A Maid of the Silver Sea Part 18

"If I catch him up to any of his tricks I'll break his head for him."

"Maybe it would be a good thing for little Nance if you did."

"Knew he was a toad as soon as I set eyes on him, so did Peter. Didn't you, Peter?"

Peter nodded.

"What d'he say to you?" demanded Tom.

"Didn't say much. Asked if you were much away at the fishing and that.

But the way he looked at me!--I've got the shivers down my back yet,"

and a virtuous little shudder shook her and made a visible impression on Peter.

"Peter and me'll maybe have a word with him one of these days, won't we, Peter?"

"Maybe," said Peter.

"We don't want toads like Gard running off with any of our Sark girls, do we, Peter?"

"No," said Peter.

"Mr. Gard had better look out for himself or take himself off before somebody does it for him. There's plenty wouldn't mind giving him a crack on the head and slipping him over the Coupee some dark night."

As to such extreme measures Peter offered no opinion. He looked vaguely round the big kitchen as though in search of something that used to be there, and said--

"How about supper?"

CHAPTER XIV

HOW THEY WENT THROUGH THE DARKNESS OF THE NARROW WAY

One dark night Gard sauntered down the cutting towards the Coupee, enjoying a last pipe before turning in.

This had become something of a habit with him. The people of Plaisance, hard at work all day in the fields, went early to bed and left him to follow when he pleased. And to stand securely in that deep cleft, just where the protecting walls broke off short and left the narrow path to waver on into the darkness, was always fascinating to him.

When the moon flooded the gulf on the left with shimmering silver, and the waves broke along the black rocks below in crisp white foam like silver frost, he would stand by the hour there and never tire of it.

The moon cast such a mystic glamour over those great voids of darkness and over the headlands, melting softly away, fold behind fold, on the right, while Little Sark became a mystery land into which the white path rambled enticingly and invited one to follow.

And to him, as his eyes followed it till it disappeared over the crown of the ridge, it was more than a mystery land--a land of promise, rich in La Closerie and Nance.

Always within him, as he watched, was the feeling that if the sweet slim figure should come tripping down the moonlit path towards him, he would be in no way astonished. When he stood there, watching, it seemed to him that it would be entirely fitting for her to come so, in the calm soft light that was as pure and sweet as herself.

And at times his eye would light on the grim black pile of L'Etat, lying out there in the silvery shimmer like some great monumental cairn, a rough and rugged heap of loneliness and mystery--the grimmer and lonelier by reason of the twinkling brightness of its setting. And then his thoughts would play about the lonely pile, and come back with a sense of homely relief to the fairy path which Nance's little feet had trod, in light and dark, and storm and shine, since ever she could walk.

He pictured her as a tiny girl running fearlessly across the grim pathway to school, dancing in the sunshine, bending to the storm, and all alone when she had been kept in--he wondered with a smile what she had been kept in for.

He thought of her, as he had seen her, walking to church, her usually blithe spirit tuned to sedateness by the very fact, and, to him, delightfully stiffened by the further fact that she, almost alone among her friends and school-fellows, wore Island costume, while all the rest flaunted it in all the colours of the rainbow. And he laughed happily to himself, for very joy, at thought of the sweet elusive face in the shadow of the great sun-bonnet. There was not a face in all Sark to compare with it, nor, for him, in all the world.

But this night, as be stood there pulling slowly at his pipe and thinking of Nance, was one of the black nights.

Later on there would be a remnant of a moon, but as yet the sky above was an ebon vault without a star, and the gulfs at his feet were pits of darkness out of which rose the voices of the sea in solemn rhythmic cadence.

Down in Grande Greve, on his right, the waves rolled in almost without a sound, as though they feared to disturb the darkness. From the intervening moments he could tell how slowly they crept to their curve.

Their fall was a soft sibilation, a long-drawn sigh. The ever-restless sea for once seemed falling to sleep.

And then, as he listened into the darkness, a tiny elfish glimmer flickered in the void below, flickered and was gone, and he rubbed his eyes for playing him tricks. But the next wave broke slowly round the wide curve of the bay in a crescent of lambent flame, and a flood of soft, blue-green fire ran swelling up the beach and then with a sigh drew slowly back, and all was dark again. Again and again--each wave was a miracle of mystic beauty, and he stood there entranced long after his pipe had gone dead.

And as he stood gazing down at the wonder of it, his ear caught the sound of quick light footsteps coming towards him across the Coupee, and he marvelled at the intrepidity of this late traveller. If he had had to go across there that night, he would have gone step by step, with caution and a lantern; whereas here was no hesitation, but haste and a.s.surance.

It was only when she had pa.s.sed the last bastion, and was almost upon him, that he made out that it was a girl.

His heart gave a jump. She had been so much in his thought. Yet, even so, it was almost at a venture that he said--

"Nance?"

And yet, again, he had learned to recognize her footsteps at the farm, and where the heart is given the senses are subtly acute, and she had slackened her pace somewhat as she drew near.

"Yes; I am going to the doctor."

"Why--who--?"

"Grannie is ill--in pain. He will give me something to ease her." He had turned and was walking by her side.

"I am sorry. You will let me go with you?"

"There is no need at all--"

"No need, I know; but all the same it would be a pleasure to me to see you safely there and back."

She hurried on without speaking. If there had been any light, and he had dared to peep inside the black sun-bonnet, he might perhaps have found the hint of a smile overlaying her anxiety on Grannie's account.

By the ampler feel of things, and the easing of the slope, he knew they were out of the cutting, and presently they were pa.s.sing Plaisance.

"If you would sooner I did not walk with you, I will fall behind; but I couldn't stop here and think of you going on alone," he said.

"That would be foolishness," she said gently. "But there is really no need. I have no fears of ghosts or anything like that."

"There might be other kinds of spirits about," he said quietly. "And when men drink as some of my fellows do, they are no respecters of persons. But this is surely very sudden. Your grandmother seemed all right at dinner-time."

"She had bad pains in the afternoon, and they have been getting worse.

She did not want to have the doctor, but the things she took did her no good, and mother said I had better go and ask him for something more."

"And where is Bernel?"