A Maid of the Silver Sea | Page 5

out of it that, for weeks, Nance's horrified
inner vision saw little blind heads, half-drowned and mewing piteously,
striving with feeble pink claws to climb out of the death-tub and being
ruthlessly set swimming again till they sank.
She hurled herself at Tom as he gloated over his enjoyment, and would
have asked nothing better than to treat him as he was treating the
kittens--righteous retribution in her case, not enjoyment!--but he was
too strong for her. He simply kicked out behind, and before she could
get up had thrust one of his half-drowned victims into the neck of her
frock, and the clammy-dead feel of it and its pitiful screaming set her
shuddering for months whenever she thought of it.
But now and again her tormentor overpassed the bounds and got his
reward--to Nance's immediate satisfaction but subsequent increased
tribulation. For whenever he got a thrashing on her account he never
failed to pay her out in the smaller change of persecution which never
came to light.
On a pitch-dark, starless night, the high-hedged--and in places
deep-sunk--lanes of Little Sark are as black as the inside of an ebony
ruler.
When the moon bathes sea and land in a flood of shimmering silver, or
on a clear night of stars--and the stars in Sark, you must know, shine
infinitely larger and closer and brighter than in most other places--the
darkness below is lifted somewhat by reason of the majestic width and
height of the glittering dome above. But when moon and stars alike are
wanting, then the darkness of a Sark lane is a thing to be felt, and--if
you should happen to be a little girl of eight, with a large imagination
and sharp ears that have picked up fearsome stories of witches and
ghosts and evil spirits--to be mortally feared.

Tom had a wholesome dread of such things himself. But the fear of
fourteen, in a great strong body and no heavenly spark of imagination,
is not to be compared with the fear of eight and a mind that could
quiver like a harp even at its own imaginings. And, to compass his ends,
he would blunt his already dull feelings and turn the darkness to his
account.
When he knew Nance was out on such a night--on some errand, or in at
a neighbour's--to crouch in the hedge and leap silently out upon her was
huge delight; and it was well worth braving the grim possibilities of the
hedges in order to extort from her the anger in the bleat of terror which,
as a rule, was all that her paralysed heart permitted, as she turned and
fled.
Almost more amusing--as considerably extending the enjoyment--was
it to follow her quietly on such occasions, yet not so quietly but that she
was perfectly aware of footsteps behind, which stopped when she
stopped and went on again when she went on, and so kept her nerves on
the quiver the whole time.
Creeping fearfully along in the blackness, with eyes and ears on the
strain, and both little shoulders humped against the expected apparition
of Tom--or worse, she would become aware of the footsteps behind
her.
Then she would stop suddenly to make sure, and stand listening
painfully, and hear nothing but the low hoarse growl of the sea that
rarely ceases, day or night, among the rocks of Little Sark.
Then she would take a tentative step or two and stop again, and then
dash on. And always there behind her were the footsteps that followed
in the dark.
Then she would fumble with her foot for a stone and stoop hastily--for
you are at a disadvantage with ghosts and with Toms when you
stoop--and pick it up and hurl it promiscuously in the direction of the
footsteps, and quaver, in a voice that belied its message, "Go away,
Tom Hamon! I can see you,"--which was a little white fib born of the

black urgency of the situation;--"and I'm not the least bit
afraid,"--which was most decidedly another.
And so the journey would progress fitfully and in spasms, and leave
nightmare recollections for the disturbance of one's sleep.
But there were variations in the procedure at times.
As when, on one occasion, Nance's undiscriminating projectile elicited
from the darkness a plaintive "Moo!" which came, she knew, from her
favourite calf Jeanetton, who had broken her tether in the field and
sought companionship in the road, and had followed her doubtfully,
stopping whenever she stopped, and so received the punishment
intended for another.
Nance kissed the bruise on Jeanetton's ample forehead next day very
many times, and explained the whole matter to her at considerable
length, and Jeanetton accepted it all very placidly and bore no ill-will.
Another time, when Nance had taken a very specially compounded
cake over to