematically and greatly to +his own satisfaction and emolument. But, like the dogs, though on a +lower level, he too was not without his effect on Graeme's spirits, +and if he did not lift him up he certainly at times helped him out of +himself and his gloomy thoughts. + + +VII + +"You're just an unmitigated little humbug, Johnnie," said Graeme, as +he leaned over the wall smoking, to the small boy whose acquaintance +he had made the previous day, and who had promptly foretold a storm +which had not come. + +"Unmitigumbug! Guyablle! Qu'es' ce que c'es' que ça?" echoed the small +boy, with very wide eyes. + +"You, my son. Your black magic's all humbug. It lacks the essential +attribute of fulfilment. It doesn't work. Black magic that doesn't +work is humbug." + +"Black-mack-chick! My Good! You do talk!" + +"What about that storm?" + +"Ah ouaie! Well, you wait. It come." + +"So will Christmas, and the summer after next, if we wait long enough. +On the same terms I foretell thunders and lightnings, rain, hail, +snow, and fiery vapours, followed by lunar rainbows and waterspouts." + +"Go'zamin!" said Johnnie, with a touch of reluctant admiration at such +an outflow of eloquence; and then, by way of set-off, "I sec six black +crows, 's mawn'n." + +"Ah--really? And what do you gather from such a procession as that +now?" + +"Some un's gwain' to die," in a tone of vast satisfaction. + +"Of course, of course--if we wait long enough. It's perhaps you. +You'll die yourself sometime, you know." + +"Noh, I wun't. No 'n'll ivver see me die. I'll just turn into +sun'th'n--a gull maybe," as one floated by on moveless wing, the very +poetry of motion; and the fathomless black eyes followed it with +pathetic longing. + +"Cormorant more likely, I should say." + +"Noh, I wun't. I don' like corm'rants. They stink. Mebbe I'll be a +hawk,"--as his eye fell on one, like a brown leaf nailed against the +blue sky. "Did ee hear White Horse last night?" + +"I did hear a horse in the night, Johnnie, but I couldn't swear that +he was a white one." + +"Didn' git up an' look out?" disappointedly. + +"No, I didn't. Why should I get up to look out at a horse? I can see +horses any day without getting out of bed in the middle of the night." + +"'Twus the White Horse of the Coupée,"--in a weird whisper.--"I heerd +him start in Little Sark, and come across Coupée, an' up by Colinette, +an' past this house. An' if you'd ha' looked out an' seen him, you'd +ha' died." + +"Good old White Horse! I'm glad I stopped in bed. Did you see him +yourself now?" + +"I've rid him! Yes!--an' told him where to go," with a ghoulish nod. + +"Quite friendly with ghosts and things, eh?" + +"I don' mind 'em. I seen the ole lady up at the big house. Yes, an' +talked to her too." + +"Clever boy! Put the evil eye on her?" + +"Noh, ee cann't." + +"Can't? Why, I thought you were a past master in all little matters of +that kind." + +"Ee cann't put evil eye on a ghost," with infinite scorn. + +"Oh, she's a ghost, is she? And what did you talk about?" + +"You coul'n't understan'," grunted Johnnie, to whom his meeting with +the White Lady was a treasured memory if a somewhat tender subject. + + +VIII + +And Marielihou? Ah, Marielihou was a black mystery. Sometimes she was +there, and sometimes she wasn't, and if at such times you asked +Johnnie where she was, he would reply mysteriously, "Aw, she's busy." + +And busy Marielihou was, always and at all times. If Graeme found her +in the hedge with Johnnie, she was busy licking her lips with vicious +enjoyment as though she had just finished eating something that had +screamed as it died. Or she was licking them snarlishly and +surreptitiously, and sharpening her claws, as though just about +starting out after something to eat--something which he knew would +certainly scream as it died. For Marielihou was a mighty hunter, and +her long black body could be seen about the cliffs at any time of +night or day, creeping and worming along, then, of a sudden, pointing +and stiffening, and flashing on to her prey like the black death she +was. + +Six full-grown rabbits had Marielihou been known to bring home in a +single day, to say nothing of all the others that had gone to the +satisfaction of her own inappeasable lust for rabbit-flesh and +slaughter. + +As to the strange tales the neighbours whispered about her, Graeme +could make neither head nor tail of them. But when old Tom Hamon put +it to him direct, he had to confess that he never had seen old Mother +Vautrin and Marielihou together, nor both at the same time. + +"B'en!" said old Tom, as if that ended the matter. "An' I tell you, if +I had a silver bullet I'd soon try what that Marrlyou's made of." + +"And why a silver bullet?" asked Graeme. + +"'Cause--Lead bullets an't no good 'gainst the likes o' Marrlyou. +Many's the wan I've sent after her, ay, an' through her, and she none +the worse. Guyablle!" and old Tom spat viciously. + +"Perhaps you missed her," suggested Graeme, not unreasonably as he +thought. + +"Missed her!" with immense scorn. "I tell ee bullets goes clean +through her, in one side an' out t'other, an' she never a bit the +worse. I've foun' 'em myself spatted on rock just where she sat." + +"Well, why don't you get a silver bullet and try again?" + +"Ah! Teks some getting does silver bullets." + +"How much?" + +"A shill'n would mek a little wan," and Graeme gave him a shilling to +try his luck, because Marielihou's unsportsmanlike behaviour did not +commend itself to him. + +But it took many shillings to obtain anything definite in the way of +results, and Graeme had his own humorous suspicions as to the billets +some of them found, and gently chaffed old Tom on the subject whenever +they met. + +"You wait," said Tom, with mysterious nods. + + +IX + +Graeme's sober intention had been to put Margaret Brandt, and the +agonising regrets that clung to every thought of her, strenuously out +of his mind. But that he found more possible in the intention than in +the accomplishment. + +The first shock of loss numbs one's mental susceptibilities, of +course, much as a blow on the head affects the nervous system. The +bands are off the wheels, the machinery is out of order, and the +friction seems reduced. It is when the machine tries to work again +that the full effects of the jar are felt. + +And so he found it now. As mind and body recovered tone in the whole +vitalising atmosphere of the wondrous little isle,--the air, the sea, +the sense of remoteness, the placid life of the place, the abounding +beauties of cliff and crag and cave,--his heart awoke also to the +aching sense of its loss. + +All outward things--all save Johnny Vautrin, and Marielihou, and old +Tom Hamon, and several others--sang abundantly of the peace and +fulness and joy of life, but his heart was still so sore from its +bruising that at times these outward beauties seemed only to mock him +with their brightness. + +In the first shock of his downcasting, wounded pride said, "I will +show no sign. I will forget her. I will salve the bruise with work. +Margaret Brandt is not the only woman in the world. In time some other +shall take her place;"--and he tried his hardest to believe it. + +But body is one thing and mind another. The body you may compel to any +mortal thing, but the mind is of a different order, and strongest will +cannot whip it to heel at times. Forbid it thought of thing or person +and the forbidden is just that which will persist in obtruding itself +to the exclusion of all else. + +And so, in spite of him, the dull ache in his heart at every thought +of Margaret murmured without ceasing, "There is none like her--none!" +And crush and compel it as he might, the truth would out, and out the +more the more he tried to crush it. + +And so at times, in spite of his surroundings, his spirits dragged in +lowest deeps. + +Work he could not as yet, for the work of the writer demands absolute +concentration and most complete surrender, and all his faculties were +centred, in spite of himself, on Margaret Brandt and his own great +loss in her. + +He rambled all over the island with his dog friends, risked skin and +bones in precarious descents into apparently impossible depths, +scrambled laboriously among the ragged bastions of the Coupée and +Little Sark, explored endless caverns, loitered by day in bosky lanes, +and roamed restlessly by night under the brightest stars he had ever +seen. + +But, wherever he went--down underground in the Boutiques or the +Gouliots; or lying on the Eperquerie among the flaming gorse and +cloudlike stretches of primroses; or standing on Longue Pointe while +the sun sank in unearthly splendours behind Herm and Guernsey; or +watching from the windmill the throbbing life-lights all round the +wide horizon;--wherever he was, and whatever he was doing, there with +him always was the poignant remembrance of Margaret Brandt and his +loss in her. + +His heart ached so, at thought of the emptiness and desolation of the +years that lay before him, that at times his body ached also, and the +spirit within him groaned in sympathy. + +Life without Margaret! What was it worth? + +Though it brought him riches and honours overpassing his hopes--and he +doubted now at times if that were possible, lacking the inspiration of +Margaret--what was it worth? + +Riches and honours, won at the true sword's point of earnest work, +were good and worth the winning. But yet, without Margaret, they were +as nothing to him. His whole heart cried aloud for Margaret. Without +her all the full rich hues of life faded into dull gray ashes. + +With Margaret to strive for, he had felt himself capable of mighty +things. Without her--! + +And that she should throw herself away on a Charles Pixley!--Charles +the smiling, the imperturbable, the fount of irrepressible chatter and +everlasting inanities! How could such a one as Charles Pixley possibly +satisfy her nobler nature? Out of the question! Impossible! But then +it is just possible that he was not exactly in the best state of mind +for forming an unbiassed opinion on so large a question as that. + +Anyway he was out of it, and Margaret Brandt was henceforth nothing to +him. If he said it once he said it hundreds of times, as if the simple +reiteration of so obvious a truth would make it one whit the truer, +when his whole heart was clamouring that Margaret was all the worlds +to him and the only thing in the world that he wanted. + +With an eye, perhaps, to his obvious lack of cheerfulness, his +namesake and host suggested various diversions,--fishing for congers +and rock-fish, a voyage round the island, a trip across to Herm, a day +among the rabbits on. Brecqhou. But he wanted none of them. His life +was flapping on a broken wing and all he wanted was to be left alone. + +In time the wound would heal, and he would take up his work again and +find his solace in it. But wounds such as this are not healed in a +day. It was raw and sore yet, the new skin had not had time to form. + +He recalled Lady Elspeth's dissatisfaction with his love-scenes, and +thought, grimly, that now he could at all events enter fully into the +feelings of the man who had lost the prize, and would be able to +depict them to the life. If the choice had been left to him he would +gladly have dispensed with all such knowledge to its profoundest +depths, if only the prize had remained to him. But the choice had been +Margaret's, and the prize was Charles Pixley's. + +If there was one thing he could have imagined without actual +experience, it was how a man may feel when he loses. What he could not +at present by any possibility conceive was--how it might feel to be +the accepted lover of such a girl as Margaret Brandt. + +Confound her money! If it were not for that, Pixley would probably +never have wanted to marry her. Money was answerable for half the +ills of life, and the contrariness of woman for the other half. +Confound money! Confound--Well, truly, his state of mind was not a +happy one. + + +X + +But there was something in the crisp Sark air that, by degrees and all +unconsciously, braced both mind and body;--something broadening and +uplifting in the wide free outlook from every headland; something +restorative of the grip of life in the rush and roar of the mighty +waves and the silent endurance of the rocks; something so large and +aloof and restful in the wide sweep of sea and sky; something so +hopeful and regenerative in the glorious exuberance of the spring--the +flaming gorse, the mystic stretches of bluebells, the sunny sweeps of +primroses, the soft uncurlings of the bracken, the bursting life of +the hedgerows, the joyous songs of the larks--that presently, and in +due season, earthly worries began to fall back into their proper +places below the horizon, and a new Graeme--a Graeme born of Sark and +Trouble--looked out of the old Graeme eyes and began to contemplate +life from new points of view. + +It took time, however. Love is a plant of most capricious and +surprising growth. It may take years to root and blossom. It may +spring up in a day, yet strike its roots right through the heart and +hold it as firmly as the growth of the years. And, once the heart is +enmeshed in the golden filaments, it is a most dolorous work to +disentangle it. + +For the first two weeks his mind ran constantly on his loss. +Momentarily it might be diverted by outward things, but always it came +back with a sharp shock, and a bitter sense of deprivation, to the +fact that Margaret Brandt had passed out of his life and left behind +her an aching void. + +Did he sit precariously among the ragged scarps and pinnacles of +Little Sark, while the western seas raged furiously at his feet and +the Souffleur shot its rockets of snowy spray high into the gray +sky--through the passing film of the spray, and the marbled coils of +the tumbling waves, the face of Margaret Brandt looked out at him. + +Did he stride among the dew-drenched, gold-spangled gorse bushes on +the Eperquerie, while the sun came up with ever fresh glories behind +the distant hills of France--Margaret's face was there in the sunrise. + +Did he stand above Havre Gosselin in the gloaming, while the sun sank +behind Herm and Guernsey in splendours such as he had never dreamed +of--just so, he said to himself, Margaret had gone out of his life and +left it gray and cheerless as the night side of Brecqhou. + +Wherever he was and whatever he did, it was always Margaret, +Margaret,--and Margaret lost to him. + +By the end of the third week, however, the tonic effects of the strong +sea air and water began to work inwards. Healthy body would no longer +suffer sick heart. He had taken his morning plunge hitherto as a +matter of course, now he began to enjoy it and to look forward to +it--certain index of all-round recovery. + +His appetite grew till he felt it needed an apology, at which Mrs. +Carré laughed enjoyably. He began to take more interest in his +surroundings for their own sakes. His thoughts of Margaret, with their +after-glow of tender memory, were like the soft sad haze which falls +on Guernsey when the sun has sunk and left behind it, in the upper +sky, its slowly dying fires of dull red amber and gold. + +Towards the end of the fourth week he tentatively fished out his +manuscript and began to read it--with pauses. He grew interested in +it. He saw new possibilities in the story.--His life was getting back +on to the rails again. + + +XI + +Greater bodily peace and comfort than he found in that thick-set, +creeper-covered, little cottage in the Rue Lucas, man might scarcely +hope for. Anything more would have tended to luxury and made for +restraint. + +He was free as the wind to come and go as he listed, to roam the +lonely lanes all night and watch the coming of the dawn--which he did; +or to lie abed all day--which he did not; to do any mortal thing that +pleased him, so long only as he gave his hostess full and fair warning +of the state of his appetite and the times when it must be satisfied. + +His quarters were not perhaps palatial, but what man, king of himself +alone, would live in a palace? + +He bumped his head with the utmost regularity against the lintel of +the front door each time he entered, and only learned at last to bob +by instinct. And the beams in the ceilings were so low that they +claimed recognition somewhat after the manner of a boisterous +acquaintance. + +But doors and windows were always open, night and day, and his good +friends the dogs came in to greet him by way of the windows quite as +often as by the doors. + +All through the black times those two were his close companions, and +no better could he have had. They asked nothing of him--or almost +nothing, and they gave him all they had. They were grateful from the +bottom of their large hearts for any slightest sign of recognition. +And they were proud of his company, which to others would have proved +somewhat of a wet blanket. Without a doubt they assisted mightily in +his cure, though neither he nor they knew it. + +Every morning when he jumped up to see the weather, the first things +that met him when he reached the open window, were four eager eyes +full of welcome, and a grave intelligent brown face and hopeful +swinging tail, and a dancing white face and little wriggling body. + +Then he would pull up the blinds and they would enter with an easy +bound and a scramble, and while he hastily flung on his things they +would prowl about, now pushing investigating noses into an open +drawer, and again taking a passing drink out of his water-jug by way +of first breakfast. + +Then, away through the gaps in the jewelled hedges, with the larks at +their matins overhead, and the tethered cows nuzzling out the dainty +morning grasses, and watching the intruders speculatively till they +passed out of sight into the next field. + +"Which way? Which way? Which way?" shrieked Scamp, as he tore to and +fro down every possible road to show that all were absolutely alike to +him. While Punch bounded lightly to the first dividing of the ways and +waited there with slow-swinging tail to see which road Man would +choose. + +The Harbour--or Les Lâches--which? Every morning Scamp raced hopefully +towards the sweet-smelling tunnel of hawthorn trees that led down to +the other tunnel in the rock and the tiny harbour, because, for a very +small dog, the granite slip was much easier to compass than the steep +ledges of Les Lâches. And every morning Punch waited quietly at +Colinette to see how Man would go. + +And when the tide was low and the harbour empty, Punch knew it was Les +Lâches almost before Man's face had turned that way, and off he went +at a gallop, and Scamp came tearing back with expostulatory yelps, and +got in Punch's way and was rolled head over heels, but always came +right side up at the fourth turn and rushed on without even a +remonstrance, for that was a very small price to pay for the exalted +companionship of Punch and Man. + +So, past La Peignerie and La Forge, with the thin blue smoke of gorse +fires floating down from every dumpy chimney and adding a flavour to +the sweetest air in the world,--with a morning greeting from everyone +they met--over the heights and down the zigzag path to the sloping +ledges, and in they went, all three, into the clearest and crispest +water in the world, water that tingled and sparkled, full charged with +life and energy. + +Then shivers and shakes, and hasty play with a towel, and they were +racing back across the heights to breakfast and the passing of another +day, of which the greatest charm had passed already with that plunge +into the life-giving sea. + +If you are inclined to think that I enlarge too much on these two +friends of his, let me remind you that a man is known by the company +he keeps, and these two were Graeme's sole companions for many a +day--those first dark days in the sunny little isle, when all human +companionship would have been abhorrent to him. + +In their company he found himself again. Their friendship weaned him +by degrees from the jaundiced view of life which Margaret's +dereliction had induced. They drew him, in time, from his brooding +melancholy, and through the upbuilding of the body restored him to a +quieter mind. + +Let no man despise the help of a dog, for there are times when the +friendship of a dog is more sufferable, and of more avail, and far +more comforting, than that of any ordinary human being. + + + + +PART THE FOURTH + + +I + +It was just two days before the end of Graeme's fourth week in Sark. +His spirits were rising to the requirements of his work, and he was +looking forward with quite novel enjoyment to a steady spell of +writing, when his hostess startled him, as she cleared away his +breakfast, by saying-- + +"It iss the day after to-morrow you will be going?" + +"Eh? What? Going? No, I'm not going, Mrs. Carré. What made you think I +was going? Why, I've only just come." + +His landlady put down the dishes on the table again as a concrete +expression of surprise, put her hands on her hips by way of taking +grip of herself, and stared at him. + +"You are not going? Noh? But it wass just for the month I thought you +kem." + +"Not at all. I may stop two months, three months,--all my life +perhaps. Won't you let me live and die here if I want to?" + +"Ach, then! It iss not to die we woult want you. But I thought my man +said it wass just for the month you kem, and--my Good!--I haf let your +roomss for the day after to-morrow," and her face had lost its usual +smile and was full of distress and bewilderment. + +"You've let my rooms? Oh, come now!--But now I think of it, I believe +I did say something about a month or so, when I spoke to John Philip. +Well now, what will you do? Put me out into the road? Or can you find +me somewhere else?--though I'm quite sure you'll not be able to find +me any place as comfortable as this." + +"Whatt will we do?" she said, much disturbed, and gazed at him +thoughtfully. Then, with sudden inspiration, "There iss the big house +up the garden?" and looked at him hopefully. + +"But it's empty." + +"Everything iss there, and all ready for them to come any time they +want to. It woult only mean making up a bed and you coult come here +for your meals." + +"That would do first-rate if you can arrange it." + +"I will write to Mrs. Lee to-day and ask her to tell me by the +telegraph. It will be all right." + +"That's all right then. Who's the wretched person who is turning me +out of here?" + +"It is two leddies. They wrote to the Vicar, and he asked John Philip +and he told my man." + +"Two ladies! Then I can't possibly have my meals in here. You'd better +let me join you in the kitchen,"--a consummation he had been striving +after for some time past, in fact ever since his literary instincts +had shaken off the thrall and got their heads above the mists,--with a +view, of course, of turning a more intimate knowledge of his +surroundings to profitable account. + +But his hostess was jealous of her kitchen and would not hear of it. + +"There iss no need. I will arrange it, and you will tek your meals in +here just as usual. Which room woult you like in the big house?" + +"I'll go up and have a look round. Does it make any difference to you +which I choose? I'd like one with a balcony if it's all the same to +you." + +"It iss all the sem, and I will get it ready for you as soon ass I +hear from Mrs. Lee. You will not be afraid, all alone by yourself up +there?" + +"Afraid? No. What is there to be afraid of?" + +"Och, I do not know. Only--all alone--sometimes one iss afraid--" + +"There aren't any ghosts about, are there?" + +"Ghosts? Noh!"--with a ghost of a laugh. "I do not believe in ghosts +or any such things, though some people does. There are some +people"--very scornfully--"will not go by the churchyard at night, +and"--lest so sceptical a mind should provoke reprisal--"I do not know +that I woult myself. And down by the Coupée--But the house there iss +too new to have anything like that." "Well, if I see any I'll try and +catch one and bring it down to breakfast." + +And so it was arranged that, if the permission of the owner of the Red +House could be obtained, he should sleep there and come down to the +cottage for his meals, Mrs. Carré undertaking that no inconvenience +should thereby be caused to any of those concerned. + +He strolled up the garden, with the dogs racing in front, to choose +his bedroom, and came across his host unwillingly busy with hoe and +spade in the potato patch. His whole aspect betokened such undisguised +sufferance that Graeme could not repress a smile. + +"Like it?" he asked. + +"Noh!" + +"Sooner be at the fishing?" + +A nod and a brief smile, and Graeme left him to his unwelcome labours, +and passed through the gap in the tall hedge to his new abode. + +It was a well-built house, gray granite below and red tiles up above, +with a wide verandah round the lower storey and white balconies to the +upper one; the inside was all polished pitch pine, and the rooms were +large and airy and suitably furnished for summer occupancy. It was +left in Mrs. Carré's charge, and she and the sun and wind kept it +always sweet and clean, and ready for use at an hour's notice. + +With the assistance of his two friends, who displayed an active and +intelligent interest in the matter, he chose the room with the largest +balcony, and said to himself that the coming of the ladies was, after +all, a blessing in disguise. He believed he would be even more +comfortable there than he had been at the cottage. He would have been +quite willing to move in at once if that had been possible. + +Next morning, however, the permission duly arrived, and in many trips +he gaily carried all his belongings up the garden and installed +himself in the balcony room. + +It was a very delightful room, with fine wide outlook--over towards +the church in its dark embowerment of evergreen oaks, which some of +the folk would not pass by night; over the long sweep of the land +towards Little Sark; then, over to the left, a glimpse of the sea and +a dark blue film on the horizon which he knew was Jersey. + +This room and the balcony outside should be his workshop, he decided, +and he looked forward, with an eagerness to which he had been stranger +for weeks past, to burying himself in his work and finding in it +solace and new strength. + + +II + +Graeme possessed a lively imagination, else surely he had never taken +to writing. But a lively imagination, sole occupant of a ten-roomed +house in a strange land whose inhabitants believed firmly in ghosts +and spirits and things that walked by night, and that house but a +stone's-throw from the black churchyard where such discomforting +things might naturally be supposed to congregate, was not nearly so +enjoyable a possession at midnight as in the full light of day. + +He lay awake for hours, hearing what seemed to him uncanny sounds +about the house, inside and out. The night wind sighed through the +heavy pale leaves of the eucalyptus trees, and set the roses and +honeysuckle on the verandah posts whispering and tapping. In the stark +silence, sounds came out of the other nine empty rooms as though they +chose that quiet time for passing confidences. The stairs creaked as +though invisible feet passed up and down. And once he could have sworn +to stealthy footsteps along the verandah below his window. + +He laughed at his own foolishness. Ghosts, he vowed, he did not +believe in, and the Sark men were notably honest. All the same it was +close on daylight before he slept. + +When he pushed through the dewy hedge and went down to the cottage +for breakfast, his hostess's eyes twinkled as she asked, "You did not +see any ghosts--Noh?" + +"Not a ghost, but all the same it did feel a bit lonesome. What would +you say to my taking Punch with me to-night, just for company?" + +"Yess indeed, tek him. He iss quiet. The other iss too lively." + +"And when do your ladies arrive?" + +"With the boat. When will you be pleased to have your dinner?" + +"I'm off to Little Sark for the day. How would seven o'clock suit you +and them?" + +"I will mek it suit. They will haf dinner before or after. It will be +quite all right." + +He spent the day with the dogs, scrambling among the rugged bastions +at the south end of the island, investigated the old silver mines, +bathed, all three, in the great basin of Venus in the hollow under the +southern cliffs, and came home after sunset, tired and ravenous. + +"Well, have your ladies come?" he asked, as he sat down to his dinner. + +"Oh yess, they are come. They are gone for a walk. One of them is Miss +Hen and the other iss Miss Chum." + +"Good Lord, what names! Two old maids, I presume,--curls and +spectacles and that kind of thing!" + +"They are not old, noh. And they are ferry nice to look at, +especially Miss Chum." + +"Well, well, so she ought to be to make up for her name." + +"They were quite put out to think of having turned you out of your +roomss--" + +"Not half as much as I was, but you can assure them that I am +delighted they came. It's as nice a house as one could wish for, and +if you can arrange the meals all right I'll not trouble them in the +least. How long are they going to stay?" + +"They are like you. They do not know. It may be a month, it may be +more." + +"Oh well, I'll keep out of their way as much as possible. People who +come to Sark come to be quiet, I expect. Don't trouble about coffee +tonight, Mrs. Carré. I shall just have a smoke and then turn in. I'm +tired but and I want a good night's rest." + +"Ah yess. Well, you will tek Punch to-night, and then you will hear no +ghosts." + +The sky was still softly suffused with the clear rose and amber of the +sunset when he leaned over the wall, as he filled his pipe, and looked +out into the darkening road. + +"Har-Héri! Qué-hou-hou!" croaked a hoarse little voice in the hedge +opposite. + +"Hello, Johnnie-boy! That you?" + +"Where you bin te-day?" + +"Where have I been? Down in Little Sark, prowling about the mines, +stealing lumps of silver----" + +"Godzamin! They an't any silver now." + +"No? All right, my son. Then I'm telling you fibs." + +"Show me." + +"Ah, I don't carry it about with me." + +"An't got any." And presently, as Graeme lit up, without deigning any +answer,--"I seen a ghost las' night." + +"Clever boy! What did you make out of it?" + +"'Twas the ghost of old Tom Hamon's father. Was all white and +dead-like." + +"You're too previous, Johnnie. He's getting better." + +"He's a-goin' to die." + +"So are you sometime." + +"No, I a'n't. Show me 'at silver." + +"Sometime, perhaps, if you ask nicely. I'm going to bed now. Come +along, Punch! Goodnight, Johnnie! Keep your eyes skinned for ghosts. +Capital night for them, I should say," and he went off up the garden, +with Punch stalking solemnly alongside. + +And Johnnie Vautrin erected himself on his hands and haunches to see +where he was going, while the vivacious Scamp, shut up in the +wood-house and bereft of his bedfellow, and doubtless fearful of +ghosts in every nerve of his quivering little body, rent the still +night with his expostulations, as he heard them go past. + +The scent of the pipe was lingering still in the forecourt when the +ladies turned in out of the road, and they just caught a glimpse of +the smoker disappearing through the gap in the hedge. + +"Ah-ha! There goes the Bogey-Man!" said Miss Hen. "Does this dear +little dog carry on this way all through the night, Mrs. Carré?" + +"It iss becos the gentleman hass tekken Punch up to the house to kip +away the ghosts," smiled Mrs. Carré. + +"I should say this one would have been of more use." + +"He will be quiet soon. Scamp, bad beast, be qui-et! A couche!" + +"To keep away ghosts! What a muff he must be!" said Miss Hen. "Chum, +what do you say to putting on white sheets and giving him a scare? If +we did a skirly-whirly à la Loie Fuller, below his window, he'd +probably have blue fits. Ghosts, indeed!" + +"If that big brown Punch got out at you it's you would have the blue +fits," said Miss Chum. "The Sark air is getting into your head, +Hennie." + +"Of course it is. That's what we came for, isn't it? You'll feel it +yourself before you're two days older, my child. You're looking better +than I've seen you for a month past." + +"It's so delightful to feel free," said Miss Chum. + + +III + +Thoroughly tired out, and with a guardian angel on the mat at his +bedside, in the shape of a long brown body which sought fresh ease in +an occasional sprawl, and flopped a responsive tail each time he +dropped a friendly pat on to its head in the dark--Graeme looked +confidently for a sound night's rest. + +He fell asleep indeed at once, but woke with a start sometime in the +night, with the impression of a sound in his ears. Had he really heard +something? Or was it only the tail-end of a dream? Wood-lined houses +talk in the night. Was it only the pitch pine whispering of the old +free days in the scented woods? He could not be sure, so he lay still +and listened. + +And as he waited, it came again--a low, wailing cry, long-drawn and +somewhat curdling to the blood. + +Outside or inside? He could not be sure. + +Cats? Cats can do wonders in the way of uncanny noises, but somehow +this did not sound like cats. There was something human, or inhuman, +in it, and his door suddenly shook as though something tried to get +in. + +He bethought him to feel for Punch. But his hand fell on space, and as +he struck a match to see the time and what had become of his +companion, the church bell tolled one dismal stroke, and he saw Punch +standing like a bronze statue at the door, with his nose down at the +crack, his tail on the droop, and every hair apparently on the +bristle. + +At the glow of the match the drooping tail gave one slow swing, but he +did not look round. + +Graeme struck another match, and lit his candle, and jumped into his +shoes. + +"What is it, old fellow?" And Punch scraped furiously at the door +again, and so explained that part of the matter. + +There came a sudden scuffling fall against the door. Punch rasped at +it with his front feet in strenuous silence. If he had been able to +give voice it would have been a relief to both of them. His mute +anxiety added to the weirdness of the proceedings, and Graeme +experienced a novel creeping about the nape of the neck. + +Ghosts or no ghosts, however, it had to be looked into. He picked up a +heavy boot, turned the key, and flung open the door. Punch went down +the stairs in two long bounds, and a rush of cold air put out the +candle. He laid it down and followed cautiously, ready to launch the +boot at the first sign of uncanniness. + +The rush of night air came through a small pantry opening off the +hall. The window in it was wide open, and there was no sign of Punch. +He and the ghost had evidently gone through that way. Graeme and the +boot followed. + +It was a dark night between moons. The velvet-black vault was +brilliant with stars, but the earth was full of shadows. The fleshy +leaves of the eucalyptus trees showed pale against the darkness. The +night wind set them rustling eerily. From somewhere beyond them, past +the dark hedge, there came a sound of subdued strife. Graeme clutched +his boot and sped towards it, drenched with dew from every disturbed +branch. + +The sounds led him into the potato patch in the lower garden, and in +the dimness he became aware that Punch was standing on something that +struggled to get up and was held down by the great brown paws and +body. + +No ghost, evidently. Graeme dropped his boot and stooped and laid hold +of the struggler, and knew in a moment, in spite of his own +disturbance of mind, that this ghost at all events had materialised +into the bodily form of Master Johnnie Vautrin, and he wondered how +many more might have done the same if they had been followed up as +closely. + +He lifted the squirming small boy who had not spoken a word. + +"So this is what Sark ghosts are made of, is it, Master Johnnie?" he +asked, giving him a shake. "You little scamp! For once you shall have +what you jolly well deserve," and he carried him, kicking and +wriggling, back to the house, shoved him through the window, and held +him with one hand while he got through himself. Punch followed with +an easy bound, and they all went upstairs. Graeme found his candle, +and lit it and looked at his prisoner. + +Johnnie was covered with mould from the potato patch, but his black +eyes gleamed through it as brightly as ever, and, as far as Graeme +could distinguish through its masking, his face showed no sign of +confusion. + +"Do you know what we do with naughty little ghosts in England, +Johnnie?" + +Johnnie's eyes glittered like a snake's. + +"We spank 'em, Johnnie. I'm going to spank you--hard." + +Then Johnnie spoke. + +"I'll put tha evil eye on you." + +"Two if you like, my son,--or twenty if you've got 'em handy. Evil +eyes rather tickle me. We'll see which makes most impression--my hand +or your eye," and he laid the black-magic man across his knee, and +gave him such a genuine motherly quilting as he had never experienced +in his life before. Hot blows he was accustomed to, but this cool, +relentless, tingling flagellation, all on the one spot, and continued +till every particle of blood in his body seemed to leap to meet each +stroke, was new to him, and it made a great and lasting impression. + +He did not cry, but tried to bite and scratch the operator, and Punch +stood looking on with a grave smile on his face and a slowly swinging +tail expressive of the greatest satisfaction. + +Discipline over, Graeme handed him out through the pantry window, bade +him to go home to bed, and fastened the window behind him. The night +passed without further disturbance, and Graeme awoke as the dawn +glimmered golden on his wide-open window. + +In ten minutes he was racing bareheaded past Colinette and La Forge +towards Les Lâches, a towel round his neck and Punch bounding silently +by his side. They had stolen out the back way through the top of the +post-office fields, and had left Scamp still prisoner in the +woodhouse, lest the hysterical joy of his release should disturb the +ladies. + +And presently they were racing back home, all aglow with the tingling +kisses of the waves, and rough of hair with the salt and the wind. + +The sun was up but not yet stripped for the long day's race to the +west. The eastern skies still gleamed through a faery haze with the +soft iridescence of a young ormer shell, the tender pinks and greens +and golds of the new day's birth-chamber mellowing upwards into the +glorious blue of a day of days. + + 'The year's at the spring, + The day's at the morn; + Morning's at seven; + The hillside's dew-pearled: + The lark's on the wing; + The snail's on the thorn; + God's in his heaven-- + All's right with the world!' + +The lilt of the joyous words had often been with him as he sped +through the sleeping fields to his morning plunge. + +This day of days, as though his soul forecasted what was coming, they +sang in his heart and on his lips. His cure was surely near +completion. The salt was regaining its savour. Life was worth living +again. + +And it was then, when he had come through the valley and was ready to +climb again, that the glory came to him. + +As the two friends sprang lightly over the turf wall into the garden +of the Red House, they saw a sight which one of them will not forget +as long as he lives. + +In the gap of the tall hedge, where the path led down to the +cottage,--ringed in its darkness like a lovely picture in a sombre +frame, with a pale eucalyptus rising stately on either side; and +behind it all, and gleaming softly through and round it all, the +tender glories of the new day,--stood a girl in a dove-coloured dress, +bareheaded, holding the dew-pearled branches apart with her two hands, +and gazing at him with wide eyes, and parted lips, and startled face. + +And the girl was Margaret Brandt. + + +IV + +Graeme's first thought was that he was dreaming. He blinked his eyes +to make sure they were not playing him false. + +If she had disappeared at that moment, he would have sworn to +hallucinations and the visibility of spirits to the day of his death. + +But she did not disappear, and Punch proved her no spirit by stalking +gravely up to give her welcome. Without taking her startled eyes off +Graeme, she dropped one white hand on to the great brown head and the +diamonds sprinkled her dove-coloured dress. + +"Mr. Graeme!" she said, in a voice which very fully expressed her own +doubts as to his reality also. + +"Mar--Miss Brandt? ... Is it possible?" + +They had both drawn nearer, he along the broad gravel walk, she along +the narrow path between the eucalyptus trees. + +"Are you quite sure you are real?" he asked breathlessly, and for +answer she laughed and stretched a friendly hand towards him. + +He took it with shining eyes, and then bent suddenly and kissed it +gently, and his eyes were shining still more brightly as she drew it +hastily away. + +"But whatever brings you here?" she asked abruptly. + +"We're just out of the sea,"--and the joy of the sea and the morning, +and this greatest thing of all, was in his face. + +"But _why_ are you here? What are you doing here?" + +"Doing? We're living here." + +"Did you know I was here? How----?" she began, with a puzzled wrinkle +of the fair white brow, and stopped. + +"I did not know. I wish I had." + +"If you did not know, how--why----?" + +"If I had known perhaps I should not have dared to follow you. On the +whole I'm glad I did not know." + +"I don't understand.... How long have you been here?" + +"Just four weeks," he said, with a smile at thought of the blackness +of those four weeks now that he stood in the sunshine. + +"Four weeks! Then you mean--you mean that I--that we--followed----" + +"In the mere matter of time, yes!