Part 12 (2/2)

But this time Gard was ready for him, and a stout buffet on the ear as he pa.s.sed sent him cras.h.i.+ng in a heap into the bowels of the clock, which had witnessed no such doings since Tom's great-grandfather brought it home and stood it in its place, and it testified to its amazement at them by standing with hands uplifted at ten minutes to two until it was repaired many months afterwards.

Tom got up rather dazedly, and Gard took him by the shoulders and ran him outside before he had time to pull himself together.

”Now,” said Gard, shaking him as a bull-dog might a calf. ”See here!

You're not wanted here at present, and if you make any more trouble you'll suffer for it,” and he gave him a final whirl away from the house and went in and closed the door.

Tom stood gazing at it in dull fury, thought of smas.h.i.+ng the window, picked up a stone, remembered just in time that it would be his window, so flung the stone and a curse against the door and departed.

”I'm sorry,” said Gard, looking deprecatingly at Nance. ”I'm afraid I lost my temper.”

”It was all his fault,” said Nance. ”Did he hurt you?”

”Only my feelings. He had no right to say such things or do what he did.”

”It's always good to see him licked,” said Bernel with gusto. ”Nance and I used to try, but he was too big for us.”

Mrs. Hamon had gone in with a white face to explain things to Grannie.

She came back presently and said briefly to Gard, ”She wants you,” and he went in to the old lady.

”You did well, Stephen Gard,” she chirped. ”Stand by them, for they'll need it. He's a bad lot is Tom, and he'll make things uncomfortable when he comes here to live. When Nancy takes her third of what's left of the house, that'll be only two rooms, so you'll have to look out for another, and maybe you'll not find it easy to get one in Little Sark. If you take my advice you'll try Charles Guille at Clos Bourel, or Thomas Carre at the Plaisance Cottages by the Coupee, they're kindly folk both. I've told Nancy to get Philip Tanquerel of Val Creux to help her portion the lots, and it'll be no easy job, for Tom will choose the best and get all he can.”

They were agreeably surprised to hear no more of Tom, but learned before long that, on the strength of his unexpected good fortune, he had gone over to Guernsey to pa.s.s, in ways that most appealed to him, the six weeks allowed by the law for the settlement of his father's affairs.

Within that six weeks Philip Tanquerel of Val Creux had, on Mrs. Hamon's behalf, to allot all old Tom's estate, house, fields, cattle, implements, furniture, into three as equal portions as he could contrive with his most careful balancing of pros and cons. For, with Solomon-like wisdom, Sark law entails upon the widow the apportionment of the three lots into which everything is divided, but allows the heir first choice of any two of them, the remaining lot becoming the widow's dower.

No light undertaking, therefore, the apportionment of those lots, or the widow may be left with only bedrooms to live in, and an ill proportion of grazing ground for her cattle and herself to live upon. For, be sure that when it comes to the picking of these lots, even the best of sons will pick the plums, and when such an one as Tom Hamon is in question it is as well to mingle the plums and the sloes with an exact.i.tude of proportionment that will allow of no advantage either way.

CHAPTER XI

HOW GARD DREW NEARER TO HIS HEART'S DESIRE

Gard's isolation was brought home to him when he endeavoured to find another lodging in Little Sark.

Accommodation was, of course, limited. Many of the miners had to tramp in each day from Sark. There was still, in spite of all his tact and efforts, somewhat of a feeling against him as a new-comer, an innovator, a tightener of loose cords, and no one offered to change quarters to oblige him. And so, in the end, he took Grannie's advice and found a room in one of the thatch-roofed cottages which offered their white-washed shoulders to the road just where it rose out of the further side of the Coupee into Sark.

They were quiet, farmer-fisher folk who lived there, having nothing to do with the mines and little beyond a general interest in them.

When not at work, he was thrown much upon himself, and if in his rambles he chanced upon Bernel Hamon it was a treat, and if, as happened all too seldom, upon Nance as well, an enjoyment beyond words.

But Nance was a busy maid, with hens and chickens, and cows and calves, and pigs and piglets claiming her constant attention, and it was only now and again that she could so arrange her duties as to allow of a flight with Bernel--a flight which always took the way to the sea and developed presently into a bathing revel wherein she flung cares and clothes to the winds, or into a fis.h.i.+ng excursion, in which pleasure and profit and somewhat of pain were evenly mixed.

For, though she loved the sea and ate fresh-caught fish with as much gusto as any, she hated seeing them caught--almost as much as she hated having her fowls or piglets slaughtered for eating purposes, and never would touch them--a delicacy of feeling at which Bernel openly scoffed but could not laugh her out of.

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