A Maid of the Silver Sea Part 13

She had sentiments also regarding the rabbits Bernel shot on the cliffs, but being wild, and she herself having had no hand in their upbringing and not having known them intimately, she accepted them as natural provision, though not without compunctions at times concerning possible families of orphans left totally unprovided for.

When she did permit herself a few hours off duty she did it with a whole-hearted enjoyment--approaching the nave abandon of childhood--which, to Gard's sober restraint, when he was graciously permitted to witness it, was wholly charming.

By degrees, and especially after her father's tragic death, Nance's feelings towards the stranger had perceptibly changed.

He might be an alien, an Englishman; but he was at all events a Cornishman, and she had heard say that the men of Cornwall and of the Islands and of the Bretagne had much in common, just as their rugged coasts had. And England, after all, was allied to the Islands, belonged to them in fact, and was indeed quite as essential a part of the Queen's dominions as the Islands themselves, and to harbour unfriendly feeling towards your own relations--unless indeed, as in the case of Tom, they had given you ample cause--would be surely the mark of a small and narrow mind.

And he might be a miner; and mines, and most miners, were naturally hateful to her. But he had been a sailor, and was miner only by accident as it were, and she knew that he loved the sea. Allowance, she supposed, must be made for men getting twists in their brains--like her father. He had gone crazy over these mines though he had been sensible enough in other matters.

What her careful, surrept.i.tious observation of him, from the depths and round the wings of her sun-bonnet, told her was that he was an upright man, and true, and bold, with a spirit which he kept well in hand but which could blaze like lightning on occasion, and a strength which he could turn to excellent purpose when the need arose.

And--and--she admitted it shyly to herself and not without wonder, and found herself dwelling upon it as she sang softly to the ping-pang of the milk into the pail, or the swoosh of it in the churn--he thought of her, Nance Hamon--perhaps he even admired her a little--any way he was certainly interested in her, and in his shy reserved way he showed a desire for her company which she no longer found pleasure in defeating as she had done at first.

Undoubtedly an odd feeling, this, of being cared for by an outside man--- but withal tending to increase of self-esteem and therefore not unpleasing.

Peter Mauger, indeed--but then she had never looked upon Peter as anything but Peter, and the shadow of Tom had always obscured him to her. Stephen Gard was a man, and a different kind of a man from Peter altogether.

She remembered, with a slight reddening still of the warm brown cheeks whenever she thought of it--how, on the previous Sunday afternoon, she and Bernel had gone running over the downs through the waist-high bracken towards Breniere, the tide in their favourite pool below the rocks being too high for bathing. And on the slope above the Cromlech they had come suddenly on Gard, lying there looking out over the sea towards L'Etat.

He had jumped up at sight of them and stood hesitating a moment.

"Going for a bathe?" he asked, knowing the usual course of their proceedings.

"Yes, we were," said Bernel. "You going?" with a glance at the towel Gard had brought out on the chance of a dip.

"I'd thought of it, but your tides and currents here are so troublesome--"

"Oh, we know all about 'em. They're all right when you know."

"I suppose so, but--" with a look at Nance, "I'll clear out."

"You're not coming?"

"Your sister wouldn't like it."

"Nance?" with a look of surprise. "She won't mind. Will you, Nance?"

Then it was her turn to hesitate, for bathing with Bernel was one thing, and with Mr. Gard quite another.

"You'll show me another time, Bernel," said Gard, picking up his towel.

"I wouldn't like to spoil your fun now."

"But you wouldn't. Would he, Nance?"

"I don't mind--if you'll give me the cave."

"All the caves you want," said Bernel, scornful at such unusual stickling on the part of his chum.

"Quite sure you don't mind?" asked Gard, doubtful still.

"If I have the cave. It's generally the one who gets there first, and Bern goes quicker than I do."

"Of course. You're only a girl," laughed Bernel, as he raced on down the slope.

And Nance laughed too at his brotherly depreciation, and Gard, who had never regarded her as only a girl, and whose thoughts of her were very absorbing and uplifting, happening to catch her eye, laughed also, and so they went down towards the sea in pleasant enough humour and the nearest approach to good-fellowship they had yet attained.

Nance disappeared round a corner, and the next he saw of her she was swimming boldly out towards Breniere point, and in a moment he and Bernel were after her.

"Don't go past the point," jerked Bernel.

"She's gone."

"She's a fish and knows her way," and just then they ploughed into what at first looked to Gard like a perfectly smooth spot amid the troubled waters, and then he was lifted from below and flung awry and out of his stroke, and tossed and tumbled till he felt as helpless as a dead fish.

Then a fresh coil of the bubbling tide whirled him to one side and he was out again in the safety of the dancing waves.

"You see?" cried Bernel. "That's what it's like," and shot into it headlong.

And Gard, treading water quietly at a safe distance, saw how, every here and there, great crowns of water came surging up from below, with such lunging force that they rose in some cases almost a foot above the neighbouring level of the sea, and he wondered how any swimmer could make way through them. And yet Nance had cleft them like a seal, and he could hardly make out her brown head bobbing among the distant waves.

"Is it safe for her?" he cried after Bernel, but the boy's only reply was a scornful wave of the arm as he pressed on to join her.

Gard had an ample swim, and was dressed and sitting on a rock, when they came leisurely in, and it seemed to him that never in his life had he seen anything half so pretty as those shining coils of chestnut hair with the sea-drops sparkling in them, and the bright energetic face below, browned with sun and wind, rosy-brown now with her long swim, and beaded like her hair with pearly drops.

As she swept along below, she gave just one quick up-glance, and then, with completest ignorance of his presence, turned her head to Bernel and chattered away to him with most determined nonchalance.

She and Bernel used the long effective side-stroke almost entirely, and the little arm that flashed in and out so tirelessly was as white as the garment that fluttered in wavy convolutions about the lithe little body below.

Gard, as he watched her, felt like a discoverer of hidden treasure, overwhelmed and intoxicated with the wonder of unexpected riches. He had come to this wild little land of Sark after silver, and he said to himself that he had found a pearl beyond price.

In a minute or two they were scrambling up the slope and flung themselves down beside him for a rest, feeling the strain of unusual exertion now that the brace and tonic of the water was off them.

"You are bold swimmers," said Gard.

"She's a fish in the water," said Bernel, "and she made me swim almost as soon as I could walk."

"You see," said Nance, in her decisive little way, "many of our Sark men won't learn to swim. They think it's mistrusting G.o.d. But that seems to me foolish. Every man who goes down to the sea ought to be able to swim--besides, it's terribly nice."

"Yes, surely, Sark men ought to be able to swim, and they have certainly no lack of opportunity. But it's a dangerous coast for those who don't know it. Look at that now," and he nodded to the foaming race in front of them, between Breniere and a gaunt rocky peak which rose like a mountain-top out of the lonely sea. "Why, it must be running five or six miles an hour."

From where they sat the sea seemed perfectly calm, a level plain of deepest blue, with pale green streaks under the rocks and dark purple patches further out, its surface just furrowed with tiny wind-ripples, and underneath, a long slow heave like the breathings of the spirit of the deep. But, smooth as the blue plain seemed, wave met rock with roar and turmoil, and between that outlying peak and the sh.o.r.e the waters tore and foamed with wild white crests--tumbling green ridges that were never two seconds the same. While all along the great black base of the peak the white waves rushed like mighty rockets, flinging long white arms up its ragged sides and crashing together at the end in dazzling bursts of foam.

"Wonderful!" said Gard. "I've lain here for hours watching it."

"I've swum it," said Nance quietly.

"So've I," said Bernel.

"Never! You two? I wonder you came back alive!"