Carette of Sark Part 2

But she shook her head dismally, with no sign of yielding.

"It has been very lonely," he said. "You and the boy--"

And she looked up at him, and the hunger 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, G.o.d 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 Carre's heart was easier than it had been for many a day, as they wound their way among the great cus.h.i.+ons 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Carre had lived there all alone with his dumb man Krok, who a.s.sisted him with the farm and the fis.h.i.+ng, and their visitors were few and far between.

Now that jumping small boy was myself, and Rachel Carre was my mother, and Philip Carre 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 Carre, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Carre 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 b.u.mp 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 Carre suffer, when the b.u.mp 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 superst.i.tions among which he had been bred crawled in his back hair and held his breath.

Then a hand dropped out of the darkness and touched his shoulder, and he sprang at the touch like a coiled spring.

"Diable!"

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."

"Allons!" growled Martel. He was in the humour to rend and tear, and it mattered little what. For the authorities in Guernsey, after due deliberation, had decided that what was not good enough for Sercq was not good enough for Guernsey, and had s.h.i.+pped him back with scant ceremony. He had been flung out like a sack of rubbish onto the s.h.i.+ngle in Havre Gosselin, half an hour before, had scaled the rough track in the dark, with his mouth full of curses and his heart full of rage, and George Hamon thanked G.o.d that it was not Rachel and the boy he had found in the cottage that night.

Hamon slipped on his shoes and tied them carefully, and they pa.s.sed out and along the narrow way between the tall hedges. The full moon was just showing red and sleepy-looking, but she would be white and wide awake in a few minutes. The gra.s.s was thick with dew, and there was not a sound save the growl of the surf on the rocks below.

Through a gap in the hedge Hamon led the way towards Longue Pointe.

"Here!" he said, as they came on a level piece, and rolled up the sleeves of his guernsey. "Put away your knife;" and Martel, with a curse at the implication, