United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Time and again Gard would have rejoiced to take him outside and express his feelings to their fullest satisfaction. With Mrs. Hamon and Bernel he was on the most friendly footing, his undisguised sentiments in the matter of Tom commending him to them decisively. But with Nance he made no headway whatever.
He may have been picked up, and will come back as soon as he is able." "No," she said, with gloomy decision. "He is dead. I feared for him, for I had been to look at the Race just before sundown, and it looked terribly strong. But he would go " "Why didn't he get a boat?" "Ah, mon Gyu!" and she started up wildly. "I was forgetting. I was thinking only of myself and Bernel.
But, dearly as she would have liked to make some provision, however small, for Nance and Bernel, her whole Sark soul was up in arms against the idea of selling the farm. It would feel like a break-up of life. Nothing, she was sure, would ever be the same again. "It's not right," she said simply.
"Oh, Bern!" cried Nance, with up-clasped hands. But Bernel, loosing his belt and kicking off his breeches with a glance at the derelict, launched himself clear of the pier with a shout.
So Nance got a bundle of things ready for you, and then went out with another bundle and Julie followed her, and I slipped off here." "Bernel, I don't know how to thank you all! What should I have done without you?" "You'd have been dead, most likely. It's not that they cared much for Tom, you know, but they don't like the idea of a Sark man being killed by a foreigner and no one paying for it."
Next day, with Bernel and a tiny crasset lamp for company, she explored the burrow to its utmost limits and adopted it at once as their refuge and stronghold. And thereafter they spent much time there, especially in the end chamber where a tiny slit gave on to Port Gorey, and they could lie and watch all that went on down below.
He shivered in the blaze of the sun as his eyes rested on the waves of the Race, bristling up against the run of the tide as usual, and he thought of what it might have meant to him this morning. It had swallowed Bernel. In spite of his hopeful words to Nance, he feared the brave lad was gone. And it might have swallowed Nance. And if it had it might as well have him, too.
Every now and again Bernel found it necessary to let go in order to keep out of his way. Nance swam steadily up and the sinking one made a frantic clutch at her. "Lie quiet or you shall drown," she cried. "Do you hear? Lie quiet and you are safe! See!" and she held his right hand while Bernel took his left and the man found himself no longer sinking, and they struck out for the shingle.
"Come along, Bern, and we'll go and tell the Seigneur where his white horse is," and she disappeared, and Bernel, having polished off everything within reach, got up and followed her. "Will you please to take a look at the mines to-night?" asked old Tom of his guest, anxious to interest him in the work as speedily as possible.
But she shook her head, intent on the doings on the rock, and full, for the moment, of the hope she could draw from Gard's hint about a hiding-place of which she knew nothing. For if she and Bernel had never discovered it, how should these others? And obviously they were searching, for they prowled about the rock like ants, and poked here and there, and wandered on and came back.
Word Of The Day