Part 8 (1/2)

”Quick, what happened?”

”Have patience, my son, and don't hurry an old woman. Well, great-grandfather asked the little chap where he was going and what was his name. And all he would say was ”_Je vais cheminant_.” But he stopped to Guernsey after all and he married a girl from near here--and it was him built _Les Casquets_. There! _that's_ where she gets her queer ways, Ellenor!”

”And now tell me about her plan.”

”Well, it seems she thought, foolish girl, she'd find out, for sure, if Le Mierre really loves her or only her looks. And she couldn't think of no better way than this mad one. She can't know much of men and their ways, her!”

”It's the best thing that could have happened, if only it makes her see Le Mierre in his true colours.”

”Well, we must hope for the best. And, look here, Perrin! Nothing he could do before, no wickedness, no cruelty, could make her leave off caring! But we women, if our looks are held up to scorn--well!--that's the worst of all. So who can tell what may happen! Come, I must make her and give her a cup of tea. She told me she hadn't eaten or drank all day.”

CHAPTER VIII.

It was a wild wet night in March. Dominic Le Mierre had just finished supper, and he sat by the fire in the kitchen of Orvilliere; he was in a particularly good mood, owing to the excellence of the tobacco he was smoking. As he puffed at his second pipe he congratulated himself on his long acquaintance with Frenchmen, who had no scruples in giving him whole packages of this excellent tobacco; and no conditions attached except the fun of helping to hide it in the caves below the Haunted House, till it could be conveyed to Brittany!

Then he laughed aloud at the idea of the countryside about this very Haunted House. He had added two or three ghost tales to those current; and, though he believed firmly in every weird story of the two parishes, he had not felt a single scruple in inventing others to terrify people from the spot. His love of lawlessness and danger was infinitely stronger than his inherited faith in the supernatural. The Haunted House brought to his mind the festival of _Les Brandons_, when the dreaded place had lost its horror for the time being, owing to the safety that is supposed to lie in numbers.

He chuckled as he remembered what a fool he had made of Ellenor.

Bah! Once and for all he had done with her! Who cared to look at her now, fright that she was! And how dared that pious idiot of a fisherman throw him down before all the company! Ah! he would soon teach him better manners! he would thrash him well next time they met!

So he plotted and thought and smoked, and the night wind howled and the rain beat against the windows. All at once, he got up, and from the rack fastened across the beamed ceiling he took an old black book, his friend and evil counsellor, the _Grand-Mele_ which had been in his family for generations. It was a book of magic, containing spells to be used on every conceivable occasion, and Dominic Le Mierre was past-master in the black art. Turning over the pages with knitted brows, he searched for a spell to be used against Perrin Corbet. At last he found it.

”Ah, it is quite easy to draw blood, and it need be but a drop!” he muttered, ”scratch his hand with my knife and it is done! Then, he will walk in his sleep to the Haunted House. There I will meet him!

Ah, Perrin Corbet, it will be your turn to be down on the ground! I will see him to-morrow, and the spell will work for the night.

_Bon_, nothing could be better!”

He took up his pipe again and smoked in full contentment. A sudden stillness had fallen over the wild night. It seemed to Dominic that he could hear the moan of the sea. He listened. His blood crept at the weird stillness.

Hark! Hus.h.!.+ What was that?

The wild sad cry of a sea-gull. Nearer and nearer it came, and Dominic's eyes were fixed in horror upon the uncurtained window.

The sea-gull came at last quite close, with wilder, sadder cries. It flapped its wings and circled round and round the cas.e.m.e.nt. Dominic was cold and stiff with terror. He knew who the sea-gull was, but what did it mean? Some dreadful thing was drawing near Orvilliere.

”Blaisette!” he cried, ”I know you well enough! Why do you come here?”

Wilder, more despairing grew the cries. Closer and closer the bird drew to the panes, striking them with a tw.a.n.g like the sound of wild music.

With a curse the master roused himself from the freezing spell. He took his loaded gun from its place over the chimney piece. He fired.

One of the panes of gla.s.s was broken. Outside, on the cobbled yard, the gull lay dead, its glazed eyes fixed on the house.

With a laugh of triumph, Dominic re-lighted his pipe and sat down again by the fire. He had just settled once more to the reading of _Grand-Mele_ when a very tempest of wind and hail shook the house, and in the midst of it, a low, sharp knock fell on the house door.

This time, the master was not under a spell. He recognized the knock. In an instant he was in the entrance hall and had flung open the door. A rough, unkempt fisherman stood on the threshold.

”You must come at once, Monsieur,” he cried, ”there's been great luck! A lot of brandy has been brought, unexpected. It's to the cave below the Haunted House. We could have got it up the cliffs alone.

But we all agreed that you must have your share in the fun.”