--and of place too," he laughed." +For you turned me out of my rooms." + +"Do you mean to say you are the Bogey-Man?" + +"Well,--no one ever called me so to my face before, but I'm bound to +say I've felt uncommonly like one for the past four or five weeks." + +"Come with me," she said hastily. "I must put this right at once, or +Hennie----" and she turned and went through the gap in the hedge. + +"Put what right?" he asked, as he followed. + +"Oh--you," she said hastily. + +"I'm all right--now. And who is Hennie?" + +"My friend Miss Penny--" + +"I beg your pardon. I thought you said Hennie." + +"Henrietta Penny. She was at school with me. We are taking care of one +another." + +They had come to the forecourt of the cottage. + +"Hen!" cried Margaret. The window was wide open, but the blind was +discreetly down. + +"Hello, Chum!" came back in muffled tones. "What's up now? Been and +got yourself lost again?" + +"Come out, dear. I want you." + +"Half a jiff, old girl. Give a fellow a chance with his back hair. You +had first tub this morning, remember." At which Graeme's eyes twinkled +in unison with Margaret's. + +"There's a gentleman waiting to see you, dear," said Margaret, to +prevent any further revelations. + +"A _what_?"--and there followed a clatter of falling implements as +though a sudden start had sent them flying. "Wretch!--to upset one +like that! It's that big brown dog, I suppose. I know you, my child!" + +Then the blind whirled up and a merry face, in a cloud of dishevelled +hair, looked out, a pair of horrified eyes rested momentarily on +Graeme, and the blind rattled down again with something that sounded +like a muffled feminine objurgation. + +And presently the inner door opened and Miss Penny came forth +demurely, and bowed distantly in the direction of Margaret and Graeme. + +She was of average height but inclined to plumpness, and so looked +smaller than Margaret; and she had no great pretensions to beauty, +Graeme thought--but then he was biassed for life and incapable of free +and impartial judgment--save such as might be found in a very frank +face given to much laughter, a rather wide mouth and nice white teeth, +abundant dark hair and a pair of challenging brown eyes which now, +getting over their first confusion--and finding herself at all events +fully dressed, wherein she had the advantage of him--rested with much +appreciation on the young man in front of her. + +The salt water was still in his hair, and the discrepancies in his +hasty attire were but partly hidden by the damp towel round his neck. +Nevertheless he was very good to look upon. His moustache showed crisp +against the healthy brown of his face; his hair, short as it was, had +a natural ripple which sea-water could not reduce; and his eyes were +brimming with the new joy of life and repressed laughter. Miss Penny +liked the looks of him. + +"Margaret Brandt, I will never forgive you as long as I live," said +she emphatically. + +"All right, dear! This is Mr. Bogey-man whose rooms we have +appropriated. He wished to be introduced to the other malefactor. Miss +Henrietta Penny--Mr. John Graeme! Mr. Graeme and I have met before." + +If Mr. John Graeme had had more experience of women, the flash that +shot across from the brown eyes to the dark blue ones might have told +him stories--for instance, that his name and would-have-been standing +towards her friend were not entirely unknown to Miss Penny; that, for +a brief half second, she wondered--doubted--and instantly chid herself +for such a thought in connection with Margaret Brandt. + +But Margaret herself, being a woman, caught the momentary challenge +and repelled it steadily. + +"I am very pleased to meet you, Miss Penny--in such a place, and in +such company. I have heard of you from Miss Brandt," said Graeme. + +"Never till five minutes ago," laughed Margaret. + +"Yes, if you will pardon me--once before, at Lady Elspeth Gordon's. +Unless I am mistaken, Miss Penny had just been across to Dublin to +take a degree which Cambridge ungallantly declined to confer upon +her." + +"Quite right!" said Miss Penny. "M.A. They're misogynists at +Cambridge." + +"Will you oblige me by informing Miss Penny, Mr. Graeme, that this +meeting is purely accidental? I caught a spark in her eye and I know +what it means. Had you the very slightest idea that we were coming to +Sark?" + +"Not the remotest. When I saw you standing in the hedge there, with +the morning glories all about you, I first doubted my eyes, then I +thought you a vision--" + +"And do you think it possible that I knew of you being here?" + +"I am certain you did not. Nobody knows. I left no address, and I told +no one where I was going. I have not had a letter since I left London. +I have been buried alive in this heavenly little place." + +"There now, Mademoiselle," said Margaret, with a bow. "Are you +satisfied now?" + +"I was satisfied before you opened your mouth, my dear. The +possibility inevitably suggested itself, but it was stillborn. Has not +our friendship passed its seventh birthday?" + +"Thank you, dear. But the coincidence of our coming to bury ourselves +in Sark, and Mr. Graeme's coming to bury himself in Sark, was almost +unbelievable." + +"Not at all," said Miss Penny. "If you could both trace back you would +probably find the same original spring of action--a chance word from +some common friend, or some article you have both read. Then, when +circumstances loosed the spring, you both shot in the same direction. +What was it loosed your spring, Mr. Graeme?" + +"Well,--I wanted to get away out of things. I'm busy on a book, you +see, and I'd heard of Sark--" + +"Same here!" said Miss Penny--"less the book. We wanted to get away +out of things--and people, and we'd heard of Sark, and here we are. +Was it you suggested Sark, or I, Meg?" + +"I'm sure I don't know, dear. You, I should think." + +"I will take all the credit of it." + +Just then Mrs. Carré, who had been down to John Philip's for bread, +turned in out of the road with a loaf under each arm. At sight of all +her guests fraternising, her face lit up with a broad smile, and +Scamp, who had whirled in after her, twisted himself into +hieroglyphics of delight and rent the air with his expression of it, +and then launched himself at Punch and taxed him with perfidy in going +off to bathe without him. + +"Ah, you have med friends with the leddies," she said to Graeme. +"Scamp! Bad beast, be qui-et! A couche!" + +"I'm doing my best, Mrs. Carré." + +"That iss very nice." + +"Very nice, indeed!" And Miss Penny asserted afterwards that he was +looking at Margaret all the time. + +"I told them you were a nice quiet gentleman and wouldn't disturb them +at all," said Mrs. Carré. + +"I'll do my very best not to. So far the disturbance has been all on +their side, but I'm standing it very well, you see. You'll let me show +you the sights, won't you?" he said to Miss Brandt. "I've been here a +month, you see, and I know it all like a book. I've done nothing but +moon about since I came--" + +"I thought you were busy on a book," said Miss Penny. + +"Er--well, you see, you have to do a lot of thinking before you start +writing. I've been thinking," and perhaps more than one of them had a +fairly shrewd suspicion as to the line his thoughts had taken. + +"Now, if I don't cut away and dress, and get my breakfast and clear +out, I shall be in the way of the ladies, and Mrs. Carré will never +forgive me," he said. "I do hope you will include me in your plans for +the day." + +His bow included them both, and he sped off up the path through the +high hedge, with the two dogs racing alongside. + +"Meg, my child, we will go for a little walk," said Miss Penny. + + +V + +The salt Sark air is uplifting at all times. The sea-water has a crisp +effervescence of its own which tones and braces mind and body alike. +Add to these the wonder of Margaret's unexpected presence there and, +if the gift of large imagination be yours, you may possibly +arrive--within a hundred miles or so--of the state of John Graeme's +feelings as he raced up that path and bounded up the stairs of the Red +House four at a time. + +He looked out of the wide-open window across the fields, while the +dogs, as usual, took the opportunity of appeasing their thirst at his +water-jug,--for water lies at the bottom of deep cool wells in Sark, +and sensible dogs take their chances when they offer. + +Was this the room he had left an hour ago in the fresh of the dawn--a +man whose gray future was just beginning to lift its bruised head out +of the shadows? + +Were those gleaming emerald fields the dim wastes he had sped across +with his dumb companion, feeling as friendly towards him as towards +anything on earth? + +Were those trees over there, with the glow of spring-gold in their +tender green leaves, the gloomy guardians of the churchyard where +ghosts walked of a night? + +Was that streak of blue away beyond the uplands, with the purple film +along its rim, only the sea and a hint of Jersey, or was it a glimpse +of heaven? + +Was he, in very truth, that John Graeme who, for thirty days past, had +been striving with all his might to root the thought of Margaret +Brandt out of his life--and succeeding not at all? + +It was the face of a stranger--a stranger with new joy of life in his +sparkling eyes--that looked back at him out of the glass, as he plied +his brushes, and tied his neck-tie with a careful assiduity to which +the John Graeme of the past thirty days had been a stranger indeed. + +It was amazing. It was almost past belief. Yet this was himself, and +there was the gap in the dark hedge--never dark again to him so long +as one twig of it lived--the gap where he had come upon her standing +like a goddess of the morning with the glories of the dawn all about +her. And somewhere not far away, under this same heavenly blue sky, +was Margaret. And there was no sign or hint of Jeremiah Pixley in her +atmosphere--nor of Charles Svendt. + +What could it possibly all mean? + +Miss Penny--Hennie Penny! What a delightfully ludicrous name! And what +a delightful creature she was!--Miss Penny, unless he had been +dreaming, had said they had come to get away from things--and people! +Now what did she mean by that--if she really had said it and he had +not been dreaming? + +Was it possible Margaret had come to get away from Jeremiah Pixley and +Charles Svendt? On the face of it, it seemed not impossible, for +Graeme's only wonder was that she could ever have borne with them so +long. + +His brain was in a whirl. The eyes of his understanding were as the +eyes of one immured for thirty days in a dark cell and then dragged +suddenly into the full blaze of the sun. If he had just drunk a magnum +of champagne he could not have felt more elevated, and he would +certainly have felt very different. For his eye was clear as a jewel, +and his hand was steady as a rock, though his heart had not yet +settled to its beat and the red blood danced in his veins like fire. + +"Jock, my lad," he said to himself, as he got the knot of his tie to +his liking at last,--"keep a grip of yourself and go steady. Such a +thing is enough to throw any man a bit off the rails. Ca' canny, my +lad, ca' canny!" + + +VI + +"Meg, I rather like young men with rippled hair," said Miss Hennie +Penny, as they passed the Carrefour and strolled between the dewy +hedges towards La Tour, with larks by the dozen bursting their hearts +in the freshness of the morning above them. + +"Do you, dear? I thought you scorned young men?" + +"As a class, yes!--Especially the Cambridge variety. But not in +particular. I make an exception in this case." + +"So good of you!" murmured Margaret in her best company manner. + +"Why did you never tell me how nice he was?" + +"Tell you how nice he was? I don't remember ever discussing him with +you in any shape or form whatever." + +"Not to say discussed exactly, but you can't deny that you've +mentioned him occasionally." + +"So I have William Shakespeare and Alfred Tennyson--" + +"And Charles Pixley!" + +"That's quite different--" + +"You're right, my dear. This is a horse of quite another colour. An +awfully decent colour too. I'm glad you appreciate it. He's as brown +as a gipsy and not an ounce of flab about him. Charles Pixley is +mostly flab--" + +"Don't be rude, Hen. You don't know Charles. And do drop your school +slang--" + +"Can't, my child. It's part of my holiday, so none of your pi-jaw! If +you want me to enjoy myself you must let me have my head. You can't +imagine how awfully good it tastes when you've been doing your best to +choke girls off it for a year or two. It's one of the outward and +visible signs of emancipation. This is another!" and she sprang up the +high turf bank of the orchard of La Tour and danced a breakdown on it, +and then jumped back into the road with ballooning skirts, to the +intense amazement of old Mrs. Hamon of Le Fort, who had just come +round the corner to draw sweet water from the La Tour well. + +"People will think you're crazy," remonstrated Margaret. + +"So I am, and you're my keeper, though it's supposed to be the other +way about. The air of Sark has got into my head. What a quaint bonnet +that old lady has! I wonder what colour it was in its infancy. +Good-morning, ma'am! Isn't this a glorious day?" And old Madame Hamon +murmured a word and passed hastily on lest worse should befall. + +"Hennie, be sensible for a minute or two. I want you to consider +something seriously." + +"Sensible, if you like, Chummie, for 'tis my nature to. +Serious?--Never! How could one, with those larks bursting themselves +in a sky like that? And did you ever see hedges like these in all your +life? What's it all about?--Ripply-Hair?" + +"Yes. Don't you see how awkward the whole matter is--" + +"Awkward for Charles Pixley maybe. I don't see that anybody else need +worry themselves thin about it." + +"I'm not thinking of Mr. Pixley. It's--" + +"Ripply-Hair? Well, that's all right! Jolly sight nicer to think about +him. I like his eyes too. There's something in them that seems to +invite one's confidence. Perhaps you haven't noticed it? If I had a +father-confessor--which, thank's-be, I haven't, and a jolly good thing +for him!--I should stipulate for him having eyes just like that. +Ripply hair too, I think. Yes. I should insist on his having hair just +like Mr. Graeme's." + +They had strolled along past Le Fort till the road lost itself in a +field above Banquette, and there they came to an involuntary stand and +stood gazing. + +Before them, the long, broken slopes of the Eperquerie swept down from +the heights to the sea, one vast blaze of flaming gorse--a tumultuous +torrent of solid sunshine stayed suddenly in its course. And, in below +the sunshine of the gorse, where rough Mother Earth should have been, +there lay instead a soft sunset cloud, the tender cream-yellow and +green of myriads of primroses and the just uncurling fronds of the +bracken--primroses in such unbroken sheets and masses as to give a +weird effect of remoteness and impalpability to that which was solid +and close at hand. + +"Wonderful!" murmured Margaret. + +"Glorious!" murmured Miss Penny. "Is it really old Mother Earth we're +looking at?" + +"No, dear! It's a bit of the sky fallen down there and the sun has +rolled over it into the sea. See the bits of him in the wavelets! And +did you ever in your life see a green like that water below the +rocks?" + +"Sky and sun above, sun and sky below!--with trimmings of liquid +emerald and sapphire, shot with white and gold. Meg, my child, this is +a long way from No. 1 Melgrave Square." + +"A long, long way!" assented Margaret thoughtfully. And then, to take +advantage of her companion's comparative soberness through the +stirring of her feelings,--"Hennie, do you think we ought to stop?" + +"Stop?" and Miss Penny fronted her squarely. "Stop? Why, we've only +just come. What's disgruntling you, Chummie?" + +"Can't you see how awkward it is?" + +"Well,--that depends--" + +"No one would believe it was all pure accident." + +"Perhaps it isn't," said Miss Penny oracularly. + +"Why, what do you mean?" said Margaret, bristling in her turn. + +"Oh, I'm imputing no guile, my child. I'm miles away up past that kind +of thing. What I mean is this--perhaps it was meant to be, and you +couldn't help yourselves. Now if that should be the case, it would be +flying in the face of Providence to go and upset it all. What are your +feelings towards him?" + +"Feelings? I have no feelings--" + +"Oh yes, you have, my child. You're not made of marble, though you can +look it when you try. Why, I have myself. I like him--the little I've +seen of him--and in spite of the fact that he caught me doing my hair, +which is enough to turn anyone against anyone. I shall probably like +him still more the better I get to know him. What have you against +him?" + +"I've nothing whatever against him. I--" + +"Then, my dear, we'll sit tight. If anyone should go it's he, since +he's been here a month, and we've only been one day. But if he goes it +will only be because you make him. You've no ill-will towards him?" + +"I've no feeling at all about him, except that it's awkward his being +here." + +"Then we'll just put the blame on Providence, and sit tight, as I said +before. I'll see you come to no harm, my child. I could make that +young man, or any young man, fly to the other end of the island by +simply looking at him." + +"Think so, dear?" and Margaret, the issue being decided for her, came +back to equanimity. + +"Sure!" said Miss Penny. + + +VII + +He was sitting on the low stone wall that shut off the cobble-paved +forecourt from the road, with his back towards them, when they +sauntered through the open door after breakfast. He was smoking the +choice after-breakfast pipe of peace, legs dangling, back bent, hands +loosely clasped between his knees. He was very beautifully dressed as +regards tie and collar--for the rest, light tweeds and cap of the +same, and shoes which struck Miss Penny as flat. But these things she +only noticed later. At present all she saw was a square light-tweed +back, and a curl of fragrant smoke rising over its left shoulder. + +Below him in the dust were his two friends,--Punch, gravely observant +of his every movement, and occasionally following the smoke with an +interested eye; Scamp, no less watchful, but panting like a motor-car, +and apparently exhausted with unrewarded scoutings up and down every +possible route for the day's programme. + +In the hedge, on the opposite side of the road, sat a very small boy +bunched up into an odd little heap, out of which looked a long sharp +little face and a pair of black eyes as sharp as gimlets and as bright +as a rat's, and beside him sat a big black cat busy on its toilet, +which it interrupted in order to eye the ladies keenly when they +appeared. + +"Now, see you here, my son," they heard from the other side of the +broad tweed back, "if you don't make it fine for the next thirty days +you and I will have words together. If you want it to rain, let it +rain in the night. Not a drop after four A.M., you understand. If you +turn it on after four in the morning there'll be another rupture of +diplomatic relations between you and me, same as there was last +night." + +The small boy's beady eyes twinkled, and he squeaked a few words in +Sarkese. + +"You have the advantage of me, Johnnie. And I've told you before it's +not polite to address a gentleman in a language he's not familiar +with, when you're perfectly acquainted with his own. The only word I +caught was 'Guyablle!' and that's not a word for young people like you +and me, though it may suit Marielihou. I'm very much afraid I'll have +to speak to the schoolmaster about you, after all, and to the Vicar +too, maybe. What? A Wesleyan, are you? Very well then, it's Monsieur +Bisson I must speak to." + +Here the small boy, with his face crumpled up into a grin, pointed a +thin grimy finger past the young man, and he turned and saw the +ladies. He doffed his cap and jumped down and tapped out his pipe, and +the dogs sprang up expectant;--Punch, grave as ever but light on his +feet for instant start; Scamp twisting himself into figure-eights, and +rending the air with such yelps of delight that not a word could they +pass. + +"Johnnie! Stop him!" shouted Graeme. The small boy in the hedge flung +out his arm with a sudden threatening gesture, and the circling Scamp +fled through the gateway and up the garden with a shriek of dismay, +and remained there yelping as if he had been struck. + +"Odd that, isn't it?" said Graeme. "Johnnie's the only person that can +stop that small dog talking; and, what's more, he can do it a hundred +yards away. If the dog can see him that's enough, and yet they're good +enough friends as a rule. Look at Punch!" + +The big brown fellow was standing eyeing the small boy with an odd +expression, intent, expectant, doubtful, with just a touch of +apprehension in it, and perhaps of latent anger. + +"Can you do it with Punch?" asked Miss Penny. + +The small boy shook his head. "Godzamin, he'd eat me if I tried," he +said, and lifted his eyes from the dog's, and the dog walked quietly +up to Margaret and pushed his great head under her hand. + +"He's a fine fellow," she said, caressing him. + +"A most gentlemanly dog," said Miss Penny. "His eyes are absolutely +poetical,--charged with thoughts too deep for words." + +"Yes, he's dumb," said Graeme, stooping to pull a long brown ear. + +"Really?" asked Margaret, looking into his face to make sure he was +not joking. + +"We've been close friends for a month now, and I've never heard his +voice even in a whisper, nor has anyone else. I've an idea Johnnie +here has put a spell on him." + +"Poor old fellow!" said Margaret, fondling the big brown head. + +"Oh, he's quite happy--bold as a lion and graceful as a panther, and +Scamp talks more than enough for the two of them." + +"And what a fine big cat you have, Johnnie!" said Miss Penny, and +stretched a friendly hand towards Marielihou. "What do you call it?" + +"Marrlyou," growled Johnnie; and Marielihou bristled and spat at the +advancing white hand, which retired rapidly. + +"The nasty beast!" said Miss Penny, and Marielihou glared at her with +eyes of scorching green fire. + +"Marielihou is not good company for anyone but herself," said Graeme. +"Now, where would you like to go?" + +"We were up that way before breakfast," said Miss Penny, nodding due +north. + +"Been to the Coupée yet?" + +"No, we've been nowhere except just along here. We were afraid of +getting lost or tumbling over the edges." + +"Then you must see the Coupée at once. And we'll call at John Philip's +as we pass, to get you some shoes." + +"Shoes?" and each stuck out a dainty brown boot and examined it +critically for inadequacies, and then looked up at him enquiringly. + +"Yes, I know. They're delicious, but in Sark you must wear Sark +shoes--this kind of thing"--sticking up his own--"or you may come to a +sudden end. And, seeing that you're in my charge--" + +"Oh?" said Margaret. + +"Come along to John Philip's," said Miss Penny. And as they turned +down the road with Punch, the hedge opened and Scamp came wriggling +through, with white-eyed glances for Johnnie Vautrin and Marielihou +sitting in the bushes farther up. + + +VIII + +Miss Penny and Graeme did most of the talking. Margaret was unusually +silent, pondering, perhaps, her friend's utterances of the early +morning, and still wondering at the strange turn of events that had so +unexpectedly thrown herself and John Graeme into such close +companionship that he could actually claim to be in charge of her, and +had proved it beyond question by making her buy a pair of shoes which +she considered anything but shapely. + +Graeme understood and kept to his looking-glass promise. + +His heart was dancing within him. It was impossible to keep the lilt +of it entirely out of his eyes. They were radiant with this +unlooked-for happiness. + +It was Margaret's shadow that mingled with his own on the sunny +road--when it wasn't Miss Penny's. It was Margaret's pleated blue +skirt that swung beside him to a tune that set his pulses leaping. +Miss Penny's skirt was there too, indeed, but a thousand of it +flapping in a gale would not have quickened his pulse by half a beat. + +And Miss Penny probably understood--some things, or parts of +things--or thought she did, and was extremely happy in that which was +vouchsafed to her. Oh, she knew, did Miss Penny! She had not, indeed, +had much--if put into a corner and made to confess to bare and +literal truth, not any--experience, that is personal and practical +experience, of such matters,--if, indeed, such matters are capable of +being brought to the test of such a word as practical. But she had +read much about them--in search of truth, and right and fitting books +to be admitted to the school library--and she knew all about it. And +here, unless she, Henrietta Penny, was very much mistaken, was a +veritable live love-affair budding and blossoming--at least she hoped +it would blossom--before her very eyes. Budding it undoubtedly was, on +one side at all events, and blossom it certainly should if she could +help it on; for he had ripply hair, and deep attractive eyes, and a +frank open face, and she liked him. + +They were suddenly in the shade, threading a narrow cutting between +high gorse-topped banks of crumbly yellow rock. Then, without any +warning, the rock-walls fell away. They were out into the sunshine +again, and in front stretched a wavering rock path, the narrow crown +of a ridge whose sides sank sharply out of sight. From somewhere far +away below came the surge and rush of many waters. + +"This is the Coupée," said Graeme, as the dogs raced across. "Over +there is Little Sark." + +"It is grand!" said Margaret, gazing at the huge rock buttresses whose +loins came up through the white foam three hundred feet below. + +"It's awful!" said Miss Penny. "You're never going across, Mr. +Graeme?" as he strolled on along the narrow ridge. + +"Surely! Why not? It's perfectly safe. There was a wooden railing at +this side, but it fell over about a fortnight ago, and at present the +good folks of Little Sark and Big Sark are discussing who ought to put +up a new one. I happened to be sitting over there when it fell. A +party of visitors came down the cutting here, and one was just going +to lean on the railing, to look down into the gulf there, when he had +the sense to try it first with his foot and it went with a crash, and +they got a scare and went back to the hotel to eat lobsters. It was +really useless as protection, but it made one feel safer to have it +there." + +"It's horrible," said Miss Penny emphatically. + +"Safe as London Bridge, if you'll only believe it. It's a good four +feet wide. The school children used to trot over when it was not more +than two and a half." + +"And none of them fell over?" + +"Never a one. Why should they?" + +"Meg, my dear," said Miss Penny, with a sudden flash of incongruity," +this is truly a _very_ great change from Melgrave Square." + +"It is," laughed Margaret. "Are you coming, Hennie?" + +"I'll--I'll risk it if Mr. Graeme will personally conduct me. He's in +charge of us, you know." + +"Certainly!" and he held out his hand to her, and then looked at +Margaret. "Will you please wait here till I come back for you?" And +catching, as he thought, a sign of mutiny in her face,--"Although it's +perfectly safe it's perhaps just as well to have company the first +time you cross." + +"Very well," she said, and Miss Penny clung convulsively to the strong +unwavering hand while she gingerly trod the narrow way, and the dogs +raced half-way to meet them. + +"Go _away_!" she shrieked, and the dogs turned on their pivots and +sped back. + +"Now, you see!" he said, when she stood safe on the rounded shoulder +of Little Sark. "Where was the trouble?" + +"It's perfectly easy, Meg," cried Miss Penny, uplifted with her +accomplishment. + +He wondered whether she would vouchsafe him her hand or attempt the +passage alone. But she put her hand into his without hesitation, and +thenceforth and for ever the Coupée held for him a touch of sacred +glamour. For the soft hand throbbed in his, and every throb thrilled +right up into his heart and set it dancing to some such tune as that +which sang in David when he danced before the Ark. But his hand was +firm, and his head was steady, for that which he held in charge was +the dearest thing in life to him. + +Three hundred blessed feet was the span of the Coupée. How fervently +he wished them three thousand--ay, three million! For every step +accorded him a throb, and heart-throbs such as these are among the +precious things of life. + +Neither of them spoke one word. Common-places were very much out of +place, and the things that were in his heart he might not speak--yet. + +"Didn't I say so?" cried Miss Penny, as they stepped ashore on Little +Sark. "It's as easy as winking." + +"I never said it wasn't," said Margaret, with a deep breath. "But I +doubt if you'd have come across alone, my child." + +"It was certainly pleasanter to have something to hold on to," said +Miss Penny. + +And Graeme thought so too. + + +IX + +Little Sark provides ample opportunity for the adventurous scrambler, +and Graeme, having tested the novel sensation of those delicious +heart-thrills, was eager for more. + +They prowled round the old silver mines, and sat on the great rocks at +Port Gorey which had in those olden times served for a jetty, while he +told them how Peter Le Pelley had mortgaged the island to further his +quest after the silver, and how a whole ship-load of it sank within a +stone's throw of the place where they sat, and with it the Seigneur's +hopes and fortunes. + +They peered into the old houses and down the disused shafts, lined now +with matted growth of ivy and clinging ferns,--the bottomless pits +into which the Le Pelley heritage had disappeared. Then he took them +for mild refection to Mrs. Mollet's cottage; and after a rest,--and +with their gracious permission, a pipe,--he led them across to the +wild south walls of the island, with their great chasms and fissures +and tumbled strata, their massive pinnacles, and deep narrow inlets +and tunnels where the waves champed and roared in everlasting +darkness. + +The dogs harried the rabbits untiringly, Punch in long lithe bounds +that were a joy to behold; Scamp in panting hysterics which gave +over-ample warning of his coming and precluded all possibilities of +capture. + +Graeme led them down the face of the cliff fronting L'Etac, the great +rock island that was once a part of Little Sark itself. + +"Once upon a time there was a Coupée across here," he said. "Some time +our Coupée will disappear and Little Sark will be an island also." + +"Not before we get back, I hope," said Miss Penny. + +"Not before we get back, _I_ hope," said Graeme, for would he not hold +Margaret's hand again on the homeward journey? + +Down the cliff, along white saw-teeth of upturned veins of quartz, +with Margaret's hand in his, then back for Miss Penny, till they sat +looking down into a deep dark basin, almost circular: lined with the +most lovely pink and heliotrope corallines: studded with anemones, +brown and red and green: every point and ledge decked with +delicately-fronded sea-ferns and mosses: and the whole overhung with +threatening masses of rock. + +"Venus's Bath," he told them. "Those round stones at the bottom have +churned about in there for hundreds of years, I suppose. The tide +fills it each time, as you will see presently, but the stones cannot +get out and they've helped to make their own prison-house,--wherein I +perceive a moral. It's a delicious plunge from that rock." + +"You bathe here?" asked Margaret. + +"I and the dogs bathe here at times. There's one other thing you must +see, and I think you may see it to-day. The tide is right, and the +wind is right, and there's a good sea on." + +They waited till the long waves came swirling up over the rocks and +filled the basin and set the great round stones at the bottom grinding +angrily. Then off again along the splintered face of the cliff, one by +one, that is two by two over the difficult bits, till he had them +seated among some ragged boulders with the waves foaming white below +them, and swooking and plunking in hidden hollow places. + +The wind was rising, and the crash of the seas on the rocks made +speech impossible. He pointed suddenly along the cliff face, and not +twenty yards away, with a hiss and a roar, a furious spout of water +shot up into the air a rocket of white foam, a hundred feet high, and +fell with a crash over the rocks and into the sea. + +Twenty times they watched it roar up into the sky, and then they +crawled back up the face of the cliff, wind-whipped and rosy-faced, +and with the taste of salt in their mouths. + +"That is a fine sight," said Margaret, with sparkling eyes and diamond +drops in her wind-blown hair. He thought he had never seen her so +absolutely lovely before. He had certainly never seen anyone to +compare with her. + +"That's the Souffleur--the blow-hole. There's a bigger one still in +Saignie Bay, we'll look it up if the wind gets round to the +north-west. I'm glad you've seen this one. It was just a chance." + +"I'm blow-holed all to rags, and, Meg, your hair is absolutely +disgraceful," said Miss Penny. So differently may different eyes +regard the same object, especially when the heart has a say in it. He +would have given all he was worth for an offered lock of that +wind-blown hair. + +As Margaret turned she caught his eye, perhaps caught something of +what was in it. + +"Am I as bad as all that?" she laughed in rosy confusion. + +"You're"--he began impetuously, but caught himself in time.