Part 2 (2/2)
Then Tom went off to sea, and life, for those at home, became a joy without a flaw--except the thought that he would sometime come back--unless he got drowned.
When he returned he was past the boyish bullying and teasing stage, and his stunts and twists developed themselves along other lines. Moreover, sailor-fas.h.i.+on, he wore a knife in a sheath at the back of his belt.
He found Nance a tall slim girl of sixteen, her childish prettiness just beginning to fas.h.i.+on itself into the strength and comeliness of form and feature which distinguished her later on.
He swore, with strange oaths, that she was the prettiest bit of goods he'd set eyes on since he left home, and he'd seen a many. And he wondered to himself if this could really be the Nance he used to hate and persecute.
But Nance detested him and all his ways as of old.
CHAPTER III
HOW THE NEW MINE CAPTAIN CAME
Tom Hamon and Peter Mauger seated themselves on a rock within a few feet of the narrow slit out of which Nance and Bernel had been looking.
”Ouaie,” said Tom, taking up his parable--”wanted me to join him in getting a loan on farm, he did.”
”Aw, now!”
”Ouaie--a loan on farm, and me to join him, 'cause he couldn' do it without. 'And why?' I asked him.”
”Ah!”
”An' he told me he was goin' to make a fortune out them silver mines.”
”Aw!”
”Ouaie! He'd put in every pound he had and every s.h.i.+lling he earned. An'
the more he could put in the more he would get out.”
”Aw!”
”'But,' I said, 'suppos'n it all goes into them big holes and never comes out--'”
”Aw!”
”But he's just crazy 'bout them mines. Says there's silver an' lead, and guyabble-knows-what-all in 'em, and when they get it out he'll be a rich man.”
”Aw!” said Peter, nodding his head portentously, as one who had gauged the futility of earthly riches.
He was a young man of large possessions but very few words. When he did allow his thoughts out they came slowly and in jerks, with lapses at times which the hearer had to fill in as best he could.
His father had been an enterprising free-trader, and had made money before the family farm came to him on the death of his father. He had married another farm and the heiress attached to it, and Peter was the result. An only son, both parents dead, two farms and a good round sum in the Guernsey Bank, such were Peter's circ.u.mstances.
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