Part 12 (1/2)

CHAPTER X

HOW YOUNG TOM FOUND HIS MATCH

The news spread quickly.

Tom Hamon heard it as he sat brooding over his wrongs and cursing the chicken-heartedness and fear of consequences which had robbed him of his revenge.

He started up with an incredulous curse and tore across the Coupee to the mines to make sure.

But there was no doubt about it. Old Tom was dead: the six weeks were still two days short of their fulfilment; the property was his; his day had come.

He walked straight to La Closerie, and stalked grimly into the kitchen, where, as it happened, they were sitting over a doleful and long-delayed meal.

Mrs. Hamon had been too overwhelmed by the unexpected blow to consider all its bearings. Grannie, looking beyond, had foreseen consequences and trouble with Tom, and had sent for Stephen Gard and given him some elementary instruction relative to the laws of succession in Sark.

Tom stalked in upon them with malevolent triumph. They had tried their best to oust him from his inheritance and the act of G.o.d had spoiled them. He felt almost virtuous.

But his natural truculence, and his not altogether unnatural exultation at the frustration of these plans for his own upsetting, overcame all else. Of regret for their personal loss and his own he had none.

”Oh--ho! Mighty fine, aren't we, feasting on the best,” he began. ”Let me tell you all this is mine now, spite of all your dirty tricks, and you can get out, all of you, and the sooner the better. Eating my best b.u.t.ter, too! Ma fe, fat is good enough for the likes of you,” and he stretched a long arm and lifted the dish of golden b.u.t.ter from the board--b.u.t.ter, too, which Nance and her mother had made themselves after also milking the cows.

”Put that down!” said Gard, in a voice like the taps of a hammer.

”You get out--bravache! Bretteur! I'm master here.”

”In six weeks--if you live that long. Until things are properly divided you'll keep out of this, if you're well advised.”

”I will, will I? We'll see about that, Mister Bully. I know what you're up to, trying to fool our Nance with your foreign ways, and I won't have it. She's not for the likes of you or any other man that's got a wife and children over in England--”

This was the suddenly-thought-of burden of a discussion over the cups one night at the canteen, soon after Gard's arrival, when the possibility of his being a married man had been mooted and had remained in Tom's turgid brain as a fact.

”By the Lord!” cried Gard, starting up in black fury, ”if you can't behave yourself I'll break every bone in your body.”

And Nance's face, which had unconsciously stiffened at Tom's words, glowed again at Gard's revelation of the natural man in him, and her eyes shone with various emotions--doubts, hopes, fears, and a keen interest in what would follow.

The first thing that followed was the dish of b.u.t.ter, which hurtled past Gard's head and crashed into the face of the clock, and then fell with a flop to the earthen floor.

The next was Tom's lowered head and c.u.mbrous body, as he charged like a bull into Gard and both rolled to the ground, the table escaping catastrophe by a hair's-breadth.

Mrs. Hamon had sprung up with clasped hands and piteous face. Nance and Bernel had sprung up also, with distress in their faces but still more of interest. They had come to a certain reliance on Gard's powers, and how many and many a time had they longed to be able to give Tom a well-deserved thras.h.i.+ng!

Through the open door of her room came Grannie's hard little voice, ”Now then! Now then! What are you about there?” but no one had time to tell her.

Gard was up in a moment, panting hard, for Tom's bull-head had caught him in the wind.

”If you want ... to fight ... come outside!” he jerked.

”---- you!” shouted Tom, as he struggled to his knees and then to his feet. ”I'll smash you!” and he lowered his head and made another blind rush.