--"You're +all right. When you go to see the Souffleur you must expect to get a +bit blown." + +"It's worth it," she said. "And I'm sure we're much obliged to you for +taking us. We could never have got there alone." + +"We'd never have got to Little Sark, to say nothing of the Souffleur," +said Miss Penny very emphatically. + +"And now perhaps you'll forgive me for making you buy those shoes." + +"My, yes! They're great," said Miss Penny, looking critically at her +feet. "But decidedly they're not beautiful." + + +X + +They loitered homewards, chatting discursively of many things, in a +way that made for intimacy. Miss Penny and Graeme, indeed, still did +most of the actual speaking, as he remembered afterwards, but Margaret +was in no way outside their talk, and if she did not say much it is +probable that she listened and thought none the less. + +The Coupée afforded Graeme another all-too-short span of delight, +while Margaret's hand throbbed in his and she entrusted herself to his +protection. + +He took them home by the Windmill, and through the fields and +hedge-gaps into the grounds of the Red House, and in his heart's eye +saw Margaret standing once more in the opening of the tall hedge with +the morning glory all about her--just as he would remember her all his +life. + +"Time?" demanded Miss Penny, as they passed along the verandah. + +"Half-past seven." + +"Then you are half an hour late for your dinner. I propose that we ask +Mrs. Carré to serve us all together to-night," said Miss Penny, "or we +may all fare the worse." + +"I shall be delighted," began Graeme exuberantly, "unless--" and he +snapped a glance at Miss Brandt. + +"We shall be glad if you will join us," she said quickly. + +"I will be there in two minutes," he said, and sped up the Red House +stairs to make ready. + +"I hope to goodness he won't," said Miss Penny, as they passed through +the hedge. "Now don't you say a word to me, Margaret Brandt. It was +you invited him" + +"Oh!" + +"'We shall be glad if you will join us.' If that isn't an invitation +I'd like to know what it is. And I heard you say it with my own two +ears,--moi qui vous parle, as we say here." + +"You know perfectly well that I could not possibly do anything else, +Hennie. I believe you just did it on purpose. I don't know what's come +over you." + +"John Graeme. I like him. And after all he'd done for us--that Coupée, +and Venus's Bath, and the Souffleur, and he like to lose his dinner +over it all! What could a kind motherly person like me do but +suggest--simply suggest, in the vaguest manner possible--" + +"Yes?--" as she stopped in a challenging way. + +"I merely threw out the suggestion, I say, in the vaguest possible +way, that as we were nearly dying of hunger he should allow us to ask +Mrs. Carré to let us have our dinner half an hour earlier than +usual--" + +"Oh!" + +"And then you struck in, in your usual lordly fashion, and begged him +to join us. And I'm bound to say he took it very well, not to say +jumped at it." + +"Hennie, you're a--" + +"Yes, I know. And if I live I'll be a be-a, and perhaps more +besides,"--with a cryptic nod. + +"Now, what do you mean by that?" + +"Wait patiently, my child, and you'll see." + +"I believe the Sark air is affecting your--whatever you've got inside +that giddy head of yours." + +"Of course it is. That's what I came for, and to keep you out of +mischief, you infantile law-breaker." + + +XI + +Graeme's two minutes were each set with considerably more than the +regulation sixty seconds--diamond seconds of glowing anticipation, +every one of them. And, to his credit, be it recorded that he allotted +several of them to the invocation of most fervent blessings on Miss +Penny, who, at the moment, was vigorously disclaiming any pretension +thereto. + +But, quite soon enough for his hosts, as he considered them,--his +guests, according to Miss Penny,--he appeared at the cottage, bodily +and mentally prepared for the feast, and showing both in manner and +attire due sense of the honour conferred upon him. + +It was a festive, and for one of them at all events, a +never-to-be-forgotten meal. The strong Sark air had got into all their +heads, and whatever prudish notions might have been working in +Margaret, she had bidden them to heel and took her pleasure as it +came. + +Her mood, however, for the moment was receptive rather than +expressive. Miss Penny and Graeme still did most of the talking, and +Margaret sat and listened and laughed, not a little astonished at +finding herself in that galley. + +"What is the penalty for aiding and abetting a criminal in an evasion +of the law, Mr. Graeme?" chirped Miss Penny one time, and took +Margaret's energetic below-table expostulation without a wince. + +"It would depend, I should say, on the particular dye of criminal. +What has your friend been up to, Miss Penny? Is he a particularly +black specimen?" + +"In the first place he's a she, and in the next place her complexion +has a decided tendency towards blonde. As to dye--I am in a position +to state on oath that she does not." + +For a moment he was mystified, then his eye fell on Margaret's face, +full of glorious confusion at this base betrayal by her bosom friend. + +"The Sark air does get into people's heads like that at times," he +said diplomatically. "It's just in the first few days. But you soon +get used to it. I felt just the same myself--losing faith in things +and thinking ill of my friends, and so on. You'll be quite all right +in a day or two, Miss Penny,"--with a touch of sympathetic +commiseration in his voice. + +"Oh, I'm quite all right now," said Miss Penny enjoyably. "I thought +it only right and proper to let you know where you stand. At the +present moment you are as likely as not aiding and abetting a breaker +of the British laws and her accomplice. You may become involved in +serious complications, you see." + +"If that means that I can be of any service in the matter I shall be +only too delighted,--if you will not look upon me as an intruder." He +spoke to Miss Penny but looked at Margaret. + +"Ah-ha! Qualms of conscience----" + +"Hennie is a little raised, Mr. Graeme," broke in Margaret. "Please +excuse her. A good night's rest will make her all right." + +"Never felt better in my life," sparkled Miss Penny. "But seriously, +Mr. Graeme, it is only right you should understand, for we don't quite +know where we are ourselves, and I'm going to tell you even though +Margaret kicks all the skin off my leg in the process. In a +word,--we've bolted." + +"Bolted?" he echoed, all aglow with hopeful interest. + +"Yes--from Mr. Pixley and all his works. And as he had been +threatening to make us a Ward of Court, you see--well, there you are, +don't you know." + +"I see," he said, and there was a new light in his eyes as he looked +at Margaret, and his soul danced within him again as David's before +the Ark. + +"For reasons which seemed adequate to myself, Mr. Graeme,"--began +Margaret, in more sober explanation. + +"They were, they were. I am sure of it," sang his heart. And his brain +asked eagerly, "Had Charles Svendt anything to do with it, I wonder?" + +"--I thought it well to remove myself from the care of my guardian +Mr. Pixley----" + +"Splendid girl! Splendid girl!" sang his heart. + +"--And as I have still some of my time to serve----" + +"How long, O Lord, how long?" chaunted his heart, with no sense of +impropriety, for it was sounding pæans of joyful hope. + +"--You see----" said Margaret. + +"I see." + +"Do you think they could make me go back to him?" she asked anxiously. + +"To Mr. Pixley? Certainly not--that is if your reasons for leaving him +seemed adequate to the Court, as I am sure they would." + +She offered no explanation on this point. All that she left unsaid, +and that he would have given much to hear, seemed dancing just inside +Miss Penny's sparkling eyes, and as like as not to come dancing out at +any moment. + +"You see," said Graeme, "I happen to have been making some enquiries +from a legal friend on that very point----" + +"Oh!" said Margaret, and Miss Penny's eyes danced carmagnoles. + +"In connection with a story, you know. One likes to get one's legal +points all right. In any case, as I was just about to tell Miss Penny +for the benefit of her criminal friend, there would be lots of red +tape to unwind before they could do anything, and this little isle of +Sark is the quaintest place in the world in the matter of its own old +observances and their integrity, and the rejection of new ideas. Mr. +Pixley does not know you are here, of course?" + +"Not much, or he'd have been over by special boat long since," said +Miss Penny. "We managed it splendidly." + +"And how long?" began Graeme, in pursuance of his train of thought, +but stopped short at sound of the words, since they bore distant +resemblance to a curiosity which seemed to himself impertinent. + +But Miss Penny knew no such compunctions. She did not want to miss one +jot or tittle of her enjoyment of the situation. + +"About six months," said she quickly. + +"Well, I should think we"--how delightful to him that "we," and how +Miss Penny rejoiced in it!--"could hold them at bay for that length of +time. The machinery of the law is slow and cumbersome at best, and in +this case, I imagine, it would not be difficult to put a few +additional spokes in its wheels." + +If his face was anything to go by there were many more questions he +would have liked to put--judicial questions, you understand, for a +fuller comprehension of the case. But he would not venture them yet. +He had got ample food for reflection for the moment, and his hopes +stood high. + +Never for him had there been a dinner equal to that one. Better ones +he had partaken of in plenty. But the full board and the quality of +the faring are not the only things, nor by any means the chief things, +that go to the making of a feast. + +The nearest approach to it had been that dinner with the Whitefriars, +at which he first met Margaret Brandt, and that did not come within +measurable distance of this one. + + + +XII + +"Will you be pleased to tek your dinner with the leddies again +to-night?" asked Mrs. Carré, as she gave Graeme his breakfast next +morning. + +"I would be delighted," he said doubtfully. "But are you quite sure +they would wish it, Mrs. Carré." + +"But you did get on all right with them," she said, eyeing him +wonderingly. "They are very nice leddies, I am sure." + +"Oh, we got on first rate. We didn't quarrel over the food or fall out +in any way. But----" + +"Well then?" + +"Will it be any easier for you?" he asked thoughtfully. + +"Well, of course, it will be once setting instead of twice, and that +iss easier----" + +"Then suppose you put it to them on that ground, Mrs. Carré, solely on +that ground, you understand. And if they are agreeable, I--well, I +shall not raise any objections." + +And so, presently, Mrs. Carré said to the ladies, "You did get on all +right with the gentleman last night, yes?" + +"Oh, quite, Mrs. Carré," sparkled Miss Penny. + +"I wass wondering if it would please you to dine all at once together +again each night. You see, it would save me the trouble of setting +twice. I did ask him and he said he didn't mind if you didn't. He iss +a very nice quiet gentleman, I am sure." + +"I'm sure it's very good of him," said Miss Penny. "By all means serve +us all at once together, Mrs. Carré. I guess we can stand it if he +can." + +"That iss all right then," said Mrs. Carré, and the common evening +meal became an institution--to Graeme's vast enjoyment. + + +XIII + +When the girls went into their room after breakfast to put on their +hats and scrambling shoes, they saw Graeme sitting on the low stone +wall, as usual, smoking his after-breakfast pipe, and they caught a +part of the conversation in progress between him and Johnny Vautrin. + +"I see five crows 's mawnin'," they heard in Johnnie's sepulchral +voice. + +"Really, now! Catch any?" + +"There wuss five crows." + +"Ah--five? That's an odd number! And what special ill-luck do you +infer from five crows, Johnnie?" + +"Someone's goan to be sick," said Johnnie, with joyous anticipation. + +"Dear me! That's what five crows mean, is it?" + +"Ouaie!" + +"They didn't go into particulars, I suppose,--as to who it is likely +to be, for instance, and the exact nature of the seizure?" + +"They flew over to church there and settled in black trees." + +"Vicar, maybe, since they went that way." + +"Mebbe!"--hopefully. + +"Well, well! Perhaps if we gave him a hint he might take some +precautions." + +"Couldn' tek nauthen 'd be any use 'gainst crows. Go'zamin, they +knows!" + +"You're just a confirmed old croaker, Johnnie." + +"A'n't!" said Johnnie. + +"Where's our old friend Marielihou?" + +"She's a-busy," said Johnnie, wriggling uncomfortably. + +"Ah,--killing something, I presume. Is it going to keep fine for the +next three or four weeks?" + +"I don' think." + +"You don't, you little rascal?" + +"You might do your best for us, Johnnie," said Miss Penny, as they +came through the gap in the wall. "And if it keeps fine all the time +I'll give you--let me see, I'll give you a shilling when we go away." + +Johnnie's avidious little claw reached out eagerly. + +"Godzamin!" said he. "Gimme it now, an' I'll do my best." + +"Earn it, my child," said Miss Penny, and they went on up the road, +leaving Johnnie scowling in the hedge. + +"Well, where would you like to go to-day?" asked Graeme. "Will you +leave yourselves in my hands again?" + +"I'm sure we can't do better," said Miss Penny heartily. "Yesterday +was a day of days. What do you say, Meg?" + +"It looks as though we were going to occupy a great deal of Mr. +Graeme's time," said Meg non-committally. + +"It could not possibly be better occupied," he said exuberantly. + +"And how about your story, Mr. Graeme? Is it at a standstill?" asked +Miss Penny. + +"Not at all. It's getting on capitally." + +"Why, when do you work at it?" + +"Oh,--between times, and when the spirit moves me and I've got +nothing better to do." + +"Is that how one writes books?" + +"Sometimes. How do you feel about caves?" + +"Ripping! If there's one thing we revel in it's caves, principally +because we know nothing about them." + +"Then we'll break you in on Grève de la Ville. They're comparatively +easy, and another day we'll do the Boutiques and the Gouliots. Then we +can get a whole day full of caves by going round the island in a +boat--red caves and green caves and black caves and barking-dog +caves--all sorts and conditions of caves--caves studded all round with +anemones, and caves bristling with tiny jewelled sponges. Sark is just +a honeycomb of caves." + +"Spiffing!" said Miss Penny. "If Mr. Pixley gets on our track we'll +play hide-and-seek in them with him." + +"Then we ought to spend a day on Brecqhou--" + +"A day on Brecqhou without a doubt!" + +"And if we can get the boat from Guernsey to call for us at the +Eperquerie, and can get a boat there to put us aboard, we might manage +Alderney." + +"Sounds a bit if-fy, but tempting thereby. Margaret, my dear, our work +is cut out for us." + +"And Mr. Graeme's cut out from him, I'm afraid." + +"Oh, not at all, I assure you. It's going ahead like steam," and they +began to descend into Grève de la Ville, the dogs as usual ranging the +cliff-sides after rabbits, disappearing altogether at times and then +flashing suddenly into view half a mile away among the gorse and +bracken. + +Sark scrambling requires caution and constant asistance from the +practised to the unpractised hand, and Graeme omitted none of the +necessary precautions. Whereby Margaret's throbbing hand was much in +his,--so, indeed, was Miss Penny's, but that was quite another +matter,--and every convulsive grip of the little hand, though it was +caused by nothing more than the uncertainties of the way, set his +heart dancing and riveted the golden chains still more firmly round +it. + +There are difficult bits in those caves in the Grève de la +Ville,--steep ascents, and black drops in sheer faith into unknown +depths, and tight squeezes past sloping shelves which seem on the +point of closing and cracking one like a nut; and when they crawled +out at last into a boulder-strewn plateau, open to the sea on one side +only, they sighed gratefully at the ample height and breadth of +things, and sank down on the shingle to breathe the free air and +sunshine. + +He amused them by telling them how, the last time he was there, he +found an elderly gentleman sitting with his head in his hands, on that +exact spot. And how, at sight of the new-comer, he had come running to +him and fallen sobbing on his neck. He had been there for over an +hour seeking the way out, and not being able to find it, had got into +a panic. + +"I wonder if you could find the place we came in, now?" said Graeme. +"Scamp, lie down, sir, and don't give me away!" + +"Why, certainly, it's just there," said Miss Penny, jumping up +energetically and marching across, while the dogs grinned open-mouthed +at her lack of perception. For it wasn't there at all, and she +searched without avail, and at last sat down again saying, "Well, I +sympathise with your old gentleman, Mr. Graeme. If I was all alone +here, and unable to find that hole, I should go into hysterics, though +it's not a thing I'm given to. I suppose we did get in somehow." + +"Obviously! And that's where the advantage of a guide comes in, you +see." + +"I, for one, appreciate him highly, I can assure you. Where is that +wretched hole?" + +"Here it is, you see. It's a tricky place. I shall never forget the +look of relief on that old fellow's face at sight of me. I believe he +thinks to this day that I saved his life. He stuck to me like a leech +all the way through the further caves and till we got back to the +entrance." + +"We're not through them yet then?" + +"Through? Bless me no, we're only just starting, but there's no use +hurrying. Tide's right, and we have plenty of time." + +"I feel as if I'd been lost and found again," said Miss Penny. "If +Mr. Pixley comes along we'll induce him in here and leave him to find +his way out." + +"It would take more than you to get Mr. Pixley in here, Hennie," said +Margaret quietly. "He'd never venture off the roads, even if he risked +his life in reaching Sark. He's much too careful of himself." + +"He thinks a good deal more of himself than I do," said Miss Penny. +"With all deference to you, Meg, since he's a relative, I consider him +a jolly old humbug." + + +XIV + +The days were packed with enjoyment for Graeme; not less for Miss +Penny; nor--illuminated and titillated with a conposed expectancy as +to whither all this might be leading her--for Margaret herself. + +Graeme took the joyful burden of their proper entertainment entirely +on his own shoulders. He reaped in full now the harvest of his lonely +wanderings, and compared those former gloomy days with these golden +ones with a heart so jubilant that the light of it shone in his eyes +and in his face, and made him fairly radiant. + +"That young man grows handsomer every day," was Miss Penny's +appreciative comment, in the privacy of hair-brushing. + +Margaret expressed no opinion. + +"I thought him uncommonly good-looking as soon as I set eyes on him, +but he's growing upon me. I do hope, for his sake, that I shan't fall +in love with him." + +And at that a tiny gleam of a smile hovered for a moment in the curves +of Margaret's lips, behind the silken screen of her hair. + +No trouble was too great for him if it added to their pleasure. He +provisioned their expeditions with lavish discrimination. He forgot +nothing,--not even the salt. He carried burdens and kindled fires for +the boiling of kettles, and saw to their comfort and more, in every +possible way. He assisted them up and down steep places, and +Margaret's hand grew accustomed to the steady strength of his. She +came to look for the helping hand whenever the ways grew difficult. At +times she--yes, actually, she caught herself grudging Hennie-Penny +what seemed to her too long an appropriation of it. + +Never surely were the beauties of Sark seen under happier auspices, or +through eyes attuned to more lively appreciation. For love-lit eyes +see all things lovely, and no more perfect loveliness of sea and rock +and flower and sky may be found than such as go to the making of this +little isle of Sark. + +He guided their more active energies through the anemone-studded and +sponge-fringed caves under the Gouliots; through the long +rough-polished, sea-scoured passages of the Boutiques; down the seamed +cliffs at Les Fontaines and Grande Grève; along the precarious tracks +and iron rings into Derrible; with the assistance of a rope, into Le +Pot. And for rest-times they spent long delightful afternoons sitting +among the blazing gorse cushions of the Eperquerie, and on that great +rock that elbows Tintageu into the waves, and looks down on the one +side on Port du Moulin and the Autelets, and on the other into Pegane +Bay and Port á la Jument. + +This high perch had a peculiar fascination for Margaret. She could +have sat there day after day with perfect enjoyment. She never tired +of it all--the crisp green waters below, with their dazzling fringe of +foam round every gray rock and headland; the gold-tipped pinnacles of +the Autelets, with their fluttering halos of gulls and sea-pies and +cormorants, and their ridi-fringe of tawny seaweed and foamy lace; the +rounded slopes of the Eperquerie; the bold cliffs behind, with their +sprawling gray feet in the emerald sea, and their green and gold +shoulders humping up into the blue sky; beyond them the black Gouliot +rocks and foaming Race, and the long soft bulk of Brecqhou with its +seamy sides and black-mouthed caves. + +And here one day they had a novel experience, and Margaret learned +something--got fullest proof, at all events, of something her heart +had already told her. + +They were sitting in the sea-ward cleft of this great rock behind +Tintageu, one afternoon, and Graeme had just succeeded in getting the +kettle to boil by means of an armful of old gorse bushes, when, +straightening up for a rest, he said suddenly,--"Hello! Look at that +now!" and pointed out towards Guernsey. + +And there they saw a low white cloud, lying on the sea as though it +had just dropped solidly out of the sky. Sea and sky were vivid vital +blue, the sun shone brilliantly, Guernsey, Jethou, and Herm gleamed +like jewels, and the white cloud lay between the upper and the nether +blue like the white ghost of a new-born island not yet invested with +the attributes of earth. + +And, as they watched, it crept quickly along the blue-enamelled plain. +It swallowed up the southern cliffs of Guernsey. Its creeping nose was +level with the tall Doyle column. It crept on and on, till Castle +Cornet disappeared and Peter Port was lost to sight. On and on--Jethou +was gone, and bit by bit the long green and gold slopes of Herm were +conquered, and its long white spear of sand ran out of the low white +cloud. And still on, till all the outlying rocks and islands vanished, +and where had been the glow and colour of life was nothing now but +that strange pall-like cloud. + +The blue of the sea in front had whitened, and suddenly the sentinel +rocks at the tail of Brecqhou disappeared, and the white cloud came +sweeping towards the watchers on the rock by Tintageu. + +"We're in for it too," said Graeme, hastily emptying his kettle and +packing up the tea-things. "Seems to me we'd better get ashore." + +But the cloud was on them, soft films of gauzy mist with the sun still +bright overhead. Then quickly-rolling folds of dense white cloud +blotted out everything but the path on which they stood. The gorse and +blue-bells and sea-pinks at their feet drooped suddenly wan and +colourless, as though stricken with mortal sickness, and wept sad +tears. They stood bewildered, while the pallid folds grew thicker and +thicker, lit from above with a strange spectral glare, and coiling +about them like the trailing garments of an army of ghosts. From the +unseen abysses all round came the growl and wash of wave on rock and +shingle, from the cliff above Pegane came the frightened bleat of a +lamb, and an invisible gull went squawking over their heads on his way +inland. + +With an instinct for safer quarters, Miss Penny had started off +towards the path which led precariously across the narrow neck to the +mainland. The neck itself, with white clouds of mist billowing on +either side, and streaming raggedly across the path, looked fearsome +enough. She gave a startled cry and stood still. + +"Stay here!" said Graeme to Margaret. "Don't move an inch!" and he +felt his way, foot by foot, towards the causeway. + +And Margaret, who had been regarding it all simply as a curious +experience, felt suddenly very lonely and not very safe. + +She heard him speak to Miss Penny, but she could not see two feet in +front of her. + +Then, after what seemed a long time, she heard above her-- + +"Miss Brandt? Margaret? Oh, good God!"--and there was in his voice a +note that was new to her. Sharp and strident with keenest anxiety, it +set a sudden fire in her heart, for it was for her. + +"I am here, Mr. Graeme," she cried, and he came plunging down to her +through the dripping gorse and bracken. + +"Thank God!" he said fervently. "Why ever did you move?" + +"I have not stirred." + +"I must have got wrong. It is blinding. It will be safest to wait +here, I think. Will you hold on to my arm?" + +And as she slipped her hand through it she felt it trembling--the arm +that had always been so strong and steadfast in her service--and she +knew that this too was for her. + +"Where is Hennie?" she asked. + +"She's all right. I made her sit down among the bushes and told her +she'd surely get smashed if she moved." + +It was a good half-hour before the cloud drew off and they saw +Guernsey, Herm, and Jethou sparkling in the sun once more. + +Then they crossed the narrow path over the neck, and Margaret was glad +they had not attempted it in the fog. + +They picked up Miss Penny, damp but cheerful, and went home. For +everything was dripping, and the pleasures of camping out were over +for that day, but there were fires about that all the fogs that ever +had been could not begin to extinguish. + + +XV + +As the girls sat basking in the window-seat for a few minutes after +breakfast one morning, they surprised a private conversation between +their cavalier and Master Johnnie Vautrin. Graeme, with his back to +them, sat smoking on the low stone wall. Johnnie was, as usual, +bunched up in the hedge opposite. + +"Well, Johnnie?" they heard. "Seen any crows this morning?" + +"Ouaie!" + +"How many then, you wretched little croaker?" + +"J'annéveu deu et j'annéveu troy." + +"Ah now, it's not polite--as I've told you before--to talk to an +uneducated foreigner, in a language he does not understand. How many, +in such English as you have attained to, and what did they mean +according to your wizardry?" + +"Pergui, you, too, are not polite! Your words are like +this"--measuring off an expanding half yard in the air,--"they are all +wind." + +"Smart boy! How many crows did you see this morning?" + +"First I saw two and then I saw three." + +"Two and three make five. Croaker! Five crows mean someone's going to +be sick. And which way did they go this time?" + +"Noh, noh! First it wass two, and when they had gone then it wass +three more." + +"I see. And two black crows--what might they mean now?" + +"Two crows they mean good luck." + +"Clever boy! Continue! Three black crows mean----?" + +"Three crows--they mean a marrying,--ouaie, Dame!" + +"Ah, a marrying! That's better! That is very much better. It strikes +me, Johnnie, that two lucky crows are worth twopence, and three +marrying crows are worth threepence. And as luck would have it I've +got exactly five pennies in my pocket. Catch, bearer of good tidings! +Here you are--one, two, three, four, five! Well caught! Is it going to +keep fine?" and Marielihou stopped licking herself to look at Graeme, +and then went on again with an air of,--"I could tell you things if I +would, but it's not worth while,"--in her ugly green eyes. + +"I don' think," said Johnnie, jumping at the chance of ill news. + +"You don't, you little rascal? Here, give me back my hard-earned +pence! You're a little humbug." + +"What's Johnnie been up to now?" asked Miss Penny, as she came out +into the open. + +"He's giving me lessons in necromancy and the black art of crows. He +declines to pledge his honour on the continued brightness of the day." + +"Oh, Johnnie! And we're going to Brecqhou!" + +"I cann'd help." + +"But you might send us on our way rejoicing." + +"Gimme six pennies an' I will say it will be fine." + +"I'm beginning to think you're of a grasping disposition, Johnnie. If +you don't take care you'll die rich." + +"Go'zamin, I wu'n't mind." + +Then Graeme came out again, with the hamper he had had packed in the +kitchen under his own supervision, and their cloaks, which, thanks to +Johnnie, he had picked off the nails in the passage, and they set off +for Havre Gosselin and Brecqhou. + + +XVI + +"You'll not forget to come back for us about eight," Graeme shouted to +the boatmen, as they pushed off from the fretted black rock on which +their passengers had just made precarious landing. + +"Nossir!" and they pulled away to their fishing. + +"If it should be a fine sunset," he explained to the ladies, "the view +of the Sark cliffs from Belême there, opposite the Gouliots, is one of +the finest sights in the island." + +The place they had landed was a rough ledge on the south side just +under the Pente-à-Fouaille, some distance past the Pirates' Cave, and +the ascent, though steep, was not so difficult as it looked. Graeme, +however, in his capacity of chaperon, insisted on convoying them +separately to the top--whereby he got holding Margaret's hand for the +space of sixty pulse-beats--and then went down again for the cloaks +and provisions. + +Brecqhou, at the moment, was uninhabited. Its late occupant had thrown +up his post suddenly, and gone to live on Sark with his wife, and a +new caretaker had not yet been appointed. So they went straight to the +house, deposited their belongings in the sitting-room, and then +started out for a long ramble round the island. + +First they struck west to Le Nesté, and scrambled among the rough +rocks of the Point, stepping cautiously over the gulls' nests which +lay thick all about, some with eggs and some with young. + +The wonders of the sea-gardens in the rock-pools of Moie Batarde, and +the entrancing views of Herm and Jethou and Guernsey, gleaming across +the sapphire sea, with a magnificent range of snowy cloud-mountain +breasting slowly up the deep blue of the sky behind, and looking solid +enough to sit on, as Miss Penny said, absorbed them till midday. + +Then they returned to the house, lit a fire of dried gorse, filled +their kettle at the well and set it to boil, and carried out a table +and chairs, for eating indoors was out of the question with such +beneficence of sunshine inviting them to the open. + +All the afternoon was occupied with the wonders of the Creux-à-Vaches, +with its bold scarps and rounded slopes draped with ferns and +enamelled with flowers, and the crannies and indentations of the +northern side of the island. They sat for a time on Belême cliff +entranced with the wonderful view of the bold western headlands of +Sark, unrolled before them like a gigantic panorama from Bec-du-Nez to +the Moie de Bretagne,--a sight the like of which one might travel many +thousand miles and still not equal. And they promised themselves a +still finer view when the setting sun washed every cliff and crag and +cranny with living gold. + +But as they turned to tramp through the ragwort and bracken towards +the house, intent on cups of tea, the sight of the western sky gave +them sudden start. The solid range of snow-white cloud-mountains had +climbed the heavens half-way to the zenith, and was stretching thin +white streamers still further afield. And its base in the west had +grown dark and threatening, with pallid wisps of cloud scudding up it +like flying scouts bearing ill tidings. + +"Wind, I'm afraid," said Graeme, "and maybe thunder--" + +And as he spoke a zigzag flash ripped open the dark screen, and a +crackling peal came rattling over the lead-coloured sea and bellowed +past them in long-drawn reverberations. + +"Johnnie was right after all, the little monkey." + +"I'm sorry now I didn't give him that sixpence," said Miss Penny. + +"I don't suppose it would have made much difference--except to +Johnnie. However, I hope it will soon blow over. Good thing we've got +a shelter, and we can enjoy our tea while the elements settle matters +among themselves outside." + +The storm broke over them before the kettle boiled. The rain thrashed +the house fiercely under the impulse of a wild south-west wind, which +grew wilder every minute, and the thunder bellowed about them as +though the very heavens were cracking. + +"This is a trifle rough on inoffensive pilgrims," said Graeme. "I'm +really sorry to have got you into it." + +"You didn't do it on purpose, did you, Mr. Graeme?" asked Miss Penny, +with pointed emphasis. + +"I did not. I devoutly wish you were both safe home in the Rue Lucas." + +"All in good time. Meanwhile, we might be worse off, and this tea is +going to be excellent. Margaret, my child, do you know that tea under +these conditions is infinitely preferable to tea in Melgrave Square, +under any conditions whatsoever?" + +"It is certainly a change," said Margaret. + +"And a very decided improvement. It's what some of my young friends +would call 'just awfully jolly decent,'" said Miss Penny. + +"We're not out of the wood--that is to say, the island--yet," +suggested Graeme. + +"Or we shouldn't be here enjoying ourselves like this. Brecqhou is +sheer delight." + +"On a fine day," said Margaret quietly. + +"Or in a thunderstorm," asserted Miss Penny militantly. But Margaret +would not fight lest it should seem like casting reflections on their +present estate. + +The thunder rolled over the wide waters with a majesty of utterance +novel to their unaccustomed city ears, the rain drew a storm-gray veil +over everything past the well, the wind waxed into hysterical fury, +tore at the roof and gables, and went shrieking on over Sark. And +above the rush of wind and rain, in the short pauses between the +thunder-peals, the hoarse roar of the waves along the black bastions +of Brecqhou grew louder and louder in their ears. + +Graeme's face grew somewhat anxious, as he stood at the window and +peered westward as far as he could see, and found nothing but fury and +blackness there. He had a dim recollection of hearing of outer islands +such as this being cut off from the mainland for days at a time. He +could imagine what the sea must be like among the tumbled rocks below. +And he had seen the Race of the Gouliot in storm time once before, and +doubted much if any boat would face the whirl and rush of its piled-up +waters. + +What on earth were they to do if the men could not get across for +them? + +Suppose they had to pass the night there? + +Good Heavens! Suppose they could not get across for days? What were +they to live on?