John Oxenham

“ I walked right into her kitchen, and she met me with a cry of amazement and delight, and every wrinkle in the weather-browned face creased into a smile.
"Why, Phil, mon gars! Is it possible?" she cried. "You are welcome as one from the dead. Though, ma fé, I hoped all along, as your mother did. And, my good! what a big fellow it is! And not bad-looking either! I used to think you'd grow up square. You were the squarest boy I ever saw. But foreign parts have drawn you out like a ship's mast." ”

“ And as we sat on the soft turf among the empty shells, looking out over the long line of weather-bitten headlands and tumbled rocks, with the blue sea creaming at their feet, I suppose I must have heaved a sigh, for Carette laughed and said—
"Ma fé, but you are lively to-day, Phil."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I was thinking of the old times when we used to scramble about here as merry as the rock pipits. They were very happy days, Carette."
"Yes," she nodded, "they were happy days. But we've grown since then."
"One can't help growing, but I don't know that it makes one any happier." ”

“ It was Martel's voice and usual exclamation, and in a moment Hamon had him by the throat and they were whirling over the floor, upsetting the table and scattering the chairs, and George Hamon's heart was beating like a merry drum at feel of his enemy in the flesh.
But wrestling blindly in a dark room did not satisfy him. That which was in him craved more. He wanted to see what he was doing and the full effects of it.
He shook himself free.
"Come outside and fight it out like a man—if you are one," he panted. "And we'll see if you can beat a man as you can a woman." ”

“ And the first thing I saw, and saw no other for a while, was the handsomest ship I had ever set eyes on. A long low black schooner, with a narrow beading of white at deck level, and masts that tapered off into fishing-rods. She was pierced for six guns a-side, and a great tarpaulin cover on the forecastle and another astern hinted at something heavier there. Her lines and finish were so graceful that I felt sure she was French built, for English builders ever consider strength before beauty. A very fast boat, I judged, but how she would behave in dirty weather I was not so sure. ”

“ But, as we turned and made for the ship, the strange sensation of hearing only through the feelings of the body grew upon me; the thought of perpetual silence began to appal me. I could feel the sound of the oars in the rowlocks, and the dash of the waves against the boat, but though I could see men's lips moving it was all no more to me than dumb show.
They were busily cleaning the ship when we came aboard, but I could see what a great fight the Joséphine had made of it. A long row of dead lay waiting decent burial, and every second man one saw was damaged in one way or another. ”

“ Torode had evidently not been able to get round La Hague, and a man must have been blind indeed not to see therein the hand of Providence; for a cap full of wind and he would have been down on us like a wolf on two strayed lambs. But now Sercq lay straight in front of our boat's nose, like a great gray whale nuzzling its young, and every long pull of the oars brought it nearer. ”

“ We swept across the dark mouth of Gorey. In among the ragged heads and weltering white surf of the Pierres-à-Beurre; past the sounding cave where the souffleur blows his spray a hundred feet into the south-west gale. We swung on a rushing green-white swirl towards a black shelf, behind which lies a deep dark pool in a mighty hollow worn smooth and round with the ceaseless grinding of the stones that no tide can ever lift.
"Ready!" I cried.
And at the next wave we leaped together, and the hand that I held in mine was steadier than my own, for mine was all of a shake with the strain. ”

“ It was chancy work at best, with a possible stumble up against death at every step. But life without Carette—worse still, life with Carette in thrall to young Torode—would be worse to me than death, and so I take no credit to myself for risking it for her. It was hers already, it did but seek its own.
In daylight I could have gone almost straight to that cleft, steering my course by the sea rocks I had noted from the window. But in the dark it was different. I could only grope along in hope, with many a stop to wonder where I had got to, and many a stumble and many a bruise. ”

“ My mind had been running ahead of the boat, and trying the ways in front, and it seemed to me that Jersey was no safe refuge for a forfeited life.
Torode of Herm was a name known in all those coasts. The news of his treacheries and uprooting was bound to get there before long. Some long-headed busybody might stumble on our secret and undo us. My mind had been seeking a more solitary place, and, ranging to and fro, had lighted on the Ecréhou rocks, which I had visited once with my grandfather and Krok and had never forgotten. ”

“ They passed the cottages at La Vauroque. The women and children crowded the doors.
"What is it then, Carette?" they cried. "Where is he taking him?"
"He is making him show him the way to the Boutiques," cried Carette, crumpling her pretty face into hideous grimaces by way of explanation.
"Oh, my good!" cried the women, and the procession passed on along the road that led past Dos d'Ane. The steamy haze lay thicker here. The wind drove it past in slow coils, but its skirts seemed to cling to the heather and bracken as though reluctant to loose its hold on the Island. ”

“ We sat in the short sweet grass of the headland, just as we had sat many a time when we were boy and girl, when life was all as bright as the inside of an ormer shell and we were friends with all the world.
The sun was dropping behind Herm into a dark bank of clouds which lay all along the western sky. Behind the clouds the heavens seemed ablaze with a mighty conflagration. Long level shafts of glowing gold streamed through the rifts, like a hot fire through the bars of a grate, and our faces and all the bold Sercq cliffs were dyed red. The sun himself looked like a fiery clot of blood. ”

