Carette of Sark | Page 8

of his face seemed to strike
her suddenly. She got up from the fern-bed and said, "Yes, we will
come. My troubles have made me selfish."
"Now, God be praised! You lift a load from my heart, Rachel. You will
come at once? Put together what you will need and we will take it with
us."
"And the house?"
"It will be all safe. If you like I will ask George Hamon to give an eye
to it while you are away. Perhaps--" Perhaps she would decide to
remain with him at Belfontaine, but experience had taught him to go
one step at a time rather than risk big leaps when he was not sure of his
footing.
So, while she gathered such things as she and the boy would need for a
few days' stay, he strode back down the sunny lane to La Vauroque, to
leave word of his wishes with Hamon's mother.
And Philip Carré's heart was easier than it had been for many a day, as
they wound their way among the great cushions of gorse to his lonely
house at Belfontaine. And the small boy was jumping with joy, and the
shadow on his mother's face was lightened somewhat. For when one's
life has broken down, and untoward circumstances have turned one into
a subject for sympathetic gossip, it is a relief to get away from it all, to
dwell for a time where the clacking of neighbourly tongues cannot be
heard, and where sympathy is all the deeper for finding no expression
in words. At Belfontaine there was little fear of oversight or
overhearing, for it lay somewhat apart, and since his daughter's
marriage Philip Carré had lived there all alone with his dumb man Krok,

who assisted him with the farm and the fishing, and their visitors were
few and far between.
Now that jumping small boy was myself, and Rachel Carré was my
mother, and Philip Carré was my grandfather. But what I have been
telling you is only what I learned long afterwards, when I was a grown
man, and it had become necessary for me to know these things in
explanation of others.
CHAPTER III
HOW TWO FOUGHT IN THE DARK
When George Hamon told me the next part of the story of those early
days, his enjoyment in the recalling of certain parts of it was
undisguised. He told it with great gusto.
As he lay that night on the fern-bed in the cottage above the chasm, he
thought of Rachel Carré, and what might have been if Martel's father
had only been properly drowned on the Hanois instead of marrying the
Guernsey woman. Rachel and he might have come together, and he
would have made her as happy as the day was long. And now--his life
was empty, and Rachel's was broken,--and all because of this wretched
half-Frenchman, with his knowing ways and foreign beguilements. The
girls had held him good-looking. Well, yes, he was good-looking in a
way, but it passed his understanding why any Sercq girl should want to
marry a foreigner while home lads were still to be had. He did not think
there would be much marrying outside the Island for some time to
come, but it was bitter hard that Rachel Carré should have had to suffer
in order to teach them that lesson.
Gr-r-r! but he would like to have Monsieur Martel up before him just
for ten minutes or so, with a clear field and no favour. Martel was
strong and active, it was true, but there--he was a drinker, and a
Frenchman at that, and drink doesn't run to wind, and a Frenchman
doesn't run to fists. Very well--say twenty minutes then, and if
he--George Hamon--did not make Monsieur Martel regret ever having
come to Sercq, he would deserve all he got and would take it without a

murmur.
He was full of such imaginings, when at last he fell asleep, and he
dreamt that he and Martel met in a lonely place and fought. And so full
of fight was he that he rolled off the fern-bed and woke with a bump on
the floor, and regretted that it was only a dream. For he had just got
Martel's head comfortably under his left arm, and was paying him out
in full for all he had made Rachel Carré suffer, when the bump of his
fall put an end to it.
The following night he fell asleep at once, tired with a long day's work
in the fields. He woke with a start about midnight, with the impression
of a sound in his ears, and lay listening doubtfully. Then he perceived
that his ears had not deceived him. There was someone in the room,--or
something,--and for a moment all the superstitions