--to come at once to the lowest but most pressing +necessity of the situation? + +They had weather-proof shelter. Firing they could procure from the +interior woodwork of the house and outbuildings. And they had a small +amount of tea and sugar, and half a tin of condensed milk, and rather +more than half of the day's provisions, since they had contemplated +high tea before embarking again. He determined that, if the storm +showed no signs of abating, the high tea must be a low one, since its +constituents might possibly have to serve for to-morrow's breakfast +as well. + +Both girls, their own perceptions strung tight by the electric state +of matters outside, noticed the touch of anxiety in his face as he +turned from the window, but both declined to show it. + +"How's her head, Captain?" asked Miss Penny jovially. + +"Dead on to a lee shore," he answered in her own humour. "But the +anchorage is good and we're not likely to drift." + +"Come! That's something to be thankful for, under the circumstances. +Brecqhou banging broadside on to that big black Gouliot rock would be +a most unpleasant experience. How about the sunset cliffs of Sark?" + +"They're very much under a cloud. I'm afraid we must pass them for +this time and choose a better. The cliffs indeed are there, but the +sun is much a-wanting." + +"Hamlet without the ghost of a father or even a sun." + +"Truly!" And looking at Margaret, he said earnestly, "I can't tell you +how sorry I am it has turned out this way." + +"But it is no fault of yours, Mr. Graeme. No one could possibly have +foreseen such a breakdown in the weather, with such a glorious morning +as we had." + +"After all, I'm not at all sure it isn't all Mr. Graeme's fault," said +Miss Penny musingly. + +"As how?" he asked. + +"Didn't you stop me giving Johnnie Vautrin six demanded pennies to +keep it fine all day?" + +"I discouraged the imposition, certainly. But I don't suppose Johnnie +could have done much--except with your sixpence." + +"He's a queer clever boy, is Johnnie. He certainly said it wasn't +going to keep fine." + +"Little humbug!" + +"Yet you gave him fivepence for seeing--or saying he saw--two crows +and three crows, because two crows mean good luck and three crows +mean----" + +"You talk as if you believed his nonsense, Hennie," broke in Margaret. + +"Perhaps I do--to some extent. He certainly declined to pledge himself +to a fine day, and it remains to be seen if the rest of his--" + +"--Humbug," suggested Graeme. + +"We'll say predictions, since we're in a superstitious land,--come +true. I shouldn't be a bit surprised. Thunderstorms are not, as a +rule, deadly, and it is conceivable that they may, at times, even be +means of grace. Would you mind piling some more gorse on that fire, +Mr. Graeme? A counter-illumination is cheerful when the heavens +without are all black and blazing. What a joke it would be if we had +to stop here all night!"--she said it with intention, and Graeme +understood and blessed her. + +"We'll hope it won't come to that," he said, as lightly as he could +make it. "But, if it should, we could make ourselves fairly +comfortable. Robinson Crusoes up to date!" + +"No--Swiss Family Robinsons!" was Margaret's quota to the lightening +of gloom. "The way everything turned up just when that interesting +family required it struck me as marvellous even when I was a child." + +"You always were of an acutely enquiring--not to say +doubting--disposition, my dear, ever since I knew you," said Miss +Penny. + +"I always liked to get at the true truth of things, and humbug always +annoyed me." + +"No wonder you found Mr. Pixley a trial, dear," said Miss Penny. + +"You don't mean to cast stones of doubt at that shining pillar of the +law and society, Miss Penny?" said Graeme, tempted to enlarge on so +congenial a subject. + +"Mr. Pixley does not appeal to me--nor I to him. I like him just as +much as he likes me. And that's just that much,"--with a snap of the +fingers. + +"I'm afraid you and I are in the same boat," said Graeme enjoyably. + +"I shouldn't be a bit surprised,--and for the same reason. We both +like--" + +"What shall we do for provisions, Mr. Graeme, if the storm continues?" +asked Margaret, and Miss Penny smiled knowingly. + +"I suggest husbanding those we have. It can't surely last long." + +"Mrs. Carré was telling us the other night that once no steamer could +get to Sark from Guernsey for three weeks," chirped Miss Penny. "If a +steamer couldn't get to Sark, how should a small boat get to +Brecqhou--Q.E.D.?" + +"Gracious!" cried Margaret in dismay. + +"Mr. Graeme would have to catch rabbits for us--and fish. And I +believe there are potatoes growing outside there. Our clothing will be +in rags, Meg. Mr. Graeme will be a wild man of the woods, and all our +portraits will appear in the illustrated papers. The Outcasts of +Brecqhou. Marooned on an Uninhabited Island. Three Weeks Alone." + +"I'm off for a look round," said Graeme. "If that boat should be +waiting for us, somewhere down below, it would be too stupid for us to +be waiting for it up here," and he turned up his coat collar and +pulled his cap over his brows. + +"You'll get soaked," said Margaret. "Please take this, it will help a +little," and she jumped up and thrust her golfing cloak into his +hands. He seemed about to refuse, then thanked her hastily, and threw +it over his shoulders and went out. + +The wind caught him and whirled him along towards Belême cliffs. He +tacked to the south and made a slant for the place where they had +landed. As soon as he was out of sight of the house he drew the hood +of the cloak over his head and rejoiced in it. + +To be wearing her cloak brought Margaret appreciably nearer. Possibly +that hood had even been over her head, had touched her shining hair, +her fair soft cheek. He pressed it to his face, to his lips, and the +hot blood danced in his veins at his temerity. The gale bellowed +outside and drove him staggering, but inside the hood was the +uplifting warmth and glow of personal contact with the beloved. Her +very mantle was sacred to him. He fancied he could detect in it a +subtle intimation of herself. He hugged it close, and leaned back upon +the gale, and drifted towards the southern cliffs. + +One glance at the black rocks below,--now hidden by the rushing fury +of the surges, now outstanding gaunt and grim, with creamy cascades +pouring back into the roaring welter below,--showed him how impossible +it would have been for any boat to approach there. + +He plunged on through the masses of dripping ragwort towards the +eastern cliff, and stood absorbed by the grim fury of the Gouliot +Race. The driven waves split on the western point of Brecqhou and came +rocketing along the ragged black rocks on either side in wild bursts +of foam. The Gouliot Passage was roaring with the noise of many +waters, and boiling and seething like a gigantic pot. The sea was +white with beaten spume for half a mile each way, and up through the +tumbling marbled surface great black coils of water came writhing and +bubbling from their tribulation on the hidden rocks below. The black +fangs of the Gouliots were grimmer than ever. The long line of scoured +granite cliffs on either side looked like great bald-headed eagles +peering out hungrily for their prey. + +There were no boats at the anchorage in Havre Gosselin. He learned +afterwards that they had all run to the shelter of Creux Harbour on +the other side of the island. He breasted the gale and headed for the +house. + +"I'm very much afraid we're stuck for the night," he said, as they +looked up enquiringly on his entrance. "There's not a sign of a boat, +and I'm quite sure no boat could face that sea. Sark looks like an +outcast island--the very end of the world." + +"Then we'll make ourselves comfortable here," said Miss Penny. "We +began to fear you'd been blown over the cliffs. Is there plenty of +wood in the house?" + +"I'll go and get some more," and he came back with a great armful of +broken driftwood, and went again for as much gorse as he could carry +in a rude wooden fork he found near the stack. + +"You must be soaked through and through," said Margaret. + +"Bit damp, but your cloak was a great help," and he piled gorse and +chunks of wood on the fire till its roaring almost drowned the noise +of the storm outside. + + +XVII + +"Well, I call this absolutely ripping," said Miss Penny exuberantly, +as they sat by the fire of many-coloured flames, after a slender cup +of tea and as hearty a meal as Graeme would allow them in view of +possible contingencies. "Do please smoke, Mr. Graeme. It just needs a +whiff of tobacco to complete our enjoyment." + +"Sark," she added, leaning back with her hands clasped behind her +head, "when no one knows you're there, is just heavenly. No letters, +no telegrams, no intrusion of the commonplace outside world! Those are +distinctly heavenly attributes, you know--" + +It was truly extraordinary how, with nothing more than a very general +intention thereto, she played into his hands at times. Here now was a +very simple question he had been wanting to put to Miss Brandt for +days past. For the answer to it might shed light in several +directions. But he had been loth to force matters, and had quietly +waited such opportunity as might arise in a natural way without undue +obtrusion of the doubt that was in his mind. + +"'Peace--perfect peace!' as Adam Black used to sigh," he said. "And +by the way"--turning to Margaret--"speaking of letters, I have often +wondered at times if you ever received two that I sent you concerning +Lady Elspeth--just about the time she was called away to Scotland?" + +She looked back at him with surprise, and his question was answered +and his doubt solved before ever she opened her lips. + +"About Lady Elspeth? No,--I certainly never got them." + +"H'm!" he nodded thoughtfully. "The first I feared might have gone +astray through some stupidity of the post-office. But the second I +dropped into your letter-box myself. Moreover--" + +"I never got them,"--with a charming touch of colour. + +"Moreover----?" said Miss Penny expectantly, with a dancing light in +her eyes. + +"Well," he said, after a pause, "to tell you the whole story, Mr. +Pixley assured me that you had had them and had handed them on to +him." + +"Mr. Pixley said that?" and Margaret sat up, with very much more than +a touch of colour in her face now. In fact it was militantly red and +vastly indignant. + +"Yes. I--well, I called upon him at his office just to find out +if--well, if you were ill or anything like that, you know. And among +other interesting information he told me that, and cut off my head +with his glasses and threw my remains out into the street;" at which +Margaret smiled through her indignation. + +"Mr. Pixley," said Miss Penny emphatically, "is a--a Johnnie Vautrin +on a larger scale. Had he any other interesting items of information +for you, Mr. Graeme?" + +"Well--yes, he had. But I can estimate them now at their proper value, +and it can rest there." + +"It was Mr. Black's enthusiasm for Sark at that Whitefriars' dinner +that put it into my head when--when we were wondering where to go. I +remember now," said Margaret. + +"It was Black's enthusiasm for Sark that put it into _my_ head when +_I_ was wondering where to go," said Graeme. + +"There you are, you see," said Miss Penny. "I knew you must have had +some common inspiration." + +"I am greatly indebted to Black. He's one of the finest fellows I +know. He's done me more than one good turn, but I shall always count +Sark his chiefest achievement," said Graeme heartily. + + +XVIII + +The wind howled round the house, and whuffled in the chimney, and sent +spurts of sweet-scented smoke to mingle with the fuller flavour of +Graeme's tobacco. The walls were bare plaster, discoloured with age +and careless usage. The chairs were common kitchen chairs, and the +table a plain deal one. But the driftwood burned with flames whose +forked tongues sang silently but eloquently of wanderings under many +skies, of rainbow isles in sunny seas, of vivid golden days and the +black wonders of tropic nights, of storms and calms, and all the +untold mysteries of the pitiless sea. + +But to two at least of the party--and perhaps even to three--that bare +room was radiant beyond any they had ever known. + +Orange and amber lightening into sunshine, purple into heliotrope, +tender greens and lucent blues, burning crimson and fiery red, were +the flames of the driftwood, and in these surely the imagination may +find its happiest auguries. For if the dancing flames, out of their +chastened knowledge, sang only of the past, in the minds of their +watchers they were singing of futures brighter and more glowing than +anything the past had ever known. And so, to two at least of +them,--and perhaps to three,--never surely was there room so radiant +as that bare room in that empty house on Brecqhou. + +Miss Penny had the high endowment of a large heart, a wide +imagination, and sentiment sufficient for a high-class girls' +boarding-school. + +She found herself for the moment out of place, yet she could not +remove herself without too obvious an intention. She did the next best +thing. She settled herself on her chair in a corner, slipped off her +shoes, sat on her feet, and went to sleep. + +Margaret, indeed, glanced at her suspiciously once or twice, without +moving her head by so much as a hair's-breadth. But she seemed really +and truly asleep, and for a moment Margaret was amazed that anyone +could think of sleep in that enchanted room. But then she remembered +that it was different--Hennie was Hennie, and she was she, and it was +for her that the crystal ball of life had opened of a sudden and shown +the radiance within. + +How long they sat in silence before the rainbow fire she never knew. + +Hennie was snoring gently--purring as one might say--in the most +genuinely ingenuous fashion. + +Graeme, in the riot of happy possibilities evoked by the disclosure of +Mr. Pixley's perfidy, would have been content to sit there for ever, +since Margaret was at his side. It was enough to know that she was +there. He did not need to turn his head to enjoy the sight of her with +gross material vision. Every tight-strung fibre of his being told him +of her nearness, in ways compared with which sight and sound and touch +are gross and feeble travesties of communication. Their spirits surely +reached out and touched in that silent communion before the rainbow +fire. + +There were many things he wanted to ask her now. But they could wait, +they could wait. The Doubting Castles he had built in his despair had +had no foundations. He was building anew already, and now with rosy +hope and golden faith, and the topstones of his building mingled with +the stars. + +He woke of a sudden to a sense of lack of consideration for her in his +own enjoyment. Doubtless she was tired out, and was only kept from +following Miss Penny's example by his crass stupidity in sitting there +in that stolid fashion. + +"Pray forgive me!" he said, as he rose quietly. "You must be tired, +too. I will take the other room and you can join Miss Penny." + +"I'm not the least tired. I never felt more awake in my life. Surely +the wind has fallen." + +He went to the door and opened it and looked out. + +"It is only a lull. It will probably blow up again stronger than +ever," and as he turned he found her at his elbow. + +"Let us go outside," she said, and he could have taken her into his +arms. Instead, he tiptoed across the room and got her cloak, and +placed it on her shoulders with a new, vast sense of proprietorship. + +He knew just how she felt. Even that room of rare delights was not +large enough just then for her and for him. The whole wide world, and +the illimitable heights of the heavens, could scarce contain that +which was in them. Their hearts were full, and that which was in them +was that of which God is the ultimate perfection. And in their ears, +in the gaps of the storm, was the roaring thunder of the great white +waves as they tore along the black sides of Brecqhou. + +"Tell me more about those letters," she said briefly. "What did you +write?" + +"I wrote, nominally, to inform you of Lady Elspeth's sudden call to +Scotland, but actually to tell you how sorely I regretted the sudden +break in our acquaintance which had become to me so very great a +delight." + +"And when you got no answer?" + +"I waited and waited, and then I had a sudden fear that you might be +ill. And to satisfy myself I called on Mr. Pixley at his office. He +told me you were quite well, that you had had my letters, and had +handed them to him." + +"Anything more?" + +"Yes,--he said you were shortly to marry his son." + +"That is what he wished,--and that is why I am here." + +"Thank God! Then I may tell you, Margaret. I had been building castles +and you were mistress of them all and of my whole heart. When Mr. +Pixley knocked them into dust I came here to fight it out by myself, +and a black time I had. Then God, in His goodness, put it into your +heart to come too. Will you marry me, Margaret?" + +"Yes, Jock." + +And there, in the lull of the gale, in the lee of the lonely house on +Brecqhou, they plighted their troth with no more need of feeble words, +for their hearts had gone out to one another. + +And all along the gaunt black rocks the great waves, which a moment +before had been growling in dull agony, roared a mighty chorus of +delight, and rolled it up the sloping seams of Longue Pointe, and +flashed it on in thunderous bursts of foam from Bec-du-Nez to L'Etac. + +And Miss Henrietta Penny, awakening about this time, and finding +herself alone, laughed happily to herself, and sighed just once, and +said from her heart, "God bless them!"--and did not go to sleep again, +though to look at her you would never have known it, save for the fact +that she no longer purred in her sleep,--for the woman has yet to be +born who ever pleaded guilty to actual snoring. + + +XIX + +Graeme slept that night just as much as might have been expected under +the circumstances, and that was not one wink. Nevertheless, when +morning came, he felt as strong and joyous as a young god. New life +had come to him in the night, and he felt equal to the conquering of +worlds. For love is life, and the strength and the joy of it. + +He was out with the dawn, to a gray rushing morning full of the sounds +of sea and wind. He drew a canful of water from the well, and had such +a wash as no soap and a handkerchief would permit of. Then he drew +another canful and left it outside the door of the ladies' room, and +strode off to Belême to see if the boats had got back to their +anchorage. But the little bay was a scene of storm and strife, a wild +confusion of raging seas and stubborn rocks, the fruits of the +conflict flying up the cliffs in spongy gouts of spume, and dappling +the waters far and wide with fantasies of troubled marbling,--and +there was not a boat to be seen. + +But the sight of the great white seas roaring up the Sark headlands, +as far as he could see on either hand, was one never to be forgotten. +It was worth the price they had paid, even though it spelt a further +term of captivity, and he turned back to his duties with that new glad +glow in his heart which was no longer simply hope but the full and +gracious assurance of loftiest attainment. + +He had seen potatoes growing in a plot near the house. So, after +lighting a fire in the kitchen and setting the kettle to boil, he +rooted about till he found the remains of a spade and set himself to +unaccustomed labours. + +When Miss Penny came out of her room, freshfaced and comely +coiffured, she found a ring of potatoes roasting in the ashes and the +kettle boiling, and Graeme came in, bright-eyed and wind-whipped, +wiping his hands on a very damp handkerchief. + +"I am so glad, Mr. Graeme," she said, with sparkling eyes and face, +and hearty outstretched hand. + +"Margaret has told you?" + +"Of course Margaret has told me. Am I not her keeper, and haven't I +been hoping for this since ever I saw you?" + +"That is very good of you. I thought, perhaps--" + +"Thought it might take me by surprise, I suppose--and perhaps that I +might take it badly? Not a bit! It fulfils my very highest hopes. And +I can assure you you have got a prize. There are not many girls like +Margaret Brandt." + +"Don't I know it? I have known it from the very first time I met +her--at that blessed Whitefriars' dinner." + +"I think you will make her very happy." + +"I promise you I will do my very best." + +And then Margaret came into the kitchen and knew what was toward. + +She looked like a queen and a princess and a goddess all in one, with +a flood of happy colour in her face and a glad glow in her eyes, and +no more hint of maidenly shyness about her than was right and natural. +And Miss Penny's eyes were misty of a sudden, as Graeme went quickly +up to her friend, and feasted his hungry eyes on her face for a +moment, and then bent and gallantly kissed her hand. For in both their +faces was the great glad light that is the very light of life, and +Miss Penny was wondering if, in some distant future time, it might +perchance be vouchsafed to her also to attain thereto. + +"I hope you both slept well," he said gaily. "I've done my best in the +provisioning line. I know we've got plenty of salt, for one generally +forgets it and so I always put in two packets." + +"You've done splendidly," said Miss Penny, tying up tea in a piece of +muslin and dropping it into the kettle. + +"I'd have tried for a rabbit, but I wasn't sure if either of you could +skin it--" + +"Ugh! Don't mention it!" + +"And I knew I couldn't, so we'll have to put up with roasted potatoes +and imagine the rabbit. I've been told they do that in some parts of +Ireland,--hang up a bit of bacon in a corner and point at it with the +potato and so imagine the flavour." + +"Potatoes are excellent faring--when there's nothing better to be +had," said Miss Penny, rooting in the basket. "However, here are three +of yesterday's sandwiches, slightly faded, and some biscuits--in good +condition, thanks to the tin. Come, we shan't absolutely starve!" + +And they enjoyed that meal--two of them, at all events, and perhaps +three--as they had never enjoyed a meal before. + +"And the weather?" asked Margaret. + +"The blessed weather is just as it was; perhaps even a bit more +so,--the most glorious weather that ever was on land or sea!" + +"But----" said Margaret, smiling at his effervescence. + +"No, I'm afraid it can't last very much longer, and potatoes and salt +I know would begin to pall in time. After breakfast you shall see the +grandest sight of your lives,--and for the rest, we will live in +hope." + + + +XX + +And, after all, they saw what they had specially come to see--a sunset +from Belême cliff. + +For the day remained gray and boisterous until late in the afternoon. +They had lunched--with less exuberance than they had breakfasted--on +potatoes and salt and a thin medicinal-tasting decoction made from +breakfast's tea-leaves; they were looking forward with no undue +eagerness to potato dinner without even the palliative of medicinal +tea; and even Miss Penny acknowledged that, choice being offered her, +she would give the preference to some other vegetable for a week to +come;--when, of a sudden, the gray veil of the west opened slowly, +like the lifting of an iron curtain, and let the light behind shine +through. + +And the light was as they could imagine the light of heaven--a pure +lucent yellow as of the early primrose, but diaphanous and almost +transparent, as though this, which seemed to them light, was itself in +reality but an outer veil hiding the still greater glory behind. The +curtain lifted but a span, and the lower rim of it curved in a gentle +arch from the middle of Guernsey to the filmy line of Alderney. All +below the sharp-cut rim was the sea of heavenly primrose, with here +and there a floating purple island edged with gold. All above was +sombre plum-colour flushed with rose, the edges fraying in the wind, +and floating in thin rosy streamers up the dark sky above. + +The sun, larger than they had ever seen him in their lives, dropped +gently like a great brass shield from behind the dark curtain into the +sea of primrose light, and the primrose flushed with crimson over +Guernsey and with tender green and blue over Alderney. + +They hastened away to Belême cliff, and then they saw what they had +hoped to see, and more;--the mighty granite frontlets of Sark all +washed with living gold--- shining from their long conflict with the +waves, and gleaming, every one, like a jewel,--from Bec-du-Nez to Moie +de Bretagne. And, out in the dimness, behind which lay Jersey, there +suddenly appeared the perfect circle of a rainbow such as none of them +had ever dreamed of--a perfect orb of the living colours of the +Promise--resting bodily on the dark sea like a gigantic iridescent +soap-bubble, glowing and pulsing and throbbing under the level beams +of the setting sun. + +"Wonderful!" murmured Margaret. + +"I never saw more than half a bow before," whispered Miss Penny. + +"Nor I," said Graeme. "But then, you see, nothing ever was as it is +now. Things happened last night." + +At which Miss Penny smiled and murmured, "Of course! That accounts for +everything. The whole world is changed." + +And they watched and watched, in breathless admiration, first the +cliffs, and then the bow, and then the sun, and then the cliffs and +bow again, till the last tiny rim of the sun sank behind the dark line +of Herm, and the bow went out with a snap, and the cliffs in front +grew gray and sank back into their sleep, as the shadows crept up out +of the sea. + +And, presently, the primrose sea in the clouds lost its transparent +softness and flushed with rose and carmine. The tender greens and +blues in the north deepened, and the sky above glowed crimson right +into the far east. And the sea below was like a ripe plum with a +rippling bloom upon it, and then it answered to the glow "above and +became like burnished copper. And over it, from the south end of Sark, +came a dancing white sail, at sight of which Graeme leaped to his +feet. + +"The show is over," he cried, "and here comes your highnesses' +carriage." + +"I wouldn't have missed it for anything," said Margaret softly, with a +rapt face still. + +"It was worth living on potatoes for a month for," said Miss Penny. +"All the same, I hope Mrs. Carré will have some dinner for us when we +get home." + +The boat was heading for the Pente-à-Fouaille where they had landed +the day before, and they hurried to meet it, Graeme full of misgivings +as to the embarkation, for the waves were still roaring up the rocks +in bursts of foam, though the wind had fallen somewhat. + +But the boatmen knew their business, and had brought an extra hand for +its safe accomplishment. They dropped the sail and pulled round a +corner of the black rock. Then, while two of them kept the boat from +destruction, the other stood and Graeme dropped the girls one by one +into his arms, and was a very thankful man when he tumbled in himself, +all in a heap, and wiped the big drops of sweat from his brow. + +A stroke or two with the oars and they were plunging back through the +hissing white caps, but not, as he had expected, to Havre Gosselin. + +"Where to?" he shouted to the blue-guernseyed stalwart nearest him. + +"Grande Grève. We couldn' beach in Havre Gosselin, and mebbe the +leddies wouldn' like to climb the ladders," with a grin at the +leddies. + +"Not much!" said Miss Penny. "Margaret, my dear, prepare yourself! I'm +going to be sick if this goes on much longer." + +But before she had time to be sick they had rounded the shoulder of +Port-és-Saies, and their boat's nose ran up the soft sand of a low +tide in Grande Grève, and the green waves came curling exultantly in +over the stern. The men leaped out and hauled bravely, and in a moment +the girls were ashore. + +"Couldn' get back nohow last night, sir. 'Twould a bin as much as our +lives were worth. Hope ye didn' starve," said the spokesman with +another genial grin. + +"No, we didn't expect you. We dug potatoes and cooked them. Here you +are, and thanks for coming as soon as you could," and, from their +smiling faces, their reward without doubt covered not only that which +they had actually done but that also which they had unwittingly helped +to do. + +The boat shoved off and made for its own anchorage, and Graeme led the +girls up the toilsome path to the Coupée. + +It was after nine when they reached the cottage, and the first thing +they saw was Johnnie Vautrin sitting in the hedge opposite, with +Marielihou licking her lips alongside. + +"I just seen seven crows," cried Johnnie gleefully. + +"Little rascal! You dream crows," said Graeme, whose desires at the +moment ran to something more palatable and satisfying. + +"And what do seven crows mean, Johnnie?" asked Margaret. + +"Seven crows means everything's oll right!" + +"Clever boy! You see just what you want to see," said Graeme, and then +Mrs. Carré appeared at the door of the cottage. + +"Ah then, here you are!" she said, with a large welcoming smile. "And +the dinner I haf been keeping for you for an hour an' more." + +"You're a good angel, Mrs. Carré," said Graeme gratefully. "We are a +bit late, aren't we? I hope you've put yesterday's dinner and to-day's +together. We've had nothing to eat to speak of for a month. What did +you think when we never turned up last night?" + +"Oh, but I knew you would be all right. There iss a house on Brecqhou, +and there iss watter, and you had things to eat, and it was better on +Brecqhou last night than on the watter." + +"It was," said Graeme heartily, and sped off up the garden for a +much-needed wash and brush-up. + + +XXI + +"Now what would I like myself if I was in their place?" asked Miss +Penny of herself, while she rectified the omissions of the last two +days in the matter of Nature's cravings for a more varied diet than +Brecqhou afforded. + +"Why, to be alone and free from the observation of Miss Hennie Penny," +she promptly answered herself, and as promptly acted on it. + +"Meg, my dear, I am aweary. I am not accustomed to playing Swiss +Family Robinson. By your leave, Monsieur and Mademoiselle, I will wish +you good-night and pleasant dreams," and she went off into the +bedroom. + +"May she have as tactful a chaperone when her own time comes," said +Graeme, with a smile. "Do you think you would sleep better if you went +to bed at once or if you had a little walk first?" + +"I am not the least bit sleepy," said Margaret. + +"Then a stroll will do you good," and they went out into the night. +And Miss Penny, as she heard their feet on the cobbles, smiled to +herself a little wistfully. + +Such a night of stars! The gale had swept the heavens and thinned the +upper air till the Milky Way was a wide white track strewn thick with +jewels, and the greater lights shone large and close. As they +sauntered in silence towards La Tour, their faces towards the stars +among which their full hearts were ranging in glorious companionship, +one of the lesser lights silently loosed its hold and dropped slowly +from zenith to horizon, in a fiery groove that momentarily eclipsed +all else. + +And while Graeme was still pressing to his heart the soft arm that lay +in his, in silent enjoyment of the sight and at their sharing it, +another star swung loose, and another, and another, till the +glittering vault seemed laced with fiery trails and they stood in rapt +admiration. + +"What a sight!" said Margaret softly. "I have never seen anything like +that before." + +"Nor I. The very stars rejoice with us.... You have made me the +happiest man in all the world this day, Margaret. I can hardly believe +it is real ..." + +"I am real," she said, with a low warm little laugh. "And I am happy. +Kiss me, Jock!" and he kissed her there under the falling stars, and +she him, in a way that left no doubt as to what was in them, and the +evening incense of the honeysuckle and hawthorn wafted fragrance all +about them. + +There was still a tender touch of colour in the sky over the western +sea as they came out on the Eperquerie. + +"When are you free, Margaret?" he asked,--the first word since they +kissed in the lane. + +"I am twenty-one on New Year's Day." + +"Six whole months! How can we possibly wait all that time?" + +"Why should we?" she asked delightfully. + +"Undoubtedly--why should we?" he said, on fire with her charming +readiness. "You are probably by this time ringed with legal pains and +penalties, but they are all less than nothing." + +"What could they do?" + +"I believe they clap the male malefactor into prison----" + +"I will go with you." + +"I'm not sure if there are any married cells." + +"And how long would they keep us there?" + +"Till, in their opinion, I had purged my contempt, I believe." + +"And how long would that be?" + +"I've no idea. It probably depends on circumstances. Do you know that, +until Lady Elspeth told me, I had rib idea that you had any money. It +was rather a blow to me." + +"I don't see why." + +"But I told our old friend that if--well, if, you understand--I should +insist on everything you had being settled on yourself." + +"You and Lady Elspeth seem to have discussed matters pretty freely," +she said, with a laugh. + +"She's the dearest old lady in the world, and delights in mothering +me. She got me in a corner that afternoon, and taxed me with coming to +her house for reasons other than simply to see herself----" + +"And you----?" + +"I had to own up, of course, and then she crushed me by telling me +that you were an heiress, and that Mr. Pixley probably had views of +his own concerning you." + +"Which he had, but they happened not to coincide with mine, and so I +came to Sark." + +"Happy day! I see you yet, standing in the hedge by the Red House, and +I believing you a vision." + +"I could hardly believe my eyes either. You seemed to come jumping +right out of the sky." + +"I jumped right into heaven--the highest jump that ever was made." + +"I was a bit put out at first, you know----" + +"I know you were." + +"I thought you had learned we were coming, and had followed us here." + +"Whereas----" he laughed. + +"Exactly!" + + + + +PART THE FIFTH + + +I + +"But yes, I can marry you in the church," said the Vicar, blowing out +smoke, and laughing enjoyably across at Graeme, who sat in another +garden chair under the big trees in front of the Vicarage. + +"In spite of the fact that we are aliens?" + +"Oh, it is not so bad as that. We ab-sorbed you by conquest and so you +are really a part of us. We are all one family now." + +"And such a marriage would be perfectly legal and unassailable?" + +"I shall marry you more firmly than if you were married in +Cant-er-bury Cath-edral," laughed the Vicar. + +"That should suffice. But why more firmly? How improve on perfection?" + +"I will tell you," said the Vicar, with increased enjoyment, as he +leaned forward and tapped Graeme's knee. "It is this way.--If you are +married in Cant-er-bury Cath-edral you can be divorced,--n'est-ce pas? +Oui! Eh bien!