A Maid of the Silver Sea Part 20

HOW TWO FELL OUT

It was but a thin strip of a moon that had risen above the evening mists--a mere sickle of red gold--but such as it was it sufficed to lift the pall of darkness from the earth and set the black sky back into its proper place.

To Gard the night had suddenly become s.p.a.cious and ample, and the peaceful slip of a moon, which grew paler and brighter every minute, was full of promise.

He was so full of Nance that he had almost forgotten Tom and his scurrilous insolences.

He crossed the Coupee without any difficulty, enjoyed over again the recollection of that last crossing, and stood in the cutting on the Sark side for a moment to marvel at the change an hour had made in his outlook on things in general.

Tom? Why, he could almost forgive Tom, for it was he who had helped to bring matters to a head--unconsciously, indeed, and probably quite against his wish. Still, he had been the instrument--the drop of acid in the solution which had crystallized their love into set form and made it visible, and fixed it for life.

Truly, he was half inclined to consider himself under obligation to Tom--if only his boorishness could be kept in check for the future. For, of a certainty, he was not going to allow Nance to be made miserable by his loutish insolences.

He had climbed the cutting and was on the level, when he heard heavy footsteps coming towards him, and the next moment he was face to face with the object of his thoughts.

Possibly Tom had expected to meet him and had been preparing for the fray, for he opened at once with a volley of patois which to Gard was so much blank cartridge.

"Oh--ho, le velas--corrupteur! Amuseur! Seducteur! Ou quais noutre fille? Quais qu'on avait fait d'elle d'on?"

"Quite finished?" asked Gard quietly, as the other came to a stop for want of breath. "Say it all over again in English, and I'll know what you're talking about."

"English be----!" he broke out afresh, in a turgid mixture of tongues.

"Seducteur, amuseur! Where's our Nance? Gaderabotin, what have you done with the girl? I know you, corrupteur! Running after men's wives--and our Nance, too! See then--you touch la garche and I'll--"

"See here! We've had enough of this," said Gard, gripping him by the shoulders and shaking him. "If you weren't drunk I'd thrash you within an inch of your life, you brute. Come back when you're sober, and I'll give you a lesson in manners."

Tom had been struggling to get his arms up. At last he wrenched himself free and came on like a bull. One of his flailing fists caught Gard across the face, flattening his nose and filling one eye with stars; the other hand, trying to grip his opponent, ripped open his coat, tearing away both b.u.t.ton and cloth.

"You lout!" cried Gard, his blood up and dripping also from his nose.

"If you must have it, you shall;" and he squared up to him to administer righteous punishment.

And then the futility of it came upon him. The man was three-parts drunk, in no condition for a fight, scarce able to attempt even to defend himself.

No punishment of Tom drunk would have the slightest moral effect on Tom sober. He would remember nothing about it in the morning, except that he had been knocked about.

When he received his next lesson in deportment it was Gard's earnest desire and hope that it might prove a lasting and final one.

So he decided to postpone it, and contented himself with warding and dodging his furious lunges and rushes, and gave him no blow in return.

Until, at last, after one or two heavy falls of his own occasioning, Tom gave it up, spluttered a final commination on his opponent, and turned to go home.

He went blunderingly down into the hollow way, and Gard stood watching him in doubt.

It seemed hardly possible he could cross the Coupee in that state, and he felt a sort of moral responsibility towards him. Much as he detested him, he had no wish to see him go reeling over into Coupee bay.

So he set off after him to see him safely across, and Tom, hearing him coming, groped in the crumbling side wall till he found a rock of size, and sent it hurling up the path with another curse.

Then he blundered on, and Gard followed. And Tom stopped again by one of the pinnacles and sought another rock, and flung it, and it dropped slowly from point to point till it landed on the shingle three hundred feet below.

He stood there in the dim light, cursing volubly in patois and shaking his fist at Gard; but at last, to Gard's great relief, he humped his back and stumbled away up the cutting on the further side.

And Gard, very sick of it all, and with an aching head and a very tender nose, but withal with a warm glow at the heart which no aches or pains could damp down, turned and went home to bed.

CHAPTER XVI

HOW ONE FELL OVER

Gard's first waking thoughts next morning were of Nance entirely.

He would see her at dinner-time. How would he find her? Last night the disturbance of her feelings had shaken her out of herself somewhat, and shown her to him in new and delightful lights.

If, this morning, she should be to some extent withdrawn again into her natural modest sh.e.l.l, he would not be surprised; and he made up his mind, then and there, to be in no wise disappointed. Last night was a fact, a delightful fact, on which to build the rosy future.

It was a long time to wait till dinner-time to see her. What if he went round that way, before going to work, just to inquire if Tom got home all right.

And then the feeling of discomfort in his eye and nose, as though the one had shrunk to the size of a pin-point and the other had grown to the bulk of a turnip--brought back the whole matter, and on further consideration he decided not to go to the farm till the proper time. If he came across Tom, the fray would inevitably be resumed at once, and his right eye, at the moment, showed a decided disinclination to open to its usual extent, or to perform any of the functions properly demanded of a right eye contemplating battle.

He must get up at once and bathe it and bring it to reason.

Raw beef, he believed, was the correct treatment under the circ.u.mstances. But raw beef was almost as obtainable as raw moon, and even raw mutton he did not know where he could procure, nor whether it would answer the purpose.

So he bathed his bruises with much water, and reduced their excesses to some extent, but not enough to escape the eye of his hostess when he appeared at breakfast.

"Bin fighting?" she queried dispa.s.sionately.

"A one-sided fight. Tom Hamon was drunk last night and hit me in the face, but he was not in a condition to fight or I'd have taught him better manners."

"He's a rough piece," with a disparaging shake of the head. "It'd take a lot to knock him into shape. Try this," and she delved among her stores, and found him an ointment of her own compounding which took some of the soreness out of his bruises.

But black eyes and swollen noses are impertinently obtrusive and disdainful of disguise, and the captain's battle-flags provoked no little jocosity among his men that morning.

"Run up against su'then, cap'n?" asked John Hamon the engineer, who was one of the few who sided with him.

"Yes, against a drunken fist in the dark. When it's sober I'm going to give it a lesson in manners."

"Drunken fisses is hard to teach. You'll have your hands full, cap'n."

It seemed an unusually long morning, but dinner-time came at last and he hastened across to the farm, eager for the first sight of the sweet shy face hiding in the big sun-bonnet.

Quite contrary to his expectations Nance came hurrying to meet him. She had evidently been on the watch for him. Still more to his surprise, her face, instead of that look of shy reserve which he had been prepared for, was full of anxious questioning. The large dark eyes were full of something he had never seen in them before.

"Why--Nance--dear! What is the matter?" he asked quickly.

"Did you meet Tom again last night? Oh," at nearer sight of his bruised face, "you did, you did!"