A Maid of the Silver Sea | Page 6

her old friend, Mrs. Baker, as a present from her mother,
and had been kept much longer than she wished--for the old lady's
enjoyment of her pretty ways and entertaining prattle--she set out for
home in fear and trembling.
It was one of the pitch-black nights, and she went along on tiptoes,
hugging the empty plate to her breast, and glancing fearfully over first
one shoulder, then the other, then over both and back and front all at
once.
She was almost home, and very grateful for it, when the dreaded black
figure leaped silently out at her from its crouching place, and she tore
down the lane to the house, Tom's hoarse guffaws chasing her
mockingly.
The open door cleft a solid yellow wedge in the darkness. She was
almost into it, when her foot caught, and she flung head foremost into
the light with a scream, and lay there with the blood pouring down her

face from the broken plate.
A finger's-breadth lower and she would have gone through life
one-eyed, which would have been a grievous loss to humanity at large,
for sweeter windows to a large sweet soul never shone than those out of
which little Nance Hamon's looked.
Most houses may be judged by their windows, but these material
windows are not always true gauge of what is within. They may be
decked to deceive, but the clear windows of the soul admit of no
disguise. That little life tenant is always looking out and showing
himself in his true colours--whether he knows it or not.
Nance's terrified scream took old Tom out at a bound. He had heard the
quick rush of her feet and Tom's mocking laughter in the distance. He
carried Nance in to her mother, snatched up a stick, and went after the
culprit who had promptly disappeared.
It was two days before Tom sneaked in again and took his thrashing
dourly. Little Nance had shut her lips tight when her father questioned
her, and refused to say a word. But he was satisfied as to where the
blame lay and administered justice with a heavy hand.
Bernel--as soon as he grew to persecutable age--provided Tom with
another victim. But time was on the victims' side, and when Nance got
to be twelve--Bernel being then eight and Tom eighteen--their
combined energies and furies of revolt against his oppressions put
matters more on a level.
Many a pitched battle they had, and sometimes almost won. But, win or
lose, the fact that they had no longer to suffer without lifting a hand
was great gain to them, and the very fact that they had to go about
together for mutual protection knitted still stronger the ties that bound
them one to the other.
But, though little Nance's earlier years suffered much from the black
shadow of brother Tom, they were very far from being years of
darkness.

She was of an unusually bright and enquiring disposition, always
wanting to see and know and understand, interested in everything about
her, and never satisfied till she had got to the bottom of things, or at all
events as far down as it was possible for a small girl to get.
Her lively chatter and ceaseless questions left her mother and Grannie
small chance of stagnation. But, if she asked many questions--and some
of them posers--it was not simply for the sake of asking, but because
she truly wanted to know; and even Grannie, who was not naturally
talkative, never resented her pertinent enquiries, but gave freely of her
accumulated wisdom and enjoyed herself in the giving.
When she got beyond their depth at times, or outside their limits, she
would boldly carry her queries--and strange ones they were at times--to
old Mr. Cachemaille, the Vicar up in Sark, making nothing of the
journey and the Coupée in order to solve some, to her, important
problem. And he not only never refused her but delighted to open to her
the stores of a well-stocked mind and of the kindest and gentlest of
hearts.
Often and often the people of Vauroque and Plaisance would see them
pass, hand in hand and full of talk, when the Vicar had wished to see
with his own eyes one or other of Nance's wonderful discoveries, in the
shape of cave or rock-pool, or deposit of sparkling crystal
fingers--amethyst and topaz--or what not.
For she was ever lighting on odd and beautiful bits of Nature's
craftsmanship. Books were hardly to be had in those days, and in place
of them she climbed fearlessly about the rough cliff-sides and tumbled
headlands, and looked close at Nature with eyes that missed nothing
and craved everything.
To the neighbours the headlands were places where rabbits were to be
shot for dinner, the lower rocks places