--If you are married in my church of Sark you can never +be divorced. C'est ça! It is the old Norman law." + +"We will be married in your church of Sark," said Graeme, with +conviction. + +"That is right. I shall marry you so that you shall never be able to +get away from one another." + +"Please God, we'll never want to!" + +"Ah yes! Of course. C'est ça!" + + +II + +"We have never had a case of the kind, as far as I know. Certainly not +in my time," said the Seigneur, smiling quizzically across the +tea-table at Graeme. "But you gentlemen of the pen are allowed a +certain amount of license in such matters, are you not?" + +"We sometimes take it, anyhow. But one likes to stick as close to fact +as possible." + +They were sitting in the shady corner in front of the Seigneurie, with +four dogs basking in the sun beyond, and beyond them the shaven lawns +and motionless trees, the leafy green tunnel that led to the lane, and +a lovely glimpse into the enclosed gardens through the ancient gateway +whose stones had known the saints of old. + +Graeme had put a certain proposition to the Lord of the Island, +nominally in connection with the story he was busy upon, but in +reality of vital concern to the larger story in which Margaret and he +were writing the history of their lives. + +"Sark, you know, is a portion of the British Empire, or perhaps I +should say the British Empire belongs to Sark, but we are not under +British law. We are a law unto ourselves here," said the Seigneur. + +"And the authority of a British Court would carry no weight with you? +In the case I have put to you, if the Court of Chancery ordered you to +surrender the young lady, you would refuse to do so?" + +"I could refuse to do so. What I actually would do might depend on +circumstances." + +"I see," said Graeme musingly, and decided that the Seigneur's +goodwill was worthy of every possible cultivation both by himself and +Margaret. For he did not look like one who would help a friend into +trouble. + + +III + +"I've been thinking a good deal about it, and I really don't see any +reason why we should wait,"--said Graeme, looking at Margaret. + +And Miss Penny said "Hear! Hear!" so energetically that Margaret +laughed merrily. + +"We are both of one mind in the matter, an life is all too short at +its longest, and most especially when it offers you all its very best +with both hands--" + +"Hear! _Hear_!" said Miss Penny. + +"And time is fleeting," concluded the orator. + +"And that kettle is boiling over again," and Miss Penny jumped up and +ran to the rescue. + +They were spending a long day in Grande Grève--the spot that had +special claims upon their liking since their landing there after that +memorable trip to Brecqhou. They had brought a full day's rations, +prepared with solicitous discrimination by Graeme himself, and a +kettle, and a great round tin can of fresh water from the well at +Dixcart, and a smaller one of milk. + +So high were their spirits that they had even scoffed at Johnnie +Vautrin's intimation that he had seen a magpie that morning, and it +had flown over their house. But magpie or no magpie they were bent on +enjoyment, and they left Johnnie and Marielihou muttering black spells +into the hawthorn hedge, and went off with the dogs down the scented +lanes, through the valley where the blue-bells draped the hillsides in +such masses that they walked as it were between a blue heaven and a +blue earth, and so by the meadow-paths to the Coupée. + +Their descent of the rough path down the side of the Coupée with all +this impedimenta had not been without incident, but eventually every +thing and person had been got to the bottom in safety. + +Then, while the dogs raced in the lip of the tide and Scamp filled the +bay with his barkings, the girls had disappeared among the tumbled +rocks under the cliff, and Graeme had sought seclusion at the other +end of the bay. And presently they had met again on the gleaming +stretch of sand; he in orthodox tight-fitting dark-blue elastic web +which set off his long limbs and broad shoulders to great advantage; +Hennie Penny in pale blue, her somewhat plump figure redeemed by the +merry face which recognised all its owner's deficiencies and more than +made up for them all; Margaret, tall, slim, shapely, revealing fresh +graces with every movement,--a sea-goddess in pale pink--a sight to +set the heart of a marble statue plunging with delight. + +Hennie Penny persisted in wearing an unbecoming cap like a sponge-bag, +which subjected her to comment. + +Margaret's crowning glory was coiled in thick plaits on top of her +head, and if it got wet it got wet and she heeded it not. + +Both girls had draped themselves in long towels for the walk down to +the water, and Graeme's heart sang with joy at the surpassing beauty +of this radiant girl who had given her heart and herself and her life +into his keeping. + +Dainty clothing counts for much in a girl's appearance. Not every +girl shows to advantage in bathing costume. But when she does, she +knows it, and the hearts of men are her stepping-stones. + +Hennie Penny was a cautious swimmer. She preferred depths soundable at +any moment by the dropping of a foot, and if the foot did not +instantly touch bottom she fell into a panic and screamed, which added +not a little to the hilarity of their bathes. + +Margaret and Graeme, however, were both at home in the water. They +delighted to set their faces to the open and breast steadily out to +sea, rejoicing in the conquest of the waves. But he always watched +over her with solicitous care, for there are currents, and +cross-currents, and treacherous undertows round those coasts, and the +wary swimmer is the wiser man. + +And the dogs always swam with them, Punch lunging boldly ahead with +the ease and grace of a seal, looking round now and again to see if +they were coming, and turning the moment they turned. While Scamp, +away in the rear, thrashed along spasmodically, with a yelp for every +stroke, but would not be left out of it. The sight of his anxious +little face and twisting nose more than once set Margaret laughing, so +that she had to turn on her back and float till she got over it, +greatly to the small dog's satisfaction. + +Full of life and the mighty joy of it, they found the going unusually +easy that day. The water was like the kiss of new life, crisp, tonic, +vitalising. There was no more than a breath of wind, no more than a +ruffle on the backs of the long blue rollers that came sweeping slowly +in out of the West. + +Graeme, as he glanced round in his long side-strokes at the lovely +eager face gemmed with sparkling water-jewels, took full deep breaths +of delight and gratitude to the All-Goodness that had vouchsafed him +such a prize. + +The kiss of the life-giving water had induced a tender flush of colour +in the soft white neck, as though the pink of her bathing-suit had +spread upwards. He could see the pulsing blue veins in neck and temple +as she rose to her stroke. A tiny tendril of water-darkened hair +lifted and fell on her neck like a filament of seaweed on a polished +rock. Her eyes were very bright, and seemed larger than usual with the +strenuous joy of it all. The wonder of her beauty absorbed him. He +could hardly turn his face from it. He would have been content to go +on swimming so for ever. + +But, glancing past the sweet face one time, he saw that they had gone +farther than he knew, and Scamp had turned long since and was yelping +towards the shore. + +"Better turn now," he said quietly, and she floated for a moment's +rest, then turned and they headed for the shore, and Punch passed them +noiselessly. + +They ploughed along in good cheer for a time, and then, of a sudden, +it seemed to him that they were making but poor progress. + +He fixed his eyes on a rock on the shore and swam steadily on. + +They had been opposite it. Twenty strokes, and the rock, instead of +facing them, had swung slowly to the north. They were making less than +no progress. They were drifting. They were in the grip of a current +that was carrying them towards the black fangs of Pointe la Joue. + +A cold sweat broke out among the sea-drops on his brow. Pointe la Joue +is an ill place to land, even if they could make it, and the chances +were that the current would carry them past. + +How to tell her without undue upsetting? A panic might bring disaster. + +He looked round at her. The bright face was high and resolute. She was +not aware of the danger, but from that look on her face he did not +think she would go to pieces when he told her. + +The rock he had been watching stood now at an angle to their course. + +"Are you tired, Meg?" he asked. + +"I'm all right." + +"Turn on your back and float for a minute or two," and he set the +example, and Punch saw and came slipping back to them. + +"We're in a cross current," he said quietly. "And we're making no +way--" + +"I know. I was watching a rock on the shore. What's the best thing to +do?" + +"We'll rest for a few minutes and then go with the tide round Pointe +la Joue. We can land in Vermandés. You're not cold, are you?" + +"Not a bit." + +When he lifted his head the Coupée was shortened to a span, and the +southern headland folded over it as he looked. They were drifting as +fast as a man could walk at his fastest. They were abreast the black +rocks of La Joue. + +"Now, dearest, a little spurt and we shall be in the slack. If you get +tired, tell me," and they struck out vigorously on a shoreward slant +in the direction they were going. + +There should have been a backwater round the corner of Vermandés. He +had counted on it. And there was one, but so swift was the rush of the +tide round the out-jutting rocks of La Joue, that for some minutes, as +they battled with the rough edge of it, it was touch and go with them. + +At a word from her his arm would be at her service. But she fought +bravely on, and could admire Punch's graceful action even then. The +waves smacked her rudely in the face. Great writhing coils came +belching up from below and burst under her chin and almost swamped +her. One, as strong as a snake, rose suddenly under her, flung her off +her stroke, rolled her over, made her for a moment feel utterly +helpless. + +"Jock!" + +He had been watching her closely. His arm flashed out in front of her. + +"Grip!" and she hung on to it and it felt like a bar of steel. + +"Now!"--when she had recovered herself somewhat. "Grip the top of my +suit."--She hooked her fingers into it and he struck out through the +turmoil. + +It was a tough little fight. She struck out vigorously behind to help +him. And, though the losing of the fight might mean tragedy and two +white bodies ragging forlornly along the black teeth of Little Sark, +she still had time to notice the mighty play of muscles in his back +and arms, and the swelling veins in his sunburnt neck, and the crisp +rippled hair above, and she rejoiced mightily in him. And--while +possible deaths lurked all about them--her soul grew large within her +at thought of the brave heart in front, and the strenuous will, and +the shapely body, and the powerful muscles--all battling for her--all +hers--and she theirs. What matter if they were beaten, if they but +went out together! What matter Death so long as he did not divide +them! So uplifted was she with the joy of him. + +And then, with a final wrestle, they were in slack water, and she +loosed her hold and struck out alongside him. + +And presently he was helping her carefully up a seamed black rock, +and the hand she gripped was shaking now, and she knew it was not for +himself. + +"Thank God!" said Graeme fervently, as he sank down heavily beside +her, and panted while the water ran out of them, and Punch scrambled +up and lay quietly alongside. "Meg,--we were in peril." + +"Jock," she said jerkily, for her heart was going now quicker than +usual, "I do not believe I would have minded--if we'd gone together." + +"Ay--together, but, God be thanked, it did not come to that!" + +They sat in silence for a time, finding themselves, while the green +seas swelled up to their feet, and sank out of sight below, and their +rock was laced with cascades of creamy foam. + +"How shall we get back?" asked Margaret at last. "Hennie will be in +desperation. She will think we are drowned." + +"We can climb the head and round into Grande Grève, but it would be +pretty rough on the feet. Or we can wait till the tide turns and swim +in again--" + +"When will it turn?" + +"It's full at noon," he said, studying the waters in front. "But how +that affects matters here none but a Sarkman could say. Tides here are +a law unto themselves, like the people." + +"How would that do?" asked Margaret, as a black boat came slowly +round the rocks from Les Fontaines, sculled by an elderly fisherman. + +"It is old Billy Mollet after his lobster-pots," and he stood up and +coo-eed to the new-comer, and waved his arms till Billy saw them and +stared hard and then turned leisurely their way. + +"Guyablle!" said the old man, as he drew in. "What you doin' there +now?" + +"Got carried out of Grande Grève by a current, Mr. Mollet. Will you +take us back in your boat?" + +"Ay, ay!" and he brought the boat as near to the rock as he dared, and +his weather-stained old eyes settled hypnotically on the fairest +burden his old tub had ever carried, as Graeme handed her carefully +down and helped her to spring into the dancing craft, and then sprang +in himself with bleeding feet and shins, while Punch leaped lightly +after him and crawled under a thwart. + +"Ye must ha' been well out for tide to catch ye," said Billy, with no +eyes for anything but the vision in clinging pink. + +"Yes, we were too far out and couldn't get back." + +"Tide runs round them rocks." + +He dropped his oar into the rowlock and Graeme took the other, and in +five minutes they were speeding across the sands of Grande +Grève--Margaret to cover, Graeme to his pocket for Billy's reward. + +Miss Penny had a driftwood fire roaring among the rocks, and the +kettle was boiling. + +"Where on earth have you two been?" she cried, at sight of Margaret +skipping over the stones to her dressing-room, and got only the wave +of a white arm in reply. + +And presently Graeme came along in easy piratical costume of shirt and +trousers and red sash, and sat down and lit a pipe. + +"We went a bit farther than we intended," he explained, but did not +tell her how nearly they had gone out of bounds altogether. + +"You'll enjoy a cup of tea. You look as if you'd been working hard." + +"There is a bit of a current round that point." + +"Ah, you should follow a good example and keep within touch of the +bottom. Here you are, Meg--fresh made for every customer. Help +yourself, Mr. Graeme. I've had mine, I couldn't wait. Tea never tastes +so good as when you're half full of salt-water, and I got right out of +my depth once and swallowed tons. I screamed to you two to come and +save me, but you never paid the slightest attention, and for all you +cared I might have been drowned five times over." + +"One would have been quite once too many," said Graeme, holding out +his cup. "For then you couldn't have lighted that fire and made this +tea. And I'm half inclined to think we wouldn't be enjoying it a +quarter so much if a little blue corpse lay out there on the shining +sand, and we'd had to turn to and make it ourselves." + +"Horrible!" said Miss Penny, with a little shiver. "With your little +blue corpses! It's all very well to joke about it, but I assure you, +for a minute or so, I thought I was done for. The bottom seemed to +have sunk, and I was just going after it when my foot came on a rock +and that helped me to kick ashore." + +"A narrow escape," said Graeme, with a sympathetic wag of the head. +"You've no right to risk your life that way. We still need you. What +do you say to being bridesmaid at a Sark wedding?" + +"It is the hope of my life," said Miss Penny, sparkling like Mars in a +clear evening sky. + +"I really don't see any reason why we should wait"--said Graeme, +looking very earnestly at Margaret, and behind the look was the +thought, born of what they had just come through together, that life +spills many a full cup before the thirsty lips have tasted it. "What +do you say, Margaret?" + +And she, knowing well what was in him, and being of the same mind, +said, "I am ready, Jock. When you will." + +"I'll call on the Vicar to-morrow," he said joyfully. "It would be +such a pity to disappoint the hope of Miss Penny's life,"--as that +young person came back with the merry kettle. + +"I am indebted to you," said Hennie Penny. "What about dresses, Meg?" + + +IV + +It was that same night, as they were sauntering home from a starlight +ramble, that they came on Johnnie Vautrin crouched in the hedge with +Marielihou, and Marielihou had her hind leg bound up in a piece of +white rag. + +"Hello, Johnnie! What's the matter with Marielihou?" asked Graeme. And +Marielihou turned her malevolent yellow-green eyes on him and looked +curses. + +"Goderabetin! She've got hurt." + +"Oh! How was that?" + +"I d'n know. Wisht I knowed who done it;" and just then, as luck would +have it, old Tom Hamon came sauntering along in the gloaming, smoking +a contemplative pipe with long slow puffs. + +And at sight of him Marielihou ruffled and swelled to twice her size, +and raked up most horrible and blood-curdling oaths from away down in +her inside into her black throat, and spat them out at him, as he came +up, in a fusillade that sounded like ripraps, and her eyes flamed +baleful fires. + +"Cuss away, y'ould witch!" said old Tom, with a grin through his +pipe-stem. "How's the leg?" and Marielihou with a final volley +disappeared among the bushes, and Johnnie crawled after her. + +"What on earth does he mean?" whispered Meg. + +"Mr. Hamon has an idea that Marielihou and old Mme. Vautrin have +something in common. In fact I believe he goes so far as to say that +they are one and the same. Black magic, you know,--witchcraft, and all +that kind of thing." + +"How horrid!" + +"B'en!" chuckled old Tom again. "You find out how 'tis with th' old +witch. We know how 'tis with Marrlyou. 'Twere the silver bullet did +it. If sh' 'adn't jumped 'twould ha' gone through 'er 'ead," and he +went off chuckling through his pipe-stem. + +And the next evening, as they were sauntering slowly through the +darkening lanes to the windmill, to see the life-lights flash out all +round the horizon, it happened that they met the doctor just turning +out of his gate. + +"Hello, doctor! How's old Mme. Vautrin to-day?" asked Graeme. + +"She's going on all right," said the doctor, with a touch of surprise. +"There seems a quite unusual amount of interest in that old lady all +of a sudden. How is it?" + +"What is it's wrong with her?" + +And the doctor eyed him curiously for a moment, and then said, "Well, +she says she hurt her leg ormering, slipped on a rock and got the hook +in it. But--Well, it's a bad leg anyway, and she won't go ormering or +anything else for a good long time to come." + +Which matter, in the light of old Tom Hamon's silver bullets and +evident knowledge of Marielihou's injury, left them all very much +puzzled, though, as Graeme acknowledged, there might be nothing in it +after all. + + +V + +It was just after the second lesson, the following Sunday, that the +Vicar stood up, tall and stately, his youthful face below the gray +hair all alight with the enjoyment of this unusual break in the even +tenour of his way, and soared into unaccustomed and very carefully +enunciated English. + +"I pub-lish thee Banns of Marrr-i-ache between John Cor-rie Graeme of +Lonn-donn and Mar-garet Brandt of Lonn-donn. If any of you know cause, +or just im-ped-i-ment, why these two pair-sons should not be joined +to-gether in holy matri-mony, ye are to de-clare it. This is thee +first time of as-king." + +Margaret and Miss Penny and Graeme heard it from their back seat +among the school-children, and found it good. + +There were not very many visitors there. Such as there were felt a +momentary surprise at two English people choosing to get married in +Sark, though, if it had been put to them, they must have confessed +that there was no lovelier place in the world to be married in. They +also wondered what kind of people they were. + +Some few of the habitants knew them and turned and grinned +encouragingly, though even they were not quite certain in their own +minds as to which of the two ladies was the one who was to be married. +The children all smiled as a matter of course and of nature. + +And Margaret felt no shadow of regret at thought of the gauds and +fripperies of a fashionable wedding which would not be hers. In John +Graeme's true love she had the kernel. The rest was of small account +to her. + +And that little church of Sark, plain walled and bare of ornament, +always exerted upon her a most profoundly deepening and uplifting +influence. It epitomised the life of the remote little island. Here +its people were baptized, confirmed, married, buried. + +And here and there, on the otherwise naked walls, was a white marble +tablet to the memory of some who had gone down to the sea and never +returned. And these she had studied and mused upon with emotion the +first time she went there, for surely none could read them without +being deeply touched. + + "A la memoire de John William Falle, âgé de 37 ans, et de son + fils William Slowley Falle, âgé de 17 ans, Fils et petit fils de + William Falle, Ecr. de Beau Regard, Sercq. Qui furent noyés + 20'eme jour d'Avril 1903, durant la traversée de Guernsey a + Sercq. 'Ta voie a été par la mer et tes sentiers dans les + grosses eaux.'" + + "A la memoire de Pierre Le Pelley, Ecuyer, Seigneur de Serk, + noyé près la Pointe du Nez, dans une Tempête, le 13 Mars, 1839, + âgé de 40 ans. Son corps n'a pas été retrouvé; mais la mer + rendra ses morts." + + "In memory of Eugène Grut Victor Cachemaille, second son of the + Revd. J.L.V. Cachemaille, Vicar of Sark. Born Jan. 14, 1840, and + lost at sea in command of the _Ariel_, which left London for + Sydney, Feby. 1872, and was heard of no more. 'He was not, for + God took him.'" + +Yes, she would sooner be married in that solemn little church than in +Westminster Abbey, for there there would be mighty distractions, while +here there would be nought to come between her and God and the true +man to whom she was giving herself with a full heart. + + +VI + +"This is the second time of asking." + +"This is the third time of asking." + +And so far none had discovered any just cause or impediment why John +Corrie Graeme and Margaret Brandt should not in due course be joined +together in holy matrimony. + +On the occasion of the third asking, however, one in the congregation, +a casual visitor and in no way personally concerned in the matter, +found it of sufficient interest to make mention of it in a letter +home, and so unwittingly played his little part in the story. + +Meanwhile, the glorious summer days between the askings were golden +days of ever-increasing delight to Graeme and Margaret, and of rich +enjoyment to Miss Penny. + +Never was there more complaisant chaperone than Hennie Penny. For, you +see, she took no little credit to herself for having helped to bring +about their happiness, and the very least she could do was to further +it in every way in her power. + +In her own quaint way she enjoyed their "lovering," as she called it, +almost as much as they did themselves. And that being so, they would +have felt it selfish on their part to deprive her of any portion of +her rightful share in it. + +And that was how Miss Hennie Penny became so very knowing in such +matters, and also why she lived in a state of perpetual amazement at +the change that had come over her friend. + +For Margaret, affianced to the man who had her whole heart, was a very +different being from Margaret harassed and worried by Mr. Pixley and +his schemes for her possession and possessions. + +Charming and beautiful as she had always been, this new Margaret was +to the old as a radiant butterfly to its chrysalis,--as the glory of +the opening flower to the promise of the bud. And Hennie Penny's +quickened intelligence, projecting itself into the future, could +fathom heights and depths and greater glories still to come. + +But even now, when they went along the lanes festooned as for a +wedding with honeysuckle and wild roses, the faces of those they met +lighted up at sight of them, and few but turned to look after them +when they had passed, and Miss Penny's truthful soul took none of the +silent homage to herself. + +Margaret was supremely happy. She could not have hidden it if she had +tried. She made no attempt to do so. She gave herself up to the +rapturous enjoyment of their "lovering" with all the naïve abandon of +a delighted child. The little ties and tapes and conventions, which +trammel more or less all but the very simplest lives, fell from her, +snapped by the expansion of her love-exalted soul. She was back to the +simple elementals. She loved Jock, Jock loved her. They were happy as +the day was long. Why on earth should they not show it? If she had had +her way she would have had every soul in all the world as happy as +they two were. + +"I feel like an elderly nurse with two very young children," said Miss +Penny to the pair of exuberants. + +"O Wise Nurse! We shall never be so young again," laughed Graeme. + +"But we are never going to grow any older inside," laughed Margaret. + +"Never!" said Graeme, with the conviction of absolute knowledge, and +carolled softly-- + + "O it's good to be young in the days of one's youth! + Yes, in truth and in truth, + It's the very best thing in the world to be young, + To be young, to be young in one's youth." + +"Very apropos!" said Miss Penny. "Did you make it on the spot?" + +"In anticipation," he laughed. "It's the opening song in a very +charming comic opera I once committed. But it was too good for the +present frivolous age, and so I have to perform it myself." + +"I would like to give all the children on the island--" began +Margaret. + +"All the other children--" corrected Graeme. + +"All the children--including Hennie and you and me--the jolliest feast +they've ever had in their lives, the day we are married." + +"Of course we will, and the doctor shall get in an extra supply of +palliatives. They shall look back in after years and say--'Do you +remember that feast we had when the loveliest of all the angels came +down from heaven and was married to that delightful +Englishman?'--Briton, I ought to say! I do wish our dear old Lady +Elspeth could be here. How she would enjoy it!--'That feast,' they +will say, 'when we were all ill for a month after and the doctor died +of overwork.' They will date back to it as ancient peoples did to the +Flood. It will be a Great White Stone Day to generations to come. Let +us hope there will be no new white stones over yonder"--nodding in the +direction of the churchyard--"in commemoration of that great day." + +"We will draw the line short of that," said Margaret seriously. + +"We'll give them all the gâche they can eat--home-made, and such as +their constitutions are accustomed to,--and fruit and frivolities from +Guernsey. I'll go across the Saturday before--" + +"_We_ will go across," said Margaret. + +"Of course we will. We older children will go, and we'll take Nurse +with us,"--with a bow towards Hennie Penny,--"and we'll make a day of +it, and have ices again at that place in the Arcade, and then we'll go +round the shops and clear them out for the benefit of Sark." + +"Ripping!" said Miss Penny. + + +VII + +They had already made one trip to Guernsey, crossing by the early +Saturday boat and returning the same evening. + +But that was a strictly business affair. + +"We're feeling frightfully fossilised at having bought nothing, except +what we absolutely needed, for nearly a month," said Miss Penny. "From +that point of view I should imagine the Garden of Eden may have been +just a trifle slow--" + +"Ah, you see, Mother Eve hadn't had the advantages of a superior +education," said Graeme. + +"And there are some fripperies we simply _must_ have," said Miss +Penny, "even for a runaway wedding like this. You see, when we decided +to come here we had no idea how much farther we were going, and so we +couldn't possibly provide. Of course if we had known you were here--" + +At which Margaret laughed. + +"You would have provided accordingly," said Graeme. "Well, you must +put all the blame on to Mr. Pixley. I wonder what he would say if he +knew all about it." + +"He would use language unadapted to prayer-meetings and public +platforms," said Miss Penny. "He can, you know, when he tries hard." + +"I imagined so. It will be rather amusing to see what he'll do when he +finds out." + +"He'll do the very nastiest thing that is open to him, whatever that +is, and poor Mrs. Pixley will have an exceedingly bad time. And he'll +probably have a fit on his own account." + +"Oh, we can hardly expect him to be so kind as all that--" + +"The only one I'm sorry for is Charles Svendt. He's really not half a +bad sort, in his way, you know," said Miss Penny. + +"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid, under the circumstances, I can't squeeze +out any sympathy even for Charles Svendt." + +Arrived at St. Peter Port, the ladies permitted him to attend them to +the door of the largest drapery establishment they could find, and +then told him he was at liberty to go and enjoy himself for a couple +of hours. + +"Two hours? Good Heavens! What can you want in there for two hours?" + +"Usual thing!" sparkled Miss Penny. "Tablecloths!"--with which cryptic +utterance he had to be satisfied. + +"And where do we meet again--if ever?" + +"Hauteville House--Victor Hugo's. It's part of your honeymoon--a bit +on account." + +"And whereabouts is it?" + +"No idea. If we can find it, you can. Au revoir!" + +He went first to get his hair cut, since the practice of the tonsorial +art in Sark is still in the bowl-and-scissors stage. + +Then he sought out a lawyer of repute, whose name he had got from the +Vicar, and gave him instructions for the drawing of a brief but +comprehensive deed of settlement of all Margaret's portion on herself +absolutely and entirely. While this important document was being +engrossed, he sought out the Rector of St. Peter Port, in George +Place, and in a short but pleasant interview was accepted as tenant of +the whole of the Red House in Sark for the month of July, with the +option of a longer stay if he chose. + +Then back to the lawyer's, where he signed his deed, paid the fees, +and took it away with him. + +After that, to fill in the time occupied elsewhere by the purchase of +mythical tablecloths, he rambled up and down the quaint +foreign-flavoured streets till he found a jeweller's shop of size, in +the Arcade, and decided, after careful inspection from the outside, +that it would answer all requirements. + +For he had a ring and half a ring to buy for Margaret, and he thought +he would buy one also for Hennie Penny, as a pleasant reminder of +their good days in Sark. + +So utterly unconventional had their proceedings been, so thoroughly +had the spirit of the remote little island possessed them, and so +all-sufficient had they been to one another, that the thought of an +engagement ring had troubled his mind as little as the lack of it had +troubled Margaret's. But the absolute necessity of a wedding ring had +reminded him of his lapse, and now he would repair it on a scale +remotely commensurate with his feelings. Remotely, because, if his +pocket had borne any relation to his feelings, he would have bought up +the whole shop and lavished its contents upon her, though he knew that +the simple golden circlet would far outweigh all else in her mind. + +He was waiting placidly for them in the shade of the dark trees of +Hauteville, when they came panting up the steep way, flushed with +victory and the joys of purchase after long abstinence. + +"Well, has the proprietor of that big shop retired with a competence?" +he asked, as he threw away the end of his cigar. + +"Can you lend us our boat-fares home?" gasped Miss Penny. + +"So bad as all that? I can't say yet. I've not begun my own purchases. +We'll see when I'm through. If I'm cleaned out too we'll offer to work +our passages." + +"You can pawn your watch. Meg and I haven't got one between us. We +left them at home on purpose." + +"Thoughtful of you. Now let us into the treasure-house." + +They enjoyed the wonders of Hauteville immensely,--objectively, the +wonderful carved work and the tapestries, the china and the +furniture,--the odd little bedroom with the bed on the floor, so that +the Master could roll out to his work at any moment of inspiration, +and the huge balconies, and the glass eyrie on the roof whence he +surveyed his wide horizons, and where, above the world, he +worked;--and subjectively, the whole quaint flavour and austere +literary atmosphere of the place. + +"No wonder he produced masterpieces," said Graeme, delighting in it +all. "The view alone is an inspiration." + +Then he took them up to Old Government House for lunch and a rest in +the garden, and then away to the Arcade to the jeweller's shop, which +proved adequate to all his demands;--for Margaret, a half-hoop of +diamonds which the jeweller, with an air of sincerity, assured them +were as fine stones as he had ever seen in the course of a long and +prosperous career. Which ring Margaret would thenceforth value before +all her others, though in the simple matter of intrinsic worth her +jewel-case could beat it hollow.--And a plain gold circlet which, when +she got it, would be more precious to her than all the rest put +together.--And for Miss Penny, in spite of her protestations, a +handsome signet ring which, when cornered, she chose in preference to +a more feminine jewel, and which was left to be engraved with her +family crest and motto. + +"I have never adopted the habit of rings," she said, as they drifted +towards the ice-shop. "Chiefly, perhaps, because I never had any worth +wearing. But I've always thought I would like to wear a crest signet. +I shall prize this, Mr. Graeme, as the very greatest treasure I +have--" + +"Until someone gives you a plain gold one, Hennie, and that will put +all the rest into the shade," said Margaret. + +"Ah!" said Miss Penny. + + +VIII + +Their journey home--that is, to Sark--that day was not entirely +without incident. For when they got down to the quay, Sark had +disappeared completely, and Herm and Jethou were no more than wan +ghosts of their natural selves, in a dense white mist. + +"Ah-ha! Here is our old friend of Tintageu," said Graeme jovially. +"Well, I must confess to bearing him no ill-feeling--if he doesn't +land us on a rock this time. Going, captain?" + +"Oh yess, we go. I think it will lift," said Captain Bichard. + +"Don't run us on a rock anyway." + +"I won'd run you on no rock. I coult smell my way across;" and they +started, feeling their way cautiously past Castle Cornet, into the +open, where black jaws lined with white teeth lie in wait for the +unwary. + +And just as they got to the south of Jethou they saw a sight the like +of which none of them had ever seen before, nor, from the exclamations +about them, had any of the rest. + +The mist in front was like a soft white curtain, and upon it, straight +ahead of their bows, appeared suddenly a mighty silver bow, not a +rainbow, because there was no rain and so there were no colours. But, +like the bow they had seen from Belême Cliff, this also was a perfect +circle, all but a tiny segment where it appeared to rest upon the sea, +and its only colour was a dazzling silvery sheen which waxed as they +watched it in breathless silence. Then it waned, bit by bit, till at +last it was gone, and only the white mist curtain remained. + +"How very lovely!" murmured Margaret. + +"A good omen for certain," said Miss Penny. "Even Johnnie Vautrin +couldn't make any ill news out of that. It was your wedding arch, +Meg." + +"Well, that's the first time I ever saw a white rainbow," said Graeme +to the captain. + +"First time I ever saw one myself, sir." + +"Not very common then." + +"Never heard of one before." + +"We're evidently in luck." + +"Mebbe, but we won't crow till we've made the Creux. Kip your eyes +skinned, lads!" + +"Ay, ay, zur!" and the crew lined the bulwarks on their knees, with +their chins on the rail, their eyes peering into the puzzling veil in +front, and their ears alert for the wash of wave on rock. + +They were going slow, hardly moving in fact at times, waiting to pick +up their course as any possible mark should come into view, with +muttered comments from the puzzled lookouts, and an occasional growl +of dissent from views propounded by the younger members, while the +passengers all stood in silent discomfort as though ready for +contingencies. + +For the tides and currents in those seas are strange and gruesome. +Even as they lay, apparently motionless, with the sea as smooth as oil +all round them, there came a sudden turmoil, and they were in a wild +race of waters, with bubbling coils and swirls and frothing gouts of +foam from rocks that lay fathoms deep below. + +"La Grune," growled one of the keen-eyed watchers, and was discounted +at once by doubtful growls from the rest. + +Then a black ledge loomed through the mist and faded again before they +had more than a glimpse of it. + +"Les Dents," ventured one. + +"Hautes Boues,"--so divergent were their views. + +A sound of waters and another dark loom of rock. + +"Sercul," said one. + +"L'Etac," said another. + +Then the engine bell tanged sharply, and they went ahead. The captain +had seen more than the rest and knew where he was, and they all +breathed more freely. And presently, with a wide berth to the dangers +of the south-east coast, they nosed slowly in again, picked up La +Conchée without dissentients, and so into Creux Harbour in a way that +seemed to Graeme little short of marvellous. + +"Fogs at sea are beastly--there is no other word for it--but all the +same I'm glad we saw the Wedding-Bow," said Miss Penny. + + +IX + +They had fixed on the Wednesday following the last time of asking, for +their wedding-day. But when they came to discuss the matter with Mrs. +Carré, it was found that an alteration would be necessary. + +"Ah, but that will not do," said their landlady, who was in high +feather at so unique an event taking place in her cottage, so to +speak, though, as a matter of fact, the festivities were to be carried +out within the ampler precincts of the Red House. "You see, old Mr. +Hamon he iss died very sudden--" + +"Not old Tom surely?" asked Graeme. + +"He iss old Tom's father, and they will bury him on Wednesday, and you +would not like to be married the sem day--" + +"No, indeed," said Margaret. "We will wait." + +"And, you see, all them that would be coming to the wedding would be +at the funeral, for efferybody belongs to efferybody else here." + +"Must be a bit awkward at times," suggested Graeme. + +"Oh noh!" with a touch of airy aloofness. "I haf been at a wedding and +a funeral and a baptism all in one week all among the sem people. And +I was at one young man's wedding one day last year and at his funeral +the same day the next week after." + +"That was dreadful," said Margaret. "Do you think it would be safe to +fix it for the following Wednesday, Mrs. Carré?" + +"Oh yes, I think! There iss no one very sick. Mr. Hamon he wass a very +old man and he died very sudden. He wass just knocking a nail in the +pigsty and he drop down and died." + +"Poor old man!" + +"He wass very old and he wass a good man. No one ever said any harm of +old Mr. Hamon." + +"Then if no one else dies we'll say the following Wednesday," said +Graeme. "And if--well, if anything happens to prevent it, then we must +go across to Guernsey and get Mr. Lee to marry us." + +"Oh, but that woult not do. We will keep them all alive till you are +married. It woult neffer do to disappoint them all when we are all +looking forward to it here." + +"Very well then, see you all keep alive." + +"And you will come to old Mr. Hamon's funeral?" + +"H'm! I don't know. We'll see, Mrs. Carré. We'd sooner be at our own +wedding, you know, than at anybody else's funeral." + +"They woult like it iff you woult. And he was a goot old man. They +tell me to ask if you woult be pleased to come." + +"If they would like us to come we will come, Mrs. Carré," said +Margaret. + +And so it came about that instead of kneeling before the altar that +Wednesday they stood by the graveside. + + +X + +The Red House and the cottage were centres--nay, whirlpools--of mighty +activities for days beforehand. + +Mrs. Carré insisted on cleaning down the Red House from top to bottom +for the home-coming of the bride, though, to Graeme's masculine +perceptions, its panelling of polished pitch pine from floor to +ceiling, in which you could see yourself as in a mirror, had always +appeared the very acme of cleanliness and comfort, with the additional +merit of a tendency towards churchwardly thoughts. + +But when he ventured on a mild remonstrance anent the necessity for +so gigantic an upsetting, Mrs. Carré laughingly said, "Ach, you are +only a man. You woult neffer see"--and whirled her broom to the +endangerment of his head. + +For Margaret's honeymoon--that, is, such of it as she had not enjoyed +before her marriage--was to consist of a change of residence from the +cottage, and a walk up the garden and through the hedge of gracious +Memories, to the wider--ah, how much wider!