“ A most delightful place at all times was that great kitchen at Beaumanoir, with its huge fireplace like a smaller room opening off the larger, and put to many other uses besides simply that of cooking;—its black oak presses and dressers and shelves all aglow with much polishing, and bright with crockery and pewter; its great hanging rack under the ceiling, laden with hams and sides of bacon and a hundred and one odds and ends of household use; and the great table in the corner weighted now with piles of currant-cake—Aunt Jeanne's gâche had a name in Sercq—and more substantial faring still. ”

“ And yet, even then, in Sercq the sun shone soft and warm, the sky and sea were blue, the fouaille was golden-brown on the hillside, the young gorse was showing pale on the Eperquerie, and the Butcher's Broom on Tintageu was brilliant with scarlet berries.
To any man—even to our warders—Amperdoo was a desolation akin to death. To many a weary prisoner it proved death itself and so the gate to wider life. ”

“ I have never thought of any but Carette, and as soon as I am able I will ask her to marry me."
"Whether I have other views for her or not?" said her father.
"No other could possibly love Carette as I do,"—at which he smiled briefly and the others grinned. "I have only one wish in life, and that is to care for her and make her happy."
"That is for the future, so we need not talk about it now. If you make a fortune at the privateering—who knows?"
"And what can you tell me of Torode, monsieur? Is he the best man to go out with?" ”

“ Death was there, but no fight. For, as we plunged straight for the Frenchman, following every twist he made, and eager only for the leap at his throat, our little ship began to roll in a sickly fashion as she had never done before, and men looked into one another's faces with fears in their eyes beyond any all the Frenchmen in the world could put there. And the carpenter, who had been on deck with the rest, bursting for the fight, tumbled hastily below, and came up in a moment with a face like putty. ”

“ Up above was the work of man, the greenery of fields and trees, soft and beautiful in the sunshine, but these reached only to the cliff edge. Wherever the land had fallen away, the wind and the sea had worked their will, and the scarred and bitten rocks bore witness to it. The black tumbled masses of the Gouliot were right before me, and in the gloomy channel between, the tide, through which I had come, writhed and rolled like a wounded snake, even at the slack. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I found myself at one of the great cross-roads of life, where, I suppose, most men find themselves at one time or another. I knew that much—to me, perhaps, everything—must depend on how I chose now, and I spent much time wandering in lonely places, and lying among the gorse cushions or in the short grass of the headlands, thinking of Carette and trying to see my way to her. ”

“ In the hardest working life there are always off times, and Krok's Sundays, outside the simple necessities of farm life, had always been his own. His one enjoyment had been to scramble and poke and peer—without knowledge, indeed, or even understanding, save such as came of absorbed watchfulness, but still with the most perfect satisfaction—among the hidden things of nature which lay in pools, and under stones, and away in dark caves where none but he had been. ”

“ My hammock helped us over the outer palisade in the same way as the other, and we stood for a moment in the rain and darkness, panting and shaking,—free men.
We made for the void in front, with no thought but of placing the greatest possible distance between ourselves and the prison in the shortest possible time. We plunged into bogs and scrambled through to the farther side, eager bundles of dripping slime, and sped on and on through the rain and darkness—free men, and where we went we knew not, only that it was from prison. ”

“ If she's a beauty, as our Carette is, she knows it, and she's not going to drop into any man's mouth like a ripe fig. Mon Gyu, no!" —with a crisp nod.
"It's true, every word of it," I said, knowing quite well that those clever old brown eyes of hers could bore holes in me and read me like a book. "Just you tell me what to do, Aunt Jeanne, and I'll do it as sure as I sit here."
"As sure as you sit there you never will, unless you jump right up and win her, my boy. That young Torode is no fool, though he is hot-headed enough and as full of conceit as he can hold. ”

“ And the sea still lay like lead out there, but I began to catch the gleam of white teeth along the sides of Brecqhou, and down below in Havre Gosselin I could hear the long waves growling among the rocks. And now there came a stir in the air like the waking breaths of a sleeper. The shadows behind Herm and Jethou thickened and darkened. The little throb of life behind the banks of cloud in the east quickened and grew. ”

“ Herm alone, with its long white spear of sand and shells, is like a sword-fish among the nursing whales.
In the distance the long ridge of Sercq looks as bare and uninteresting as would the actual back of a basking whale. It is only when you come to a more intimate acquaintance that all her charms become visible. Just as I have seen high-born women, in our great capital city of London, turn cold unmoved faces to the crowd but smile sweetly and graciously on their friends and acquaintances. ”

“ You love Le Marchant's girl, Carette. Join us, and you shall have her. You will live with us on Herm, and in due time, when we have money enough, we will give up this life and start anew elsewhere."
"Carette is an honest girl—"
"She need not know—all that you know."
"And your son wants her—"
When you have had no one to speak to but yourself for fourteen days, the voice even of a man you hate is not to be despised. You may even make him talk for the sake of hearing him.
"I know it," said Torode. "I hear she favours you, but a dead man is no good. ”

“ That is a feature very common to our Islands; for time, and the weather, and the ever-restless sea wear through the softer veins, which run through all our Island rocks, just as unexpected streaks of tenderness may be found in the rough natures of our Island men. And so, from every outstanding point, great pieces become detached and form separate islets, between which and the parent isles the currents run like mill-races and take toll of the unwary and the stranger. So, Sercq nuzzles Le Tas, and Jethou Crevichon, and Guernsey Lihou and the Hanois, and even Brecqhou has its whelp in La Givaude. ”