--as much wider and larger +and more beautiful as wifehood at its best is wider and larger and +more beautiful than maidenhood at its best--to the wider accommodation +of the Red House. And Mrs. Carré was determined that it should be +speckless and sweet, and fit in every way for the coming of so +beautiful a bride. + +She had found them a young girl, Betsy Lefevre, a niece of her own, to +serve as handmaid during their occupancy of the house, but insisted +herself on acting as cook and general housekeeper. Miss Penny was to +reside at the cottage for a week after the wedding, but was to go up +the garden to her meals, and at the end of that time she was to join +them at the Red House as an honoured guest. + +And the kitchen at the cottage, and the kitchen at the House, and +several other kitchens in the neighbourhood, were baking gâche enough +apparently to feed a regiment, and as the day approached, roasts of +beef and mutton, and hams and other substantial fare, were much in +evidence. And the kitchens were thronged with ladies in sun-bonnets, +which had originally been black but were now somewhat off-colour with +age and weather, and all the ladies' faces were as full of importance +as if they had been Cabinet ministers in the throes of a crisis. + +Among these concentric energies, Margaret and Miss Penny completed +their own simple preparations, and Graeme busied himself with the +details of the children's feast which was to take place in an adjacent +field. + +He went down to the harbour to meet the Tuesday morning's boat which +was to bring over the fruit and frivolities ordered from +Guernsey--strawberries enough to start a jam factory, grapes enough to +stock a greengrocer's shop, chocolates, sweets, Christmas crackers and +fancy biscuits, in what he hoped would prove sufficiency, but had his +doubts at times when he saw the eager expectancy with which he was +regarded by every youngster he met. + +He was just starting out when Johnnie Vautrin hailed him from his lair +in the hedge. + +"Heh, Mist' Graeme! I seen--" + +"Better not, Johnnie!" he said, with a warning finger. "If it's +anything uncomfortable I'll come right over and jump on you and +Marrlyou." + +"Goderabetin, you dassen't!" + +"Oh, dassen't I? If you don't see everything good for this week, and +fine weather too, you little imp, I'll--" + +"Qué-hou-hou!" croaked Johnnie, and Marielihou yawned and made a +futile attempt to wash behind her ears but found it discomforting to a +sore hind-leg, so gave it up and spat at him instead. + +"And, moreover, I won't have you at my party." + +"Hou-hou! I'm coming. Ma'm'zelle she ask me." + +"I'll tell her to send you back-word." + +"She wun't, she wun't. Where you goin'?" + +"To the harbour, to see if all the good things have come for the other +little boys and girls." + +"Oh la-la! Good things and bad things come by the boat. Sometime it'll +sink and drown 'em all." + +"Little rascal!" and he waved his hand and went on. + +"Late, isn't she, Carré?" he asked, as he leaned over the sea-wall +with the rest. + +"She's late, sir." + +"I hope nothing's happened to her. I'll never forgive her if she's +made an end of my sweet things for the kiddies." + +"She'll come." + +And she came. With a shrill peal she came round the Burons and made +for the harbour. + +And Graeme, wedged into the corner of the iron railing where it looks +out to sea, to make sure at the earliest possible moment that that +which he had come to meet was there, met of a sudden more than he had +looked for. + +"Well ... I'll be hanged!" he jerked to himself, and then began to +laugh internally. + +For, standing on the upper deck of the small steamer, and looking, +somehow, very much out of place there, was a tall but portly young +gentleman, in a bowler hat and travelling coat and a monocle, whose +face showed none of the usual symptoms of the Sark lover. To judge +from his expression, the little island impressed him anything but +favourably. It offered him none of the relaxations and amusements to +which he was accustomed. It looked, on the face of it, an uncivilised +kind of a place, out of which a man might be ejected without ceremony +if he chose to make himself objectionable. + +Graeme kept out of sight among the other crowders of the quay till the +bowler hat came bobbing up the gangway. Then he smote its owner so +jovially on the shoulder that his monocle shot the full length of its +cord and the hat came within an ace of tumbling overboard. + +"Hello, Pixley! This _is_ good of you. You're just in time to give us +your blessing." + +"Aw! Hello!" said Charles Svendt, agape at the too friendly greeting. +"That you, Graeme?" + +"The worst half of me, my boy. Margaret's up at the house. You'll be +quite a surprise to her." + +"Aw!" said Charles Svendt thoughtfully, as he readjusted his eyeglass. +"Demned queer place, this!" and he gazed round lugubriously. + +"It is that, my boy. Queerer than you think, and queerer people." + +"Aw! Is there any--aw--place to stop at?" + +"Thinking of stopping over night? Oh yes, several very decent hotels." + +"Aw! Which are you at yourself now?" + +"I? Oh, I'm a resident. I've got a house here." + +"Dooce you have! Well, now, where would you stop if you were me?" + +"Well, if I were you I should stop at the Old Government House--" + +"Right! Whereabouts is it?" + +"It's over in Guernsey. Boat returns at five sharp." + +"Aw! Quite so! Very good! But I've got--er--business here, don't you +know." + +"Oh? Thinking of opening a branch here? Well, there's Stock's--but I +doubt if you'd fit in there--" + +"Fit? Why not fit? Stocks are my line." + +"I think I'd try the Bel-Air if I were you--" + +"Which is nearest?" asked Charles Svendt, looking round +depreciatively. + +"Bel-Air. Just along the tunnel there--" + +"Good Lord! Along the tunnel--" + +"Excuse me for a moment. I've got some things coming by this boat. I +must see to them," and Graeme sped away to attend to his frivolities. + + +XI + +"And what special business brings you to Sark, Pixley?" asked Graeme, +as they passed through the tunnel of rock and climbed the steep way of +the Creux--its high banks masses of ferns, its hedges ablaze with +honeysuckle and roses, its trees interwoven into a thick canopy +overhead,--a living green tunnel shot with quivering sunbeams. All of +which was lost on Charles Svendt, whose chest was going like a +steam-pump and whose legs were quivering with the unusual strain. +Graeme regretted that he had not been landed on the ladders at Havre +Gosselin, where he himself came ashore. He would dearly have liked to +follow the portly one up those ladders and heard his comments. + +In reply to Graeme's question he shook his head mutely and staggered +on--past the upper reaches, where the corded roots of the overhanging +trees came thrusting through the banks like twisting serpents; past +the wells of sweet water that lay dark and still below, and ran over +into the road, and trickled away down the sides in little streams; out +into the sunshine and the quickening of the breeze;--till he dropped +exhausted into a chair outside the door of the Bel-Air. + +He sat there panting for close on five minutes, with unaccustomed +perspiration streaming down his red face, and then he said "Demn!" +and proceeded to mop himself up with his handkerchief. + +Then he held up a finger to a distant waiter in the dining-room, and +when he came, murmured, "Whisky--soda--two," and fanned himself +vigorously till they came. + +"Better?" asked Graeme, as they nodded and drank. + +"Heap better! What a demnable place to get into!" + +"There are one or two other entrances--" + +"Better?" + +"No, worse." + +"Demn!" + +"Now," he said presently, when his heart had got back to normal and he +had lit a cigarette. "Let's talk business. Am I in time?" + +"For the wedding? Just in time. It's tomorrow." + +"Aw--er--you know what I've come for, I suppose?" + +"I can imagine, but you may as well save yourself useless trouble. You +can't do anything." + +"Think not?" + +"Sure. English--I should say, British--law doesn't run here, and +you've no _locus standi_ if it did." + +"She's under age and her guardian objects. I represent him." + +"He can object all he wants to, and you can represent him all you +want to. It won't make the slightest difference." + +"I can appear at the ceremony and show cause why it should not +proceed." + +"What cause?" + +"Her guardian objects. The parson would hardly proceed in face of my +objection." + +"I think you'll find he would. However, we'll go and ask him +presently. We'll pay a visit to the Seigneur also." + +"Who's the Seigneur?" + +"Lord Paramount of the island. His word goes. If he chooses, as he +probably will, to tell you to go also, you'll have to go." + +"Demn'd if I will!" + +"He'll see to that. He'll put the Sénéchal and the Greffier and the +Prévôt and the two constables and the Vingténier on to you, and bundle +you out like a sack of potatoes." + +"Oh, come, Graeme! This is the twentieth century!" + +"That's another of your little mistakes, my friend. I can't tell you +just exactly what year it is here, but it's somewhere between 1066 +and, say, 1200 A.D." + +"Afraid I don't quite catch on." + +"Exactly! That's why you'll be off in this scene. We're under feudal +law here, with a mixture of Home Rule. We don't care twopence for your +English courts, and as for English lawyers, they're not much liked +here, I believe." + +"Rum hole!" mused Charles Svendt. + +"Rum hole to make yourself a nuisance in. Jolly place to be happy in." + +"H'm!" And presently he asked, "Where are you stopping?" + +"I'll go along and tell the girls you're here--" + +"Girls?" + +"Miss Penny came with Margaret--" + +"Aw--Miss Penny!" + +"You'd better have your lunch here. They'll give you lobsters fresh +from the kettle, and I'll stroll round later on and we'll get this +matter settled up. So long!" and he went away up the Avenue and across +the fields home. + +And he went thoughtfully. It was annoying this man cropping up like +this at the eleventh hour. Nothing, he felt sure, would come of his +interference, but it might disturb Margaret and the general harmony of +to-morrow's proceedings. + +Her wedding-day is a somewhat nervous time for a girl, under the best +of circumstances, he supposed. And though Margaret was as little given +to nerves as anyone he had ever met, the possibility of a public +attempt to stop her wedding might be fairly calculated to upset her. + +Feudal as were the laws of the island, he could hardly knock Pixley on +the head, as would have happened in less anachronistic times. And so +he went thoughtfully. + + +XII + +Margaret and Miss Penny were lying in long chairs on the verandah when +he came over the green wall into the Red House garden, by the same gap +as he had used that first morning when he came upon Margaret standing +in the hedge. + +They were resting from labours, joyful, but none the less tiring. + +"Jock, we were just wanting you!" said Margaret, sitting up. "Have all +the things come all right?" + +"All come all right," and he wondered how she would take his next +announcement. "In fact more came than we expected." + +"I guess we can use it all," said Miss Penny. "You've no idea of the +capacity of children. I know something about it, and these children +are more expansible even than school-girls." + +"I was surprised to meet a gentleman down there who says he has come +across on purpose for the wedding." + +"A gentleman--come for the wedding?" and both girls eyed him as +pictured terriers greet the word "Rats!" + +"I'll give you three guesses." + +"Mr. Pixley," said Miss Penny. + +"Bull's-eye first shot! Clever girl!" + +"Not really, Jock!" said Margaret, with a suspicion of dismay in her +voice. + +"Well, Charles Svendt anyway--as representing the old man, he says." + +"But what has he come for, and how did he get to know?" + +"I didn't ask him. It was quite enough to see him there. He says he's +going to stop it,"--and Margaret's cheeks flamed,--"but I've assured +him that he can't, and I'll take jolly good care that he doesn't, if I +have to knock him on the head and drop him off the Coupée." + +"It would be shameful of him if he tried," cried Miss Penny. "Just let +me have a talk with him, Mr. Graeme, and I'll make him wish he'd never +been born. He's really not such a bad sort, you know. Where is he?" + +"I left him at the Bel-Air about to tackle lobsters. My idea is to +take him to the Vicar, then to the Seigneur. They both understand the +whole matter. I explained it fully when I told them we intended +getting married here. When they understand that this is the gentleman +who would like to occupy my place, and that he has no legal grounds +for interfering, I think they will open his eyes--" + +"I do hope he won't make any trouble in the church," said Margaret, +with a little flutter. + +"I'll promise you he won't." + +"I'm sure he won't, if you can make it quite clear that it could not +possibly accomplish what, I suppose, his father sent him to try to +do," said Miss Penny. "Charles Pixley is no fool, though he has his +little peculiarities." + +"It would be a wonder if he hadn't some, after his daddie," said +Graeme lightly. "I'm sorry he's come, Meg, but I'm certain you don't +need to worry about him. If I could have knocked him on the head and +dropped him in the sea and said nothing to nobody--" + +"Don't be absurd, Jock," said Margaret, and her voice showed that the +matter was troubling her in spite of his assurances. + +"After lunch I shall call for him and take him for a little walk. If +you'd seen him when he got to the Bel-Air after toiling up the Creux +Road! He was nearly in pieces. I'll trot him round to the Vicarage, +and then to the Seigneurie, and then I'll bring him here and turn him +over to you and Hennie Penny. He'll be as limp as a rag by that time, +and as wax in your hands." + +Nevertheless, Margaret could not quite get rid of the feeling of +discomfort which the news of Charles Pixley's arrival had cast over +her, and Graeme anathematised that young man most fervently each time +he glanced at her face. + + +XIII + +After lunch Graeme went back to the hotel, and found Pixley lolling on +the seat outside, in a much more contented frame of mind than on his +first arrival. + +"You were right as to their lobsters, anyhow, Graeme," he said. +"They're almost worth coming all the way for." + +"All right. Now if you're rested we'll go for a stroll, and I'll set +your mind at rest as to to-morrow. Then you'll be able to enjoy your +dinner in a proper frame of mind." + +"How far is it?" + +"Just up there and round the corner. We'll see the Vicar first and you +can try your hand on him." + +The Vicar received them with jovial bonhomie. + +"Ah-ha! The bridegroom cometh out of his chamber! And your friend? He +is the best man--no?" + +"He's not quite made up his mind yet, Vicar. Perhaps you can persuade +him to it." + +"But it is an honour--n'est-ce pas? To attend so beautiful a bride to +the altar--" + +"Well, you see, the fact is--Mr. Pixley would have preferred reversing +the positions. He would like to have been bridegroom and me to be best +man." + +"Ah--so! Well, it is not surprising--" + +"Moreover, he would like to stop the wedding now if he could--" + +"Ach, non! That is not possible," said the Vicar wrathfully, the +southern blood blazing in his face. "What would you do, my good sir, +and why?" + +"Miss Brandt is my father's ward," said Pixley sturdily. "My father +objects to this marriage. He has sent me over to stop it." + +"I understand," said the Vicar. "He wished his ward to marry you, but +Miss Brandt made her own choice, which she had a perfect right to do, +and, ma foi--" leaning back in his chair and regarding the two faces +in front of him, he did not finish his sentence in words, but +contented himself with cryptic nods whose meaning, we may hope, was +lost upon Charles Svendt's _amour propre_. + +"And what would you do?" asked the Vicar presently. + +"Well, if necessary, I can get up in the church and state that there +is just cause for stopping the marriage--" + +"What just cause, I should ask you?" + +"I have told you. My father--" + +"I would not listen. I would order them to put you out--to carry you +out, if necessary, for making dis-turb-ance in my church. I would tell +them to sit on you in the churchyard till the wedding was over. What +good would you do? Ach, non! Be advised, my good sir, and re-linquish +any such in-tention. It will ac-complish nothing and only lead to your +own con-fusion." + +"My father is applying to have Miss Brandt made a ward in Chancery--" + +"By that time she will be Mrs. Graeme, and I am sure very happy," +shrugged the Vicar. "Non--you can do nothing, and, if you will be +guided, you will not try." + +And Charles Svendt lapsed into thoughtfulness. + + +XIV + +"This is the Seigneurie," said Graeme, as they turned off the road, +through the latched gate, into the deep-shaded avenue. + +The Seigneur came to them in the Long Drawing-Room, where once upon a +time the peacocks danced on the Queen's luncheon. + +"Your time is getting short, Mr. Graeme," he said, with a quiet smile. +"I hear of great doings in preparation at St. Magloire"--which was the +official title of the Red House. "Have you given the doctor fair +warning?" + +"Oh, we'll try to keep them within bounds, Seigneur. My friend, Mr. +Pixley here,"--the Seigneur made Mr. Pixley a seigneurial bow,--"has +it in his mind to stop the proceedings if he can--" + +"Oh?" said the Seigneur, with a glower of surprise. "And why?" + +"Well, you see," said Pixley, "Miss Brandt is under age. She is my +father's ward and he has other views for her--" + +"Which obviously do not agree with Miss Brandt's." + +"That is as it may be. But she is acting absolutely in opposition to +his expressed wishes in this matter, and until she is of age she is +under his authority." + +"Just as far as he is in position to exert it, I presume." + +"He is now applying to have her made a ward in Chancery, when, of +course, she will be under the jurisdiction of the court." + +"If you come to me, Mr. Pixley, when Miss Brandt is a ward of court, I +will tell you now what my answer would be. I should tell you that your +English court has no jurisdiction here. Miss Brandt is out of bounds +and is quite free to do as she pleases. I have had the pleasure of +making her acquaintance and Mr. Graeme's, and I should be sorry--for +you--if you did anything to annoy them. In fact--" and he looked so +fixedly at Charles Svendt, while evidently revolving some extreme idea +in his mind, that that young gentleman's assurance fell several +degrees, and he found himself thinking of dungeons and deportation. + +It was to Graeme, however, that the Seigneur turned. + +"If you have any reason to fear annoyance in this matter, Mr. Graeme, +perhaps you will let me know as early as possible, and I will take +measures--" + +"Thousand thanks, Seigneur! Mr. Pixley will, I hope, think better of +it. If not--well, I will send you word." + + +XV + +Pixley was very silent as they walked back along the road to the Red +House. + +The ladies had tea ready on the verandah. + +"Well, Charles," said Margaret, as he bowed before them, and Graeme +nodded and smiled reassuringly at her over his back, "I won't pretend +that I'm glad to see you. Why did you undertake so foolish an errand?" + +"Perhaps Mr. Pixley could hardly help himself," said Miss Penny, +sympathising somewhat with the awkwardness of his position. + +"That is so," he said, with a grateful glance at her. "You see, the +governor is crazy wild over this matter. It was only Sunday night he +heard of it. A friend of young Greatorex wrote him that he'd heard +your banns put up, and Greatorex congratulated the governor after +church, and the governor nearly had a fit. He came over to my place +like a whirlwind and practically ordered me to come across instanter +and stop it. I may say," he said, looking at Margaret, "I tried to +reason with him. I told him he must know that if you'd gone that +length I was out of it, and nothing he could do would alter matters. +But he would not hear a word. He simply raved until I promised to come +over by first boat and see what could be done." + +"You've only done your duty, Mr. Pixley," said Miss Penny. "But you +simply can't stop it, so is it any good making any trouble? Put it on +the highest grounds. You have had warmer feelings for Meg than she +could reciprocate. You can possibly make some disturbance at her +wedding, which would be painful to her and utterly useless to +yourself. Is it worth while?" + +"No, I'm dem--er--hanged if it is! I see I can do no good, and I'll be +hammered if I'll play dog in the manger, even to oblige the governor. +It's a disappointment to me, you know,"--he was looking at Miss +Penny's bright face, surcharged with deepest sympathy. + +"Of course it is," she said gently. "But a strong man bears his +disappointments without wincing. I think you're acting nobly." + +"Say, Graeme, will you have me as best man?" + +"Delighted, my dear fellow. Miss Penny has been breaking her heart at +thought of having no partner at the ceremony." + +"Right! Then we'll say no more about it. How did you all come to meet +here? Put-up job?" + +"Not a bit of it," said Graeme. "Pure coincidence--or Providence, +we'll say. You remember that Whitefriars' dinner, when Adam Black sat +opposite to us? He was just back from Sark, and he said, 'If ever you +want relief from your fellows--try Sark.' Well, later on, I had no +reason to believe there was anything between you and Margaret, and I +called on your father at his office. He sliced me into scraps with his +eye-glass and flung the bits out into Lincoln's Inn,"--at which +Charles Svendt grinned amusedly, as though he were familiar with the +process.--"I wanted to get away somewhere to piece up again. Sark came +into my head, and I came. A month later my landlady told me she had +let my rooms to two ladies, as she had understood I was only stopping +for a month, and I had to turn out and come up here. And, to my vast +amazement, the two ladies proved to be Margaret and Miss Penny. How is +that for coincidence?" + +"I was standing in the hedge there," said Margaret, "early in the +morning of the day after we got here, and Jock came leaping over the +dyke there with a great brown dog, and stopped as if he'd been shot--" + +"I thought you were a ghost, you see." + +"And I couldn't believe my eyes. Then I asked him what he meant by +following us here, and it turned out that it was we who had followed +him, and turned him out of his cottage moreover." + +"Deuced odd!" said Charles Svendt, screwing in his eye-glass and +regarding them comprehensively. "Almost makes one believe in--er--" + +"Telepathy and that kind of thing," said Miss Penny. + +"Er--exactly--just so, don't you know!" and his glance rested on her +with appreciation as upon a kindred soul. + + +XVI + +Charles Svendt dined with them that evening, and in the process +developed heights and depths of genial common-sense which quite +surprised some among them. + +They took him for a stroll up to the Eperquerie in the cool of the +gloaming, and showed him more shooting stars than ever he had seen in +his life, and a silver sickle of a moon, and a western sky still +smouldering with the afterglow of a crimson and amber sunset, and he +acknowledged that, from some points of view, Sark had advantages over +Throgmorton Street. + +In the natural course of things, Margaret and Graeme walked together, +and since they could not go four abreast among the gorse cushions, +Charles Svendt and Miss Penny had to put up with one another, and +seemed to get on remarkably well. More than once Graeme squeezed +Margaret's arm within his own and chuckled, as he heard the animated +talk and laughter from the pair behind. + +"I'm very glad he's taken a sensible view of the matter," said +Margaret. + +"Oh, Charles Svendt is no fool, and he certainly would have been if +he'd done anything but what he has done. He saw that he could do no +good and might get into trouble. The Seigneur scowled dungeons and +gibbets at him, and he looked decidedly uncomfortable." + +"I will tender the Seigneur my very best thanks the first time I see +him." + +When the men had seen the ladies home, they strolled up the garden to +the Red House for a final smoke. + +"Say, Graeme, I've been wondering what you'd have done if I'd played +mule and persisted in kicking up my heels in church. I asked Miss +Penny--and, by Jove, I tell you, that's about as sensible a girl as +I've met for a long time--" + +"Miss Penny is an extremely clever girl and an exceptionally fine +character. Good family too. Her father was the Brigadier-General Penny +who was killed in Afghanistan." + +"So?" + +"She's an M.A., and she's worked like a slave to educate her brothers +and sisters, and they're all turning out well. I don't know any girl, +except Meg, of whom I think so highly as Hennie Penny." + +"Henrietta?" + +Graeme nodded. + +"Well now," said Pixley presently. "As a matter of information, what +was in your mind to do if I'd gone on?" + +"You'd never have got as far as the church, my boy." + +"No? Why?" + +"If the Seigneur hadn't stopped you, I would. But I'm inclined to +think he'd have seen to you all right." + +"By Jove, he looked it! What would he have done?" + +"Confined you as a harmless lunatic till the ceremony was over, I +should say, and then sent you home with the proverbial insect in your +ear." + +"And if he hadn't?" + +"Then I should have taken matters into my own hands and bottled you up +till you couldn't do any mischief. You could have hauled me before the +court here, and I'd probably have been fined one and eightpence. It +would have been worth the money, and cheap at the price, simply to see +the proceedings." + +"It's an extraordinary place this." + +"It's without exception the most delightful little place in the +world." + +"Jolly nice house you've got here too. Think of stopping long?" + +"Some months probably. The curious thing about Sark is that the longer +you stop the longer you want to stop. It grows on you. First week I +was here it seemed to me very small--felt afraid of walking fast lest +I should step over the edge, and all that kind of thing. Now that I've +been here a couple of months it is growing bigger every day. I'm not +sure that one could know Sark under a lifetime. We'll take you round +in a boat and show it you from the outside." + +"I'll have to get back, I'm sorry to say. You see, I started at a +moment's notice. Things are duller than a ditch in the City, but I'd +no chance to make any arrangements for a stay. But I'll tell you what. +If you're stopping on here and like to send me an invitation for a +week or two, I'd come like a shot. I'll take a carriage up that road +from the harbour, though, next time. Jove! I felt like a convict on +the treadmill." + +"You have the invitation now, my boy, and we'll be delighted to see +you whenever it suits you to come." + +"That's very good of you. Miss Penny be stopping on with you?" + +"As long as she will. She'd got a bit run down and it's done her a +heap of good." + +"Well, if you'll show me how to go, I'll toddle off home now. I +haven't the remotest idea where my digs are." + +And Graeme led him through the back fields among the tethered cows, +who stopped their slow chewing as they passed, and lay gazing after +them in blank astonishment, into the Avenue and so to the Bel-Air. + +"I'll come round then a bit before eleven and we'll all go along +together," was Charles Svendt's parting word. + +"Right! Au revoir!" and Graeme went home across the fields smiling +happily to himself. + + +XVII + +When Graeme came swinging over the green dyke in the early morning, +with his towel round his neck and his two dogs racing in front, he +found the Seigneur sitting in a long chair in the verandah, with four +aristocratic dogs wandering about, who proceeded to intimate to Punch +and Scamp that they were rather low fisher-dogs and not of seigneurial +rank. + +"Well, what about your would-be breaker of the peace?" asked the +Seigneur, with a smile. + +"He's come to his senses. I was going to bring you word as soon as I +thought you'd be up. He's promised to be best man, and I'm hoping to +get him to play heavy father also and give the bride away." + +"Capital!" + +"He was very anxious last night to know what would have happened if, +as he put it, he'd persisted in playing mule and kicking up his heels +in church." + +"We'd have tied his heels so that he couldn't kick much," said the +Seigneur, with his deep quizzical smile. + +"That's what I told him. He seemed to think Sark a decidedly odd kind +of place. But he's getting to like it, and I've invited him to come +and visit us later on." + +"That's all right as long as he behaves himself." + +"Oh, he's a very decent chap. The only thing I had against him was +that he wanted to marry my wife." + +"Then all the ways are smooth now?" + +"All smooth now, thanks to your assistance!" + +"Well, all happiness to you both!" said the Seigneur as he rose. "My +wife sends all good wishes"--for the Lady of the Manor lay sick in the +great house among the trees and he would not leave her. + + +XVIII + +As Graeme proposed, they talk still of that wedding in Sark. + +Everything went smoothly. The Vicar had coached himself, by wifely +tuition and much private repetition, into a certain familiarity with +the Wedding Service in English, but would still have been more at home +with it in French. + +The church was more crowded than it had been within the memory of +woman. Margaret looked charming, and Miss Penny absolutely pretty. +Charles Svendt could hardly take his eyes off her, and caught himself +wondering what the dooce she had done to herself since last night. +For, by Jove! she's as pretty almost as Margaret herself--he said to +himself. + +And if Jeremiah Pixley could have seen his son, in fatherly fashion +give away the bride that should have been his, he would without doubt +have had fits--if the first one had not been of such a character as to +obviate the necessity for any additional ones. + +The habitants, old and young, had made holiday, donned their best as +if it were Sunday, and crowded the church as if it were all the +Sundays of the year rolled into one. + +The Vicar had serious thoughts of improving so unique an occasion, but +wisely decided to confine himself to the intricacies of the English +language as displayed in The Form of the Solemnisation of Matrimony. + +Mrs. Vicar presided at the harmonium, which had been specially tuned +for the occasion, and the choir enjoyed to the full their privileges +of position and observation and made ample use of them. + +And when his friends knelt before the chancel rail,--to the exceeding +scandal of the Vicar and Mrs. Vicar and the choir and all who saw, and +to the vast enjoyment of Miss Penny and Charles Svendt and all the +other youngsters in the place,--Punch walked solemnly up the aisle and +stood behind them, with slow-swinging tail and a look of anticipation +on his gravely interested face, while outside, Scamp, in the hands of +some enterprising stickler for forms and ceremonies, rent the air with +sharp cries of disappointment. + +But John Graeme's soul, uplifted mightily within him at this glorious +consummation of his hopes, and ranging high among the stars, saw none +of these things. He held Margaret's hand in his, and looked into her +radiant and blushing face, and vowed mighty vows for her happiness, +and thanked God fervently for bringing this great thing to pass. + +And Margaret's eye caught the marble slab, placed in the side wall of +the chancel by the late Seigneur who built it, and prayed in her heart +that the temple of their two lives might equally be builded--"to the +Glory of God and with much care." + + +XIX + +The small girls from the school, all specially arrayed in fancy white +pinafores with knots of pink ribbon, burst out of the church like a +merry bombshell while the less picturesque final ceremonies were being +completed. When Graeme and Margaret came smiling down the aisle, the +busy little maids were still vociferously strewing the path outside +with green rushes and wild iris, and as they passed, those who had +emptied their baskets ran back and picked up hasty armfuls of the +scattered flowers, and ran on in front and strewed them again, so that +for quite a long way their progress was one of gradually diminishing +splendour. + +But past the gap in the road, which led across country to the Red +House, no flower-strewers came. For there the excited chatterers broke +and whirled through like a flight of sea-pies, and made straight for +the field of more substantial delights lest the boys should secure all +the best places. + +The wedding-party, however, having disdained the use of carriages for +so short a distance, strolled quietly along the scented lanes, past +the Boys' School, and by the Carrefour, with no apprehension of the +feast beginning until they arrived, or of being relegated to back +seats if they were late. + +The cottage and the Red House had been buzzing hives since dawn, Mrs. +Carré handling her forces and volunteers and supernumeraries with the +skill of a veteran, and with encouragement so shrill and animated that +it sounded like scolding, but was in reality only emphatic patois. + +She had, indeed, left matters in the hands of certain tried elders +while she sped across the fields to the church for a few minutes, just +to see that everything there was done properly and in order. But she +was back in the thick of things before the wedding-party reached home, +and everything was ready and in apple-pie order for a merry-making +such as Sark had not seen for many a day. + +First, the children were settled at their long tables in the field +behind the house, with good things enough in front of them, and active +assistants enough behind them, to keep them quiet for a good long time +to come. + +Graeme and Margaret went round bidding them all enjoy themselves to +their fullest, which they cheerfully promised to do, and the eager +youngsters gave them back wish for wish, with one eye for them and one +for the unusual dainties on the tables. + +"Hello, Johnnie!" said Graeme to that young man, gorging stolidly, +with a palpable interval between him and his neighbour on either hand, +but with no other visible signs of wizardry about him. "Getting on all +right?" + +But there was no room for speech in Johnnie's mouth just then. He +winked one black eye solemnly and devoted himself to the business in +hand. + +And Punch and Scamp, accepted favourites of the host and hostess, tore +to and fro in vain attempt to keep pace with all the attentions +lavished upon them by the guests as soon as their own desires had been +satisfied. They devoured everything that was offered and attainable +before it was withdrawn, and had no need to ask for more unless in the +matter of storage-room. + +Everybody was very happy and very excited, for no such feast had been +in Sark within the memory of the oldest child present. And if Charles +Svendt's Stock-Exchange friends could have seen him--merrily circling +the tables and exhorting already distent youngsters to still greater +and greater exertions; poking them in the ribs to prove, against their +own better judgment, but in accordance with their inclinations, that +there was assuredly still room for more; bidding them "Mangez! +Mangez!" in the one word of French he could recall as specially +applicable at the moment--it is certain they would not have known him. + +And Miss Penny, too, looked as if she had never enjoyed herself so +much in her life, and backed him up in all his endeavours right +heartily. And now and again, when Charles Svendt looked at her, he +said to himself, "By Jove, she's as good-looking a girl as I know, and +as clever as they make 'em!" + +For there is no greater beautifier in the world than happiness, and +Hennie Penny was completely and quite unusually happy. + +To the actual wedding-feast, Graeme had asked the Vicar and his wife, +and such of the neighbours as he had come to know personally, +especially not forgetting his very first friend in the island, whom he +still always called Count Tolstoi, and Mrs. De Carteret. For the rest, +he had given Mrs. Carré carte-blanche to invite whom she deemed well +among her friends, and she had exercised her privilege with judgment +and enjoyment. + +The Sénéchal was there, and the Greffier, and the Prévôt and the +members of the Court, _ex officio_, so to speak, and the Wesleyan +minister who was on excellent terms with the Vicar, and the +Post-Master and his jovial white-haired father, who built the boats +and coffins for the community, and had supplied the tables for the +feast; and many more--a right goodly company of stalwart, +weather-browned men and pleasant-faced women, all vastly happy to be +assisting at so unusual an event as an English wedding. + +They drank the health of the bride and bridegroom in the special +mulled wine thereto ordained by custom and prepared according to the +laws of the Medes and Persians. And Graeme, on behalf of himself and +his wife, assured them that there was no place in the world like Sark, +and that they had never enjoyed a wedding so much in all their lives, +and that if they had to be married a hundred times they could wish no +happier wedding than Sark had given them. + +And of all that company, none beamed more brightly, nor enjoyed +himself more, than Charles Pixley, who, having come to curse, had, in +most approved fashion, stayed to bless, and had even beaten the +prophet's record by giving away to another the treasure he had desired +for himself. + +In the usual course of things, after the feasting would have come +games and songs until dark. But that had been adjudged too much of an +ordeal by the ladies, and the onus of it was laid upon the youngsters +outside. While Margaret and Miss Penny rested from their labours, and +Mrs. Carré and her helpers cleared the rooms for the festivities of +the evening, and prepared the milder and more intermittent refections +necessary thereto, Graeme and Pixley and the Vicar and others set the +children to games and races, for which indeed their previous exertions +at the tables had not best fitted them, but which nevertheless, or +perhaps on that very account, were provocative of much laughter and +merriment. + +Then, when it grew dark, and the reluctant youngsters had been cajoled +and dragged and packed off to bed, the hitherto-unprovided-for +section--the young men and maidens, all in their best and a trifle shy +to begin with--came flocking in for their share in the festivities, +and Orpheus and Terpsichore held the floor for the rest of the night. + +And they did dance! Margaret and Miss Penny and Graeme and Pixley +thought they had seen dancing before, but dancing such as this it had +never been theirs to witness. + +If it lacked anything in grace--and far be it from me to say so--it +more than made up for all by its inexhaustible energy and tireless +enjoyment. The men had brought their own music in the shape of a +concertina, which passed from hand to hand and with which they all +seemed on equally friendly terms. + +Jokes, laughter, round dances, refreshments, interludes of smokings +and gigglings in the darkness of the verandah, occasional more +intellectual flights in the shape of songs and recitations,--mostly of +a somewhat lugubrious tendency, to judge by the faces of the auditors, +but being mostly in patois they were unintelligible to the British +foreigners,--more dances,--coats off now, to reduce the temperature of +the performers,--more refreshments, more dances,--dances with +broomsticks held between the partners, over which they slipped and +skipped to the tune of caustic comments by the onlookers,--dances +between caps laid on the floor and which must on no account be touched +by the dancers. And always the cry to the musician of the moment +was,--"Faster! Faster!"--and the race between Orpheus and +Terpsichore--between the music and the flying feet, grew still more +fast and furious. + +Now Charles Svendt, as we know, did not look like a dancing man, but +dancing was one of the superficial accomplishments in which he +excelled. + +Miss Penny, also, through much experience with girls, was lighter of +foot than she looked. + +They stood for a time watching, and presently both their feet were +tapping to the quickstep of the rest. + +"Let's have a shot at it," said Charles. "Will you?" and he looked +down at her. + +"I'd love to," and in a moment they were whirling in the circle with +the rest, but with a grace that none there could rival,--gallant +dancers as the Sark boys and girls are. + +"Delightful!" murmured Charles Svendt. "You dance like an angel, and +we fit splendidly," and Hennie Penny found a man's arm about her +decidedly and delightfully more inspiriting than all the arms of all +the schoolgirls in the world, and danced as she had never danced +before. + +So swift and light and smooth and graceful was their flight that +before long the rest tailed off and all stood propped against the +walls to watch them. + +"We've got the floor all to ourselves," murmured Miss Penny at last, +as she woke to the fact. + +"We've licked them into fits on their own ground," he laughed in her +ear. "You can dance and no mistake. It's a treat to dance with a +really good dancer." + +"I think we ought to stop. We're stopping their fun," said Hennie +Penny, and when he led her to a seat the rest of the room all clapped +their enjoyment. + +Graeme and Margaret danced a round or two to endorse the festivities, +but they were not in it with Pixley and Hennie Penny, and they soon +dropped out and clapped heartily with the rest. + +When Charles Svendt, later on, suggested another dance, Miss Penny +bade him go and dance with one of the Sark girls. + +"But I don't want to dance with any of them. Besides, I don't know any +of 'em, and I couldn't talk to her if I did." + +"Oh yes, you can. They all speak English." + +"Do they now? It don't sound like it. Come on, Miss Penny. They +wouldn't enjoy it and I wouldn't enjoy it, and I never enjoyed +anything so much in my life as that last round." + +So Hennie took pity on him, and they danced many times amid great +applause. + +"Awfully good of you!" said Charles Svendt, as the dawn came peeping +in through the east windows and the open front door; and Mrs. Carré, +as Mistress of the Ceremonies, and a very tired one at that, bluffly +informed the company that it was time to go home. + +"I've enjoyed it immensely," said Hennie Penny, and if her face was +any index to her feelings, there was no mistake about it. + + +XX + +None of them will ever forget that great day. + +Still less is any of them likely to forget the day that followed. + +As dancing only ceased when the sun was about rising, before-breakfast +bathing was declared off for that day, and they arranged to meet later +on and stroll quietly down to Dixcart Bay during the morning and all +bathe together there. Charles Svendt laughingly prepared them for an +exhibition of incompetence by stating that his swimming wasn't a patch +on his dancing, but that he could get along. Miss Penny gaily gave him +points as to her own peculiar methods of swimming, which, as we know, +demanded instant and easy touch of sand or stone at any moment of the +halting progression. He confessed to a like prejudice in favour of +something solid within reach of his sinking capacity, and they agreed +to help one another. + +They called for him at the hotel about eleven o'clock, and went joking +through the sunny lanes of Petit Dixcart, crossed the brook that runs +out of Hart's-Tongue Valley, and followed it by the winding path along +the side of the cliff, among the gorse and ferns, down into the bay. + +They had a right merry bathe with no grave casualties. Miss Penny, +indeed, got out of her depth twice, to the extent of quite two inches, +and shrieked for help, which Charles Svendt gallantly hastened to +render; while Graeme and Margaret swam across from head to head, +watched enviously by the paddlers in shallow waters. + +They went home by the climbing path up the hillside, rested on The +Quarter-deck while Charles Svendt got his breath back, and so, by the +old Dixcart hotel, and the new one nestling among its flowers and +trees, and up the Valley, to the Vicarage. + +The Vicar was basking in the shade of the trees in front of the house. + +"Ah-ha--Mr. and Mrs. Graeme! Good-morning! You are none the worse for +being married? Non?" as he shook hands joyously all round, with both +hands at once. + +"Not a bit," laughed Graeme. "We're all as happy as sandboys." + +"Comment donc--sandboys? What is that?" + +"Happy little boys who dispense with clothes and paddle all day in the +sand and water." + +"Ah--you have been bathing! What energie! And you danced till--?" + +"About four o'clock, I suppose. The sun was just thinking of rising as +we were thinking of retiring." + +"But it is marvellous! And you are not tired?" + +"The bathe has freshened us all up," said Margaret. + +Then Mrs. Vicar came out at sound of their voices, and felicitated +them, and begged them to rest a while in the shade. But they were all +hungry, and Charles Svendt laughingly asserted that he had swallowed +so much salt-water, in rescuing Miss Penny from a watery grave, that +his constitution absolutely needed a tiny tot of whisky, or the +consequences might be serious. + +So they went laughingly on their way, and Charles tried his best to +get Miss Penny to go and show him the way to the Bel-Air, pleading +absolute confusion still as to the points of the compass and the lie +of the land. + +He was to lunch with them at the Red House, but insisted on going home +first to straighten up and make himself presentable. So they led him +to the Avenue, and set his face straight down it, and bade him follow +his nose and turn neither to the right hand nor to the left, and then +they turned off through the fields by their own short-cut, and went +merrily home. + + + + +PART THE SIXTH + + +I + +Graeme was just finishing a beautiful knot in his tie, when he heard +hasty feet crossing the verandah to the open front door. There was +some unknown quantity in them that gave him sudden start. + +"Graeme!" sharp, hoarse,--a voice he did not recognise. + +He ran hastily out of the east bedroom, which he was using as a +dressing-room. + +"Hello there!" as he sprang down the stairs, "Why--Pixley? What's +wrong, man?" + +For Charles Pixley was standing there, leaning in at the doorway, +looking as though he would fall headlong but for the supporting jamb. +He had a brown envelope in his hand and a crumpled pink telegram. His +face was white, and drawn, and haggard. His very figure seemed to have +shrunk in these few minutes. Never had Graeme seen so ghastly a change +in a man in so short a time. + +Before Pixley could speak Miss Penny came hurrying along the path with +a face full of sympathetic anxiety. + +"What is it?" she asked. "I saw Mr. Pixley pass, and his face +frightened me. Oh, what is wrong?" + +Pixley glanced at her out of his woeful eyes, and at Margaret, who had +just come running down the stairs. He seemed to hesitate for a moment. +Then he groaned-- + +"You will have to know," and motioned them all into the dining-room +and shut the door. + +"This "--jerking out the telegram--"was waiting for me," and he handed +it to Graeme, who smoothed it out and read, while Pixley dropped into +a chair. + +"Pixley. Bel-Air. Sark. + +"Zizel, Amadou, Zebu, Zeta. Eno." + +"Code," said Pixley briefly. "Meanings underneath," and dropped his +head into his hands. + +"Zizel," read Graeme slowly--"There is bad news. Amadou--your father. +Zebu--has bolted. Zeta--we fear the smash will be a bad one. Eno--?" + +"My partner's initials--they certify the wire," said Pixley hoarsely. + +And they looked soberly at one another and very pitifully at the +broken man before them. + +"Don't take it too hard, Pixley," said Graeme quietly, laying a +friendly hand on the other's shoulder. "It may not be as bad as this +puts it. Codes are brutally bald things, you know" + +The bowed head shook pitifully. He raised his white face and looked +round at them with a shocked shrinking in his eyes. + +"God forgive him!" he jerked. "And God forgive me, for I have doubted +him at times! He was so--so--so demned good"--and Graeme's lips +twitched in spite of himself, so closely was the expression in accord +with his own feelings. But Pixley did not see the twitch, for he was +looking at Margaret and Hennie Penny, and he was saying with +vehemence-- + +"Will you believe me that I knew absolutely nothing of this? He never +discussed his affairs with me nor I mine with him, and we had no +business together except on purely business lines. If he had to buy or +sell he sent it my way, of course,--nothing more. You will believe me, +Graeme--" + +"Every word, my boy--" + +"We all believe it, Mr. Pixley," said Hennie Penny warmly. + +"And I know it, Charles," said Margaret. + +"It is very good of you all," he groaned. "I must get back at once, +Graeme. How soon is there a boat?" + +"Five o'clock. You'll have to stop a night in Guernsey, which is a +nuisance." + +Charles Svendt shook his head in dumb misery. It was crushing to be so +far away--thirty hours at least, and he gnashing within to be on the +spot and at work, learning the worst, seeing what could be done. + +Then, with a preliminary knock on the door, Mrs. Carré came in with +brilliant lobsters and crisp lettuces for lunch, and, hungry as they +all were, their souls loathed the thought of eating. + +"They are just out of the pot," beamed she, "and the lettuces were +growing not five min'ts ago. Ech!"--at sight of Pixley--"is he ill?" + +"Mr. Pixley has just had bad news from home, Mrs. Carré," said Graeme. +"He will have to go by to-day's boat." + +"Ach, but I am sorry! And him so happy yesterday and dancing the best +in the room," and her pleasant face clouded sympathetically. + +"Meg, I'll go up to your room for a minute and finish my hair," said +Hennie Penny. "I ran out just as I was--" + +"It was very kind of you," said Charles Svendt, and the general +sympathy seemed to comfort him somewhat. + +"No good feeling too bad about it, old man, till you know all the +facts," said Graeme, when the girls had gone off upstairs. + +"It hits me, Graeme. Not financially, as I said. But in every other +way it hits me hard.--Have you reached the point of seeing that it may +hit her too?"--and he nodded towards upstairs. + +"I suppose there was a glimmering idea of the chance of that at the +back of my head somewhere, but we won't trouble about it just now. How +about your mother?" + +Pixley shook his head dismally again. "It will be a terrible blow to +her. He was a bit hard and cold at home, you know, but she looked up +to him as immaculate. Yes, it will hit her very hard. As to money, of +course, she will be all right. I have plenty. But the talk and the +scandal--" and he groaned again at thought of it all. + +"Send her over here for a time--or bring her yourself. We have heaps +of room here. Miss Penny is coming to stop with us next week. Your +mother was always fond of Margaret, I believe." + +"She was--very fond of her.... That's a good thought of yours, Graeme. +Are you sure Margaret--?" + + +"Of course she would. She and Miss Penny will just take care of her, +and no word of the troubles will reach her. That's the thing to do, +and maybe you'll find things not as bad as you expect when you get +back." + +But, from the look of him, Charles Svendt had small hope of matters +being anything but what he feared. + +When the girls came down they made an apology of a meal, for, in spite +of their hunger, the stricken look of their friend took their +appetites away. + +The thought that there might still lurk in their minds a suspicion +that he had had some knowledge of his father's position, when he came +across to stop their marriage, still troubled him. + +"I do hope you will all believe me when I say that I knew absolutely +nothing of it all," he said, when they had finished an almost silent +meal. "When I said I had doubted him at times, I simply meant that his +everlasting and--and--well, very assertive philanthropies palled upon +me. It was a little difficult at times to believe in the genuineness +of it all, for we did not see very much of it at home, as you +know,"--he looked at Margaret, who nodded. "In business matters he +could be as hard as nails, and it was not easy to fit it all +together." + +"Not one of us believes anything of the kind of you, old man. Just get +that right out of your head, once for all. We're only sorry for your +sake that the trouble has come, and I'm sure we all hope it will turn +out not so bad as you fear," said Graeme heartily. + +"What about your mother, Charles?" said Margaret. "I'm afraid she will +feel this dreadfully. Hennie and I were talking about it upstairs, and +we were wondering if you could get her to come and stop with us for a +time--" + +"You see!" said Graeme, with a smile at Pixley. And to Margaret--"I +suggested exactly the same thing while you were up doing your hair." + +"It's awfully good of you all," said Charles. "If you're quite sure--" + +"We're quite sure. Send her to us at once as soon as you reach home, +and Jock shall meet her in Guernsey." + +"I think I'd perhaps better bring her across myself. I don't suppose +there will be much I can do when I've heard the worst--if they've got +to it yet. Things may be all tangled up, and it may take time. And for +ten days or so, until folks have had time to forget, the name of +Pixley won't be one to be proud of." + +"Come if you can," said Graeme heartily. "You've seen nothing of Sark +yet." + + +II + +They all went down to the harbour to see him off--as is the custom +when one's friends leave Sark. And when Charles Svendt had shaken +hands with Margaret and Miss Penny--and had found a touch of comfort +in the sympathetic droop of their faces--and had fancied Miss Penny's +bright eyes were at once brighter and mistier than usual--and had +thanked them again very humbly for all their kindness--he turned to +say good-bye to Graeme. + +"Come away, man!" said Jock cheerfully. "I'm coming too. Meg's given +me a holiday, and I'm going to shake a free leg again in Guernsey--" + +But Charles thought he saw through that. + +"Don't you come on my account, Graeme" + +"Not on your account at all, my boy, but the accounts of a good many +shopkeepers over there which I've got to straighten out at once, while +all the little differences are fresh in my mind. Something wrong in +nearly all of them--some over, some under--and I'm still a bit of a +business man though I do write books." + +For, when Pixley went off to pack his portmanteau, Graeme had said to +his wife, "Meg dear, what do you think of my going across to Peter +Port with that young man? He'll have a bad black time all by himself. +He's holding himself in before us, but when he's alone it'll all come +back on him in a heap and he'll feel it." + +And Margaret had said, "Yes, dear, go. You'll be a great comfort to +him. I am very very sorry for him." + +The last flicker of the waving handkerchiefs above the sea-wall, and +their responsive wavings from the boat, had been abruptly cut by the +intervening bastion of Les Lâches, but Charles Svendt still leaned +with his arms on the rail and looked back as though he could pierce +the granite cliff and see the girls still standing there, and Graeme +stood patiently behind him. + +He straightened up at last with a sigh. + +"I'm glad I came," he said, "though if I'd had any idea what was going +to happen I'd have drowned myself first. It's when one's in +trouble"--as though this were a discovery of his own--"that one finds +out how kind people can be." + +"Yes, trouble has its uses. I had a deuce of a time for the first few +weeks after I got here. Your dad had told me you and Margaret were to +be married very shortly, and it knocked life into a cocked-hat for +me--" + +"That's what he would have liked. Do you know, Graeme, I've been +thinking that it's just possible your marriage helped to precipitate +matters with him. I don't know, of course; but if he has been juggling +her money in any way, he may have been counting on a marriage between +us to help straighten things. Then, when he heard nothing from me--" + +"It's possible. But if it acted as quickly as all that, I'm afraid the +chances for Margaret's portion are pretty small." + +"Gad! That would hurt me more than anything. I shall do everything in +my power--" + +"I'm sure of it, my dear fellow. And you must understand that her +money--whatever it is--has never entered into our calculations in any +way. I knew nothing of it till Lady Elspeth Gordon told me, and I had +it all settled on her before the wedding took place. If it is gone we +can do without it." + +And Charles Svendt, if he said nothing, thought all the more. + + +III + +The two girls were standing in the outermost seaward corner of the +breakwater, as though they had never moved, when the _Assistance_ came +nosing round Les Lâches next morning, and made for the harbour. And to +Graeme, the sight of his wife, after a separation of eighteen hours, +was like a life-giving stream to a pilgrim of the desert, or the +blessing of light to a darkened soul. His heart swelled almost to +paining-point for very joy of her. He took deep breaths of gratitude +for this sweet crowning of his life. He wondered vaguely why he should +be so blest above all other men. He vowed his vows again and his eyes +were misty. + +They saw him standing by the captain, and waved glad welcomes, and +presently, his glimpse into the depths of Margaret's eyes as he kissed +her, told him that he had been missed even as he had missed. + +"I am glad I went with him," he said, as they climbed the steep Creux +Road. "It did him good to talk. He's feeling it terribly." + +He did not tell them that they had got the previous day's papers in +St. Peter Port, and that their scathing comments on a peculiarly bad +failure, and on the remarkable contrast between the profession and the +practice of Jeremiah Pixley's life, had driven Charles Svendt almost +crazy. The wound was raw in their hearts. There was no need to turn +the knife in it. + +"We shall see him back here with Mrs. Pixley before the middle of next +week, unless I'm very much mistaken," he said. "He says there's +nothing doing on the Stock Exchange, and he can fix things with his +partner to get away for a time, and it seems the wisest thing to do." + +"I have liked Charles better this time than I ever did in my life +before," said Margaret. "And I am very very sorry for him and Mrs. +Pixley." + +"He's not half a bad fellow," said Graeme heartily. + +And perhaps, if it had been put to Miss Penny, she would have improved +even upon that. + +"I hope you're not very set on being a rich woman, Meg," said Graeme, +when they were alone together. + +"Oh, but I am," she said, with a smile which all the riches in the +world could not have bought from her, or brought to her. + +"Yes, I know,"--and he gathered the smile with a kiss. "But in coarse +material wealth, I mean." + +"I'm just as set on it as you are. I want just as much as will make +you happy. You mean Mr. Pixley has made away with it all?" + +"I'm very much afraid so, but I guess we can get along all right +without it." + +"Of course we can--splendidly. I'm a famous housekeeper and you'll be +a famous author. There couldn't be a better team. It will bring out +the very best that's in us." + +"We can never come to actual want anyway, for my little bit--which, by +the way, Lady Elspeth once took the trouble to impress upon me was +just about enough to pay Mr. Pixley's servants' wages--is in Consols, +and they're not likely to crack up. And my last book brought me about +fifty pounds--" + +"It ought to have brought you five thousand. I'm sure it was good +enough." + +"Of course it was, but it takes time to work up to the five thousand +point. Some get there, I suppose. But I should imagine more starve off +at the fifty line." + +"We could live like princes on a couple of hundred a year in Sark +here." + +"It would pall on you in time, I'm afraid." + +"You've been here twice as long as I have. Has it begun to pall on you +yet?" + +"I don't think it would ever pall on me, if I lived here for a +century. But then I've got my work, you see." + +"And I've got you, my dear. When you and Sark begin to pall I'll +promise to let you know. It's heavenly." + +"Oh, I don't claim all that, you know. Don't expect _too_ much--" + +"Will Charles be involved at all, do you think, Jock?" + +"I don't think so. They had not much to do with one another in +business matters." + +"I'm glad of that. Do you know"--with an introspective look in her +eyes--"I've an idea--" + +"Hennie Penny?" + +Margaret nodded. + +"That would be capital. She'd make him an excellent wife." + +"I'm sure she would. She's just what he needs. She's as good as gold, +and she has more genuine common-sense than anyone I know." + +"Thousand thanks!" + +"Oh, we're exceptions to all rules. But I do hope something--I mean +everything--may come of it. And we would all have reason to bless this +blessed little island all our days." + +"Some of us will, anyway. It certainly shall not go unblest." + + +IV + +On the Tuesday afternoon Graeme received a brief telegram from Charles +Pixley--"Crossing tonight." And Wednesday morning found them all on +the sea-wall awaiting the arrival of the steamer from Guernsey. + +"There he is--in the front corner of the upper deck--keen to get here +as soon as possible, I should say. I know just how he feels," said +Graeme, with a laugh. "Looks a bit different from what he did the +first time he came." + +"That's Mrs. Pixley on the side seat," said Margaret, and they waved +their welcomes. + +There were two ladies on the side seat, and both stood up and waved +vigorously in reply. + +"Why--who--?" began Margaret. And then--excitedly, "Jock--I believe +it's Lady Elspeth. I'm certain it is. It is. It is." + +"Just like her! Hurrah for the Gordons!" and he sent them welcomes +which a world full of Pixleys alone could not have excited in him. + +"Now this _is_ delightful," he said, as he sprang on board and rushed +at Lady Elspeth. + +"All right, my boy! Don't shake my hand right off, if you can help it. +Here, you may give me a kiss, though it's contrary to the usages of my +country. We'll pretend I'm your mother again. Now say how do you do to +Mrs. Pixley. How's Margaret? I've got crows to pick with you young +people--" + +"Make it seven, or it's unlucky," laughed Graeme. + +"Eh? What?" + +"Tell you later. We're great believers in crows here. Mrs. Pixley, I +am very glad indeed to see you here. Charles, old man, you've done +splendidly." + +Charles wrung his hand in silence. His face was sober, with a latent +glow of expectation in it. When he had seen to the luggage he joined +the group on the quay, and it was Miss Penny who was the first to see +him coming. + +"Welcome back to Sark!" she said cheerfully. + +"I'm uncommonly glad to be here. Everybody all right? How's Mrs. +Carré?" + +"Everybody's first-rate, especially Meg and Jock. Their spirits are +enough to inflate the island." + +"It's good to be young," and the sober mask lifted slightly and let +the inner light shine through. + + +V + +"Go to an hotel?" said Margaret indignantly, in reply to a suggestion +from Lady Elspeth. "Indeed you'll do nothing of the kind,"--and, as +the old lady hesitated still,--"If you do I'll never speak to you +again as long as I live." + +"Oh well, I couldn't stand that--" + +"Of course you couldn't. Neither could I. An hotel indeed!"--with +withering scorn--"And we with four empty bedrooms crying aloud at +night because two of their fellows are occupied and they are left out +in the cold! An hotel! I'd just like to see you!" + +"My guidness! Is she often like this, Jock?" + +"Oh, always! I thought you knew her. Why couldn't you warn me in +time?--No!" as Lady Elspeth attempted to speak--"It's too late now. +We're bound for life. There's no cutting the bond. The Vicar told us +so." + +"You're both clean daft together," said the old lady, with dancing +eyes. "Well, I'll stop in one of your crying bedrooms--on conditions. +We'll talk about that later on. Where's the rest of the island, and +how do you get to it?" + +"Old ladies and luggage ride. We youngsters walk. There's Charles +waiting for you at the carriage. There you are! Au revoir!" + +As the young people breasted the steep, Pixley--forgetting entirely +his vow never to do it on foot again--unfolded to them Lady Elspeth's +idea, which simply was, that if the Red House could hold them all,--of +which she had her doubts, in spite of his assertions,--they should all +share expenses and such household duties as so large a party would +involve. + +"You see--if you don't mind it, Mrs. Graeme,"--with an apologetic look +at Margaret,--"it will give the two old ladies something to do and +will leave us young folks freer to get about." + +"It's a capital arrangement if the old ladies don't mind. Mrs. Carré +can get in another girl. It will keep them all busy seeing that we +have enough to eat. But they'll soon get used to looking forward two +or three days and ordering Friday's dinner on Tuesday." + +"How long can you stop, old man?" asked Graeme. + +"A fortnight--all being well," and there was a touch of soberness in +it as he said that. "There's really nothing doing, and Ormerod's a +good fellow and insisted on it." + +"We can do heaps in a fortnight," said Miss Penny jubilantly. "However +did you manage to catch Lady Elspeth?" + +"She's a grand old lady. I found her with my mother when I got there. +She'd been with her ever since--since the trouble. And when I proposed +bringing my mother she said at once that she was coming too. She had +crows to pick with you two, and so on. I expect she thought my mother +would feel things less if she was with her." + +"She's an old dear," said Margaret. "They shall both have the very +best time we can give them." + +"I shall take them conger-eeling," said Graeme,--"and to Venus's Bath" + +"And down the Boutiques and the Gouliots"--suggested Margaret. + +"And ormering in Grande Grève," laughed Miss Penny, who had spent a +day there on that alluring pursuit and had come home bruised and wet +and dirty. + +"Oh, there's lots of fun in store for them," said Graeme, laughing +like a schoolboy out for a holiday. "And, as Hennie Penny says, we can +do heaps in a fortnight." + + +VI + +Having made up their minds that there was no earthly reason why +Charles Pixley and Hennie Penny should not be as happy as they were +themselves, Margaret and Graeme saw to it that nothing should be +awanting in the way of opportunity. + +Miss Penny's natural goodness of heart impelled her to the most +delicate consideration towards Mrs. Pixley. Hennie Penny, you see, had +come bravely through dire troubles of her own, and tribulation softens +the heart as it does the ormer. She anticipated the nervous old lady's +every want, soothed her bruised susceptibilities in a thousand hidden +ways, tended her as lovingly as an only daughter might have done,--and +all out of the sheer necessity of her heart, and with never a thought +of reward other than the satisfaction of her own desire for the +happiness of all about her. + +Not that the others were one whit less considerate, but, in the +natural course of things, Miss Penny's heart and time were, perhaps, a +little more at liberty for outside service, and in Mrs. Pixley the +opportunity met her half-way. + +It is safe to say that the old lady had never in her life been so much +made of. Margaret had always been gentle and sweet with her; but the +cold white light of Mr. Pixley's unco' guidness had always cast a +shadow upon the household, and Margaret had got from under it +whenever the chance offered. + +"You are very good to me, my dear," Charles heard his mother say to +Hennie Penny, one day when they two were alone together and did not +know anyone was near. "If I had ever had a daughter I would have liked +her to be like you. How did you learn to be so thoughtful of other +people?" + +"I think it must have been through having come through lots of +troubles of my own," said Hennie Penny simply. + +"Troubles abound," said the tremulous old lady. "You have drawn the +sting of yours and kept only the honey," which saying astonished +Charles greatly. He had no idea his mother could say things like that. +She had had time to think plenty of them, indeed, but there had never +been room for more than one shining light in the household and that +had cast strong shadows. + +Charles had gone quietly away smiling to himself, and had been in +cheerful spirits for the rest of the day. + +The first night, when the ladies had gone chattering upstairs to make +sure that all the arrangements were in order, Graeme and Pixley sat +out on the verandah smoking a final pipe. + +The ladies' voices floated through the open windows as they passed +from room to room, and Graeme laughed softly. "What's up?" asked +Pixley, gazing at him soberly. + +"I was thinking of the changes here since the first night I slept in +this house all by myself, and heard ghosts creeping about and all +kinds of noises." + +"Much jollier to hear _them_," said Charles, as Miss Penny's and +Margaret's laughter came floating down the softness of the night. + +"Ay, indeed! Very much jollier," and they smoked and listened. + +No word had so far passed between them as to the troubles that lay +behind. There had, indeed, been no opportunity until now, and Graeme +had no mind to broach the matter. + +But Pixley had only been waiting till they could discuss things alone, +and the time had come. + +"It will take them months to get to the bottom of things over there," +he said quietly. "I saw the accountants, and they say everything's in +a dreadful mess. He must have been involved for years. It makes me +absolutely sick to think of it all, Graeme, and him--" + +"I'm sure it must, old chap. Why think of it? It's done, and it can't +be undone, and everyone knows you had nothing to do with it." + +"I know. Everyone is very kind, but I can't get rid of it. It's with +me all the time like a dirty shadow." + +"We'll chase it away. No place like Sark for getting rid of bogeys and +worries." + +"How things will come out it's impossible to say. I made special +enquiries into Margaret's affairs, and it's quite certain he's +tampered with her money, but they could not say yet to what extent. On +the other hand, certain of her securities are intact, so everything is +not gone. But what I wanted to say was this. I am determined that +Margaret shall not suffer, whatever may have happened. Any deficiency +I shall make good myself." + +"My dear fellow, she would never hear of it." + +"That's why I'm talking to you." + +"Well, I won't hear of it either. As I told you before, it was a +trouble to me when I heard she had any money. Whatever she had I +settled on herself, and we can get on very well without it." + +"All the same I'm not going to have her lose anything through +my--through him. Neither you nor she can stop me doing what I like +with my own money." + +"We can refuse to touch it." + +"That would be nonsense." + +"Not half as bad as you crippling yourself for life to make good what +you'd never made away with." + +"It wouldn't do that," said Charles quietly. "Ormerod's a long-headed +fellow, and we made some pretty good hits before the bottom dropped +out of things. You must let me have my own way in this matter, Graeme, +if it's only for my own peace of mind. I'm going to ask Miss Penny to +be my wife. Do you think--" + +"My dear fellow," said Graeme, jumping up and shaking him heartily by +the hand, "that's the best bit of news I've heard since Meg said 'I +will' in the church there. She's an absolutely splendid girl, is +Hennie. Except Meg herself, I don't know any girl I admire so much. +She's as good and sweet as they make 'em, and for sound common-sense +she's a perfect gold mine." + +"And you don't think--?" + +"I've never heard a hint of anyone else. Like me to ask Meg? She'd be +sure to know. Girls talk of these things, you know." + +"I don't know. Would it be quite--" + +"Everything's fair in love and war,--proverbial, my boy. But I'm +pretty sure you've a clear field, and I congratulate you both with all +my heart. Come to think of it, she's been as dull as a ditch since you +went away" + +"Really?" + +"Fact! I was trying the other night to prove to her that she'd got +influenza coming on, or hay-fever, or something of the kind. She's as +different as chalk from cheese since eleven o'clock to-day. It's you, +I'll bet you a sovereign." + +Charles did not respond to the offer. He sat smoking quietly and let +his thoughts run along brighter paths than they had done for days. + + +VII + +At breakfast next morning Graeme soberly suggested to Lady Elspeth +that she should go conger-eeling with him that day. And the shrewd +brown eyes looked into his, and twinkled in response to the deep blue +and the brown ones opposite, and she said, "I mind I was just a wee +bit feather-headed myself for a while after I was married. I caught +congers before you were short-coated, my laddie, but I'm not going +catching them now." + +"They are a bit rampageous when they're grown up," he admitted. "We +got one the other day about as thick round as one's leg, and it barked +like a dog and tried to bite." + +"And does he make you go congering, my dear?" she asked Margaret. + +"Make?" scoffed Graeme. "Make, forsooth? How little you know! I'd like +to see the man who could make that young person do anything but just +what she wishes. Why, she twists us all round her little finger +and----" + +"Ay, ay! Well, discipline is good for the young, and you're just +nothing but a laddie in some things." + +"I'm going to keep so all my life. So's Meg! Well, suppose we say +ormering then, if congering's too lively. Hennie Penny's an awful dab +at ormering. If you'd seen her the other night when she came home! A +tangle of vraic was an old lady's best cap in comparison--" + +"And how many did I get, and how many did you get?" retorted Miss +Penny. + +"I got six and you got seven--" + +"Seventeen, and you stole four of your six from Meg." + +"Oh well, I found the mushrooms, coming home, and they were worth a +pailful of ormers." + +"You didn't beat them long enough. Ormers take a lot of beating," she +explained to Lady Elspeth. + +"Thumping, she means. My mushrooms beat them hollow,--tender and +delicate and fragrant"--and he sniffed appreciatively as though he +could scent them still.--"Your ormers were like shoe-soles." + +"And as to the mushrooms," continued Hennie Penny, "you'd never have +found them if I hadn't tumbled into them, and then you thought they +were toadstools." + +"Oh well!--Who can't take a hook out of a whiting's mouth? Who was it +screamed when the lobster looked at her?" + +"It nearly took a piece out of me." + +"Who nearly upset the boat when a baby devilfish came up in the pot? +And it wasn't above that size!" + +"I draw the line at devil-fish. They're no' canny." + +"Do they generally go on like this?" asked Lady Elspeth of Margaret. + +"All the time," said Margaret, with a matronly air. "They're just a +couple of children. I keep them out of mischief as well as I can, but +it's hard work at times." + +"She's just every bit as bad, you know, when we're alone," said Miss +Penny. "But she's got her company manners on just now. You should see +her when she's bathing." + +"Ah--yes! You should see her when she's bathing," said Graeme, with a +smack of the lips. "All the little waves and crabs and lobsters keep +bobbing up to have another look at her. In Venus's Bath the other +day--" + +"Now, children, stop your fooling. Where shall we go to-day?" laughed +Margaret, and Lady Elspeth could hardly take her eyes off her, so +winsomely, so radiantly happy was she. + +"We old folks will stay at home and talk to Mrs. Carré," said Lady +Elspeth. "You young ones can go off and do what you like." + +"Oh no, you don't," said Graeme. "You didn't come here to loaf in a +verandah. When you come to Sark you've got to enjoy yourselves, +whether you want to or not. Suppose we take lunch along to the +Eperquerie, and the elders can bask and snooze, and we'll bathe three +times off that black ledge under Les Fontaines. And if the Seigneur's +out fishing perhaps he'll take some of us with him, those who don't +scream when the poor fish gets a hook in its throat. And you'll see +Margaret out on the loose. She always goes it when she's swimming." + +"I hope you won't venture too far out, Charles," said Mrs. Pixley, +with visions of his limp body being carried home. + +"Miss Penny and I are sensible people when we're bathing," said +Charles. "We don't lose our heads--" + +"Nor any of the rest of you,--nor touch of the stones," laughed +Graeme. + +"That's so," said Charles. "We like to know what's below us and that +it's not too far away." + +"It's very wise," said Mrs. Pixley plaintively. "One hears of such +dreadful accidents. I'm very glad you're so sensible, my dear," to +Miss Penny. + +"Oh, I'm dreadfully sensible at times, especially when I'm bathing. +But that's because I can only swim with one foot at the bottom." + +"Any beach about there?" enquired Charles forethoughtfully. + +"Nice little bit just round the corner, with a cave and all,--capital +place for children. Paddle by the hour without going in above your +ankles." + +And so they wandered slowly up the scented lanes past the Seigneurie, +laden with the usual paraphernalia of a bathing-lunch, and came out on +the Eperquerie. + +They established the old ladies in a gorsy nook, built a fireplace of +loose stones, and collected fuel, and laid the fire ready for the +match, which Lady Elspeth was to apply whenever they waved to her. + +"If She isn't fast asleep," said Graeme. + +Then they pointed out all the things that lay about, so that they +might take an intelligent interest in their surroundings,--Guernsey, +and Herm, and Jethou, and Alderney, and the Casquets, and the coast of +France, and the Seigneur in his boat, and then they trooped off like a +party of school-children. + +And presently the old ladies saw them scrambling down the black, +scarped sides of the headland opposite, and then they disappeared +behind rocks and into crannies. Then a pink meteor flashed from the +black ledge, followed in an instant by a dark-blue one, and both went +breasting out to sea. And in front of the cave two less venturesome +figures beguiled the onlookers and themselves into the belief that +they were swimming, though they never went out of their depth and +sounded anxiously for it at every second stroke. + +And up above, the larks trilled joyously, and the air was soft and +sweet as the air of heaven; and down below, the water was bluer than +the sky and clear as crystal, so that they could see the great white +rocks which lay away down in the depths, and they looked like +sea-monsters crawling after their prey. And the shouts of the swimmers +came mellowly up to them, and they could see their little limbs +jerking like the limbs of frogs. + +"It is good to be here," said Lady Elspeth enjoyably. + +"It is very very good to be here. I am very glad we came," said Mrs. +Pixley, with a sigh that was not all sadness. + + +VIII + +Many such days of sheer delight they had, and kept the dark cloud +resolutely below their horizon. They accommodated their activities to +the limited powers of the elders, and took them wherever it was +reasonably possible for them to go. They chartered a boat for the day, +and took them and all the luncheon-things round from Creux Harbour to +Grande Grève, subjecting Charles to long-unaccustomed labours at the +oar. In the same way they introduced them to Dixcart Bay, and +Derrible, and Grêve de la Ville; and, choosing a fit day, they +circumnavigated the island again in three boat-loads, landing for +lunch on an even keel on Brenière, and penetrating into every +accessible cave they came to,--Mrs. Pixley enjoying the wonders in +fear and trembling, and breathing freely only when they were safely +out in the open once more. And Graeme and Margaret watched the +approximating of Hennie Penny and Charles with infinite delight. It +needed only a full understanding between these two to complete their +own great happiness. + +But the dark cloud was there, though they might refuse to look at it, +and clouds below the horizon have a way of rising, especially dark +ones. + +The post-office in Sark is a cottage, or the part of a cottage, turned +from private to public use. In former times the service was of a very +perfunctory character, Providence largely taking the place of +post-master while that official attended first to his fishing and then +to his duties, and any who had good and valid reason to expect a +letter came down to the mail-bag where it lay on the beach and went +through it for themselves. + +The advent of visitors accustomed to more exact and business-like +methods, however, has done away with this Arcadian simplicity, and now +each day when the boat is in, all who prefer not to wait for the tardy +delivery at their own houses, collect gradually round the official +cottage, and in due course, and after the exercise of virtues, receive +their mail across the counter. And some tear their letters open at +once, regardless of spectators, and devour them on the spot, but the +wiser carry them home for private consumption. For one never knows for +certain what of heartbreak and disaster the most innocent-looking +envelope may contain. + +Graeme and Margaret and Miss Penny, however, being in retreat, and +having cut the painter with the outside world, had not cultivated the +post-office until Charles and Lady Elspeth arrived. But, as Charles +had to keep more or less in touch with Throgmorton Street, they had +now got into the habit of calling with him for his letters, except +when the doing so interfered with the programme for the day. And many +an amusing, and sometimes touching, insight did they get there into +human nature. Graeme said it was worth while the trouble of going, +just to sit in the hedge opposite and watch people's faces, especially +the faces of those who tore open their letters and those who got none. + +They were sitting so in the hedge one morning, quietly watching and +commenting silently, and by looks only, on the vagaries of the +letter-scramblers, and Charles had pushed into the crowded little room +to antedate the delivery by a few minutes if possible. + +As he came out, with his letters in his hand, they all saw at a glance +that something had happened. His face, which had been gradually +relaxing to its old look of jovial good-fellowship and satisfaction +with the world, was tight and hard, and yet they saw that he had not +opened a letter. He turned up the road with a mere jerk of the head, +and they followed wondering, and all, as it came out afterwards, with +the same dim idea as to the possible cause of his upsetting. + +He handed Margaret a couple of letters for Lady Elspeth, and made an +attempt at conversation as they went along, but the cloud they had +been keeping out of sight was visible now to all of them. Among the +unopened letters in his hand was one which disturbed him even before +he knew what was in it, and they could only wait, with troubled minds, +for developments. + +Charles went straight to his room, as he usually did when business +matters claimed his attention, and from the look on his face Graeme +judged that the scramble, fixed for that day on account of a specially +low tide, round the Autelets, whose rock-pools and phosphorescent +seaweeds and beds of flourishing anemones were a perpetual delight, +would be off for the time being at all events. + +But Pixley came down presently and intimated that he was ready, and +they trooped away, leaving the elders at home for a day's rest, since +rock-scrambling was outside their limits. + +Their progress, however, was not the usual light-hearted saunter +enlivened by merry jokes and laughter. The lanes were fragrant as +ever, the air was full of larks and sunshine, but the cloud had risen +and overshadowed them, and Graeme guessed why Charles had come. There +was something he wanted to discuss with them alone, out of the hearing +of his mother and Lady Elspeth. + +He was not surprised--when they had scrambled down into Port du +Moulin, and had passed through the arch, and were sitting on the rocks +above the first of the sea-gardens,--when Charles said, "There's +something I want to consult you about, and I couldn't do it at the +house, as I want it kept to ourselves. I got this, this morning. Will +you read it?" and he handed Graeme a letter. Graeme opened it and read +it out. + + + "99A HIGH STREET, ALDERNEY. + + "MY DEAR CHARLES,--I will not at the moment attempt any + explanation of the calamity which has befallen our house. If you + knew all, you would not blame me as I fear you must be doing. Let + me say, however, that I have every reason to hope that in course + of time I may be able to redeem the position by making good all + deficiencies and so clearing our name of reproach. To do so, I + must get away--to Spain in the first instance, and for that I + need your assistance. The end came unexpectedly and took me + unawares, and I am almost penniless here. In asking your help, I + do so the more confidently as, in the path I have indicated, lies + the only hope of redemption. In assisting me you will not only be + doing what a prosperous son might reasonably be expected to do + for his father in his day of misfortune, but you will be acting + for the general weal in putting me into a position to make good + what I have all unwittingly become responsible for, and to that + sacred end the remainder of my life shall be most solemnly + dedicated. + + "I came here from Cherbourg, and am for the moment safe from + oversight. As soon as you place me in position to do so, I shall + get away and begin my new life-work, which I am earnestly + desirous of doing at the earliest possible moment. + + "Address me as above--Revd. J. Peace. + + "Your affectionate FATHER." + +Graeme kept the humorous wrinkles about his eyes and mouth in order +with difficulty as he read this very characteristic effusion, but +Margaret was the only one who saw it. Charles had kept his eyes +intently on the pool below, and Miss Penny had been regarding him +sympathetically. + +"What do you make of it?" said Charles. "It makes me sick." + +"He evidently needs your help," said Miss Penny. + +"Yes, but have I the right to give it him? That's the question." + +"He says----" began Graeme. + +"Oh, he says!" growled Charles. "Trouble is, he's been saying for the +last twenty years, and it has all been a lie. This is probably all a +lie too. Not all"--he added grimly. "As I read it, he has got funds +stowed away somewhere and he's anxious to get to them." + +"So that he may make restitution," urged Miss Penny. + +"Yes, that's what he says," said Charles, in a tone that showed no +slightest tincture of conviction. "What would you do," he asked, +looking up at Graeme, "if you were in my place?" + +Graeme filled his pipe thoughtfully. + +"Let us look at it quietly all round," he said, and lit up and puffed +away contemplatively. + +"From what he says,"--checking off his points on his fingers,--"if you +don't assist him, he may be taken, and the--the unpleasantness of the +situation be thereby increased.... I do not see that his punishment +would help anyone--except maybe as a deterrent, and that is +problematical.... I gather from this, as you do, that he has funds +awaiting him somewhere.... You have no great faith in his promises--" + +"None," growled Charles. + +"And I presume, as a business man, you would count a bird in the hand +worth several in the bush--in other words, you would sooner have what +he has stowed away--somewhere, than what he hopes to make some time--" + +"Sight sooner!" + +"Then, I should say, offer him such assistance as he needs to get +away, and, if you can see your way to it, a bit to live on afterwards, +on condition of his placing in your hands everything he has got stowed +away, so that you can pass it on to the receiver." + +Charles shook his head. "I couldn't trust him." + +"Then there's only one thing to do if he agrees, and that is to go +with him and bring the property back with you." + +Charles groaned. "It may mean the Argentine. Spain's no place for +investments these days." + +"It's rough on you, old man, but it's the best I can think of," said +Graeme. + +"And supposing he tells me to go hang?" + +"Then," said Graeme, with a shrug, "I don't see that you can help him. +I have no personal feeling against him whatever, but I cannot see how +you can help him except on some such lines as I've indicated. How does +it strike you, Meg?" + +But Margaret shook her head. "I feel very much as you do. If he is +caught and punished it will only add to Mrs. Pixley's and Charles's +trouble, and benefit nobody. But he is very obstinate. He has +evidently planned out his future. I doubt if he'll turn from it." + +"And you, Hennie?" asked Graeme. + +"I think you should help him if you possibly can. It's horrible to +think of him hiding there and in fear of being caught--" + +"Helping him in any case is against the law--" + +"Blood is thicker than water," said Hennie Penny earnestly. + +"--But if some present benefit was to come to his creditors I should +consider it right to do it, not otherwise." + +"Suppose you go across, and see him, and talk it over with him, Mr. +Pixley?" said Hennie Penny. + +"I suppose that's the only thing to be done," groaned Charles. "How do +you get there?" + +"The _Courier_ would call here by arrangement--up at the Eperquerie," +said Graeme. "She can't come in, of course. It means lying out in a +small boat and waiting for her. What do you say to us all going? In +fact, unless we do, how are we going to explain Charles's going to +Mrs. Pixley?" + +Charles nodded. + +"You could go and see him and we could talk it over again afterwards. +I'm inclined to think that he won't accept, you know." + +"I don't believe he will, and it'll be a bit hard to refuse him any +help, if he really is on his beam ends." + +"He wouldn't have written to you if he could have done without, you +may count upon that." + +"Is he as safe there as he seems to think?" asked Charles. + +"Yes, I think so. Safer probably than in Cherbourg. It's an +out-of-the-way place, from all accounts." + +Discuss it as they would, they could not get beyond Graeme's proposal, +and so at last they went back home, decided on the visit to Alderney +on the morrow, but all feeling doubtful, and some of them distinctly +nervous, as to the outcome of it. + + +IX + +The little party that lay in wait for the Alderney steamer in old Jack +Guille's boat off the Eperquerie, next morning, was eminently lacking +in the vivacity that usually distinguishes such parties when the sea +is smooth and the sky is blue. In fact, when they got on board, the +Captain decided in his own mind that they must all have quarrelled +before starting. There was no sign of anything of the kind about them +now, it is true, but that might just be their good manners. For +English people are not like the Sark and Guernsey folk, who, when they +do quarrel, let all the world know about it. + +These four had apparently little to say to one another and less to +anyone else. If they had been going to a funeral they could hardly +have been more reserved. + +And to something very like a funeral they were going, with the added +anxiety of very grave doubts as to the result of their visit. + +They had had no difficulty in persuading the elder ladies that +Alderney was not for them. The steep path down to the Eperquerie +landing, and the tumbling about in a small boat until the steamer +came, did not greatly appeal to them. Moreover, Lady Elspeth's clear +eyes had noticed the signs of their clouding, in spite of their +efforts after naturalness, for to experienced eyes there is nothing so +unnatural as the attempt to be natural. If Mrs. Pixley noticed nothing +it was probably because her faculties had not yet fully recovered from +the shock to which they had been subjected. If she noticed she said +nothing, having no desire, perhaps, to add to the weight of her +already heavy burden. + +"Now, my boy, what is it?" Lady Elspeth asked, when she had persuaded +Graeme to take her for a stroll in the evening, under plea of cramp +through overmuch sitting. + +"Jeremiah Pixley is in Alderney and has written to Charles begging his +help to get on his way." + +"Ah! And what are you going to do about it?". + +Graeme outlined their ideas on the matter. + +"He's an old rascal," said Lady Elspeth softly. "I doubt very much if +you'll get anything out of him." + +"Can you suggest any better way of dealing with the matter?" + +"I don't know that I can at the moment, but I doubt if you'll get any +satisfaction out of him. He'll stick to all he can, and his promise of +restitution is all bunkum, I should fear." + +"And would you help him to get away in any case?" + +"Personally, I think a course of penal servitude would be of the +greatest service to him. But, for Charles's sake and his mother's, the +sooner the whole matter is buried the better, and so I should be sorry +to hear of him being taken. It would only revive the scandal." + +"That's just what we all feel;" and he saw that the problem of +Jeremiah Pixley was too much even for Lady Elspeth. + +And so the party of four on the _Courier_ lacked vivacity, and found +no enjoyment in the lonely austerity of the Casquets or Ortach; and +the frowning southern cliffs of Alderney itself, as the steamer raced +up the Swinge to Braye Harbour, seemed to them but a poor copy of +their own little isle of Sark, lacking its gem-like qualities. But +then their minds were intent upon the business ahead and their outlook +was darkened. + + +X + +"Would you like me to come up with you, Charles?" Graeme asked, as the +steamer rounded the breakwater. + +"Yes, I'd like it," said Charles gloomily. "But I think I'd better go +alone. I don't believe anything's going to come of it." + +"I'm afraid not--as far as we're concerned. You'll just have to keep a +stiff upper lip and stick to what you believe the right thing to do." +To which Charles replied only with a grim nod, and they went ashore. + +"We'll walk up to the town with you," said Graeme, when they got +outside the harbour precincts. "When you've got as far as you can with +him, come down to the shore due West. You'll find us by that old fort +we saw from the boat;" and presently they branched off towards the +sea, while Charles went doggedly on into St. Anne on as miserable an +errand as ever son had. + +He tramped on along the hot white road, till he found himself in the +sleepy little town, where the grass grew between the granite sets in +the roadways and a dreamy listlessness pervaded all things. He sought +out No. 99A High Street and knocked on the door. + +It was opened by an elderly woman who seemed surprised at sight of a +visitor. + +"Mr. Peace?" asked Charles, feeling thereby _particeps criminis_. + +"He's inside. Will you come in?" + +She opened a door off the passage, said, "A gentleman to see you;" and +Charles went in and closed the door behind him. + +His father had started up from a couch where he had been lying. There +was a startled look in his eyes and his face was pale and worn, but a +touch of colour came back into his cheeks when he saw who his visitor +was. + +He had shaved off his bit of side whisker. His face was grayer and +thinner and his body somewhat shrunken, even in these few days. He +wore a white tie, and his coat and waistcoat were of clerical cut. On +the table was a pair of gold spectacles and on the sideboard a soft +billycock hat. He looked the not-too-well-off country parson to the +life. The only outward and visible sign of the old Jeremiah was the +heavy gold pince-nez which lay between the top buttons of his +waistcoat, which he hauled out and fingered as of old the moment he +began to speak. + +"Ah, Charles! This is good of you. I hardly expected a personal visit. +I was beginning to fear you had not got my letter, or that you had +decided not to answer it." + +"It followed me to Sark." + +"Ah! you are back in Sark?" + +"I thought it well to take my mother there, to be out of things for a +time." + +"Quite so, quite so! That was very thoughtful of you. This is a +terrible calamity that has befallen us. But, as I said in my letter, I +have every hope of being able to redeem matters if I can only get to +where that is possible." + +"Where's that?" + +"Well, in the first place to Spain--" + +"And afterwards?" + +Mr. Pixley hesitated. "Perhaps--for your own sake--it would be as well +you should not know--for the present, at all events. You may be asked +questions. If you don't know, you can truthfully say so." + +"I gather that you have funds put away somewhere." + +"If I can get to where I want to go, I can at all events make a fresh +start. And I am prepared to devote the rest of my life to the one +object I have named.... The last few years have been very wearying. I +have had trouble with my heart at times;" and he put his hand to his +side to emphasise it. "But if I can get quietly away I shall soon pull +round and be ready for work again, now that the strain is over." + +"You know you're asking me to do what I've no right to do?" said +Charles gloomily. + +"I know, my boy, and it is very bitter for me to have to ask it. But I +can't get away without your help, and the alternative is not pleasant +to think of--for either of us.... I do not ask more than I would +willingly have done for you if the positions were reversed.... On the +whole, I do not think I have been a bad father to you. Circumstances, +indeed, have been too strong for me at the end, but--" + +"I am willing to do what you want--and more, on one condition." + +"What is that? Anything in reason--" + +"I will provide you with funds to get away, and I will send you three +hundred pounds each year--" + +"Good lad!" + +"On condition that you hand over to me all the property you've got +stowed away--" + +"Damn!" + +"So that I may hand it over to your creditors." + +"Why not write at once to Scotland Yard and tell them where I am? But, +after all, I'm not sure that even your world would applaud so filial +an act as that." + +"I'm prepared to make sacrifices myself to help right some of this +wrong--" + +"I had to make many for you, my boy, before you were old enough to +understand it--before my own position was assured. Ay, and since too. +I would have flung it all up years ago but for you. I wanted you to be +set firmly on your feet before the crash came. It has been killing +work. I'm glad it's over--whatever the end may be. If you can't see +your way to help me, the end is obvious and close at hand. I have, I +think, something under two pounds in my pocket. If I'd waited to get +more I should not be here. The end came unexpectedly. Old Coxley +called for some securities which I had--which I couldn't give him at +the moment, and I had to go at once or not at all." + +Charles stood up. He would have liked to tell him all he felt about +the matter. How the tampering with securities hit him more hardly than +almost anything could have done, since straight dealing in such +matters is the very first of Stock Exchange tenets. How, if he had +come to him, he would have strained himself to the utmost to set +things right. + +But, facile talker as he was on matters that were of no account, he +found himself strangely tongue-tied here. + +"Well?" he asked. "Will you let me help you?" + +"As you will, my boy ... If you do, it offers me a chance--my only +chance. If you don't----" he shrugged his heavy shoulders meaningly. + +"Do what I ask," urged Charles. "It is the only possible amends you +can make." + +Mr. Pixley shook his head. "It is out of the question. I could do +nothing with three hundred a year----" + +"You could live quietly on that in many places." + +"I don't want simply to live. I want to work and redeem myself." + +"You have worked hard enough and long enough," said Charles; and he +might have added, as was in his mind, "And it has all ended in this." + +"I would like to help you," he said, as he moved slowly towards the +door, striving hard to keep the stiff upper lip Graeme had enjoined on +him. "But I don't think you should expect me to do what I know to be +wrong. I'll do what I said----" + +Mr. Pixley shook his head. His face was gray, his lips pinched in. +Charles went out and closed the door behind him. + +But he could not leave him so. He had known from the first that he +would have to help him, right or wrong. + +He opened the door again quietly and went in. His father was sitting +at the table with his head in his hands. Charles laid down the money +he had, with Graeme's assistance, prepared, laid his hand on his +shoulder for a moment, and went quietly out again, and out of the +house. + +It was a miserable business altogether. He never forgot that last +sight of him sitting at the mean little table in the mean little room +with his head in his hands. + + +XI + +Charles went soberly down the green slopes towards the sea, and +presently discovered the dismantled fort they had seen from the +steamer as they ran up the Swinge that morning. And sitting on the +broken wall of a gun platform was a figure which he knew by the dress +to be Miss Penny. + +She had evidently been on the look-out for him. She stood up and waved +her hand, and he waved his in reply, and plunged down the slope. His +heart was sore at what had just passed. It turned gratefully to one +whom he knew to be full of sympathy for him. + +When he reached the foot of the hill, they were crossing the causeway +which led from the fort to the shore. + +"Well, old man, you've got through with it?" said Graeme; and all +their faces showed the anxiety that was in them to know how he had +prospered. + +He nodded. "Let's go back and sit there for a few minutes. I feel +like a whipped dog;" and they all went back to the fort, which, in its +dismantlement and ruin, whispered soothingly of the rest and peace +that sometimes lie beyond broken hopes and strenuous times. + +"Well, how did you find him?" asked Graeme, as they seated themselves +on the broken wall again, with the fair blue plain of the sea dimpling +and dancing in front. + +"Very broken, but as obstinate as ever," said Charles gloomily. +"Wouldn't listen to my proposal, says he's set on redeeming himself, +and so on. I offered him all I could, but it was no use. So I left +him--" + +"You never did--" began Miss Penny, with a pained look on her face. + +"I did. But I couldn't leave it so. I went back, and he was sitting +with his head in his hands.... I just gave him all I had brought and +came away.... I know it was all wrong--" + +"It wasn't. You did quite right," said Miss Penny vehemently. + +"I don't suppose any of us would have done differently when it came to +the point. I don't really see what else you could have done," said +Graeme. + +"He reminded me of all he had done for me when I was a boy, and so on, +and told me that if I didn't help him there was no hope for him. I did +my best--" + +"You have done quite right, Charles," said Margaret. "I do hope he +will get away all right." + +As he gave them the details of his interview, their quiet sympathy +restored him by degrees to himself. The bruised, whipped soreness wore +off, to some extent at all events, and there remained chiefly a +feeling of thankfulness that the matter was over, and that, in doing +the only thing possible to him, if he offended against the law, he had +still done what commended itself to his own heart and to those whose +good opinion he chiefly valued. + +If there were no signs of merriment about them as they wandered +quietly about the strand, if they still bore something of the aspect +of a funeral party, it was at all events the aspect of a party after +the funeral. Their corpse was laid, so far as they were concerned, and +their thoughts and hearts were more at liberty to turn to other +matters. + +They have none of them ever cared greatly for Alderney, and they +always speak of it as a remote, unfriendly, melancholy, and slow +little place, lacking the gem-like beauty and joyous vitality of Sark. +But then one's outlook is always coloured by one's inlook, and an +overcast mind sees all things shadowed. + +They lunched at the Scott Hotel, in the garden, and felt better than +they had done for two days when their feet once more trod the deck of +the _Courier_. + +The southern cliffs were filmy blue in the distance, Ortach and the +Casquets were dim against the horizon, and Charles and Miss Penny +stood together in the stern looking back over the long straight track +of the boat, and thinking both of the lonely one in the mean little +house in St. Anne. Margaret and Graeme had stood watching for a time, +and had then stolen away forward. Their outlook was ahead, where Sark +was rising boldly out of the blue waters. + +"I doubt if we'll ever hear anything more of him," said Charles, with +a sigh at thought of it all. + +"You will always remember that you have done your duty by him. You +could not have done more." + +"You have been very kind to me all through, very kind, all of you. And +you especially.... Hennie--will you marry me?" + +And she looked up at him with a happy face, and said quietly, "Yes, I +will. I believe we can make one another very happy." + +"I'm sure we can. Come along and tell the others;" and they also +turned from the past and went forward. + + + + +WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR. + + + +Hearts in Exile._ + +With Photogravure Frontispiece by HAROLD COPPING. THIRD EDITION. Crown +8vo, cloth, 6s. + +"Exceptionally powerful, vivid, and realistic.... Sketched with a +generous hand and bold touches, the characters hold trie reader's +sympathies throughout. The most graphic, vigorous, and lifelike +presentment of Russian administrative barbarity which we recollect to +have ever come across."--_Daily Telegraph_. + + + +A Princess of Vascovy. + +Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. + +"Mr. Oxenham tells a good exciting story with great swing and zest. It +seems almost unnecessary to recommend a story that is in every way +worthy of the pen that produced 'Barbe of Grand Bayou.' 'A Princess of +Vascovy' is just as picturesquely romantic and just as full of +incident and adventure as Mr. Oxenham's most famous +work."--_Athenaum_. + + + +White Fire. + +Red cloth, 2s. net; red leather, 2s. 6d. net. + +"'White Fire' combines religion and adventure; but the date is modern, +and the admirable missionary and his undaunted wife and comrades +protect their converts in the South Seas from kidnappers and other +pests with the aid of Maxims and Winchester rifles. Mr. John Oxenham +has already proved his descriptive and analytic powers, and these +strong-hearted champions of morality are not less original than their +surroundings are romantic. A tidal wave is among the trials of the +hero's constancy. The illustrations by Mr. Grenville Manton are +good."--_Athenaum_. + + + +Barbe of Grand Bayou. + +Red cloth, 2s. net; red leather, 2s. 6d. net. + +"There is a fascination about Mr. John Oxenham's books which grows +upon one. Barbe is a clean-cut, fine drawn character, human, alive, +womanly, real. Her history is so simply related, with such convincing +straightforwardness that one is bound to admit it could not have +happened otherwise. It had to be. The tribulations of the pair of +lovers are delightfully set forth with the art of the true story +teller. Quite one of the best books of the winter season; worth buying +and reading; not merely ordering from the library."--_Academy_. + + + +Giant Circumstance. + +Illustrated by CHARLES HORRELL. + +THIRD EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. + +"A hearty and manly book, written in telling style of which Mr. +Oxenham has proved himself a master."--_Times_. + +"Told in Mr. Oxenham's usual spirited and vivid style. Those who +relish a good story well told will welcome 'Giant Circumstance,' and +will set it on a level with the best of Mr. Oxenham's +books."--_British Weekly._ + +"A good story--should prove popular."--_Athenæum_. + +"Bright, healthy, and interesting, will strengthen his position in the +regard of readers who like a good story of the doings of wholesome +unexaggerated characters."--_Daily Telegraph_. + + + +Rising Fortunes. + +Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. + + + +Carette of Sark. + +Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. + +"All who either know the Channel Islands or love a full-blooded, +exciting story, should speedily make the acquaintance of +Carette."--_Pall Mall Gazette_. + +"No one who likes tales of adventure--and who does not--could wish for +a better tale than this. It is of Sark, in the beginning of last +century, when its people were peaceable and law-abiding, save on the +question of 'free trade' and when privateering was a legitimate +business; so naturally adventurers were more easily come by than in +conventional days like these. The youth who tells the tale, one Philip +Carré by name, comes by them all too easily for his liking. He is +scarcely out of one peril before he is into another, and quite +split-hairbreadth are his escapes from the Terrible Torode of Herm. +And it is all on account of Carette, charming Carette, the pride of +the island, and worth many dangers to win."--_Daily Chronicle_. + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Pearl of Pearl Island, by John Oxenham + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PEARL OF PEARL ISLAND *** + +***** This file should be named 15259-8.txt or 15259-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/5/2/5/15259/ + +Produced by Steven Gibbs and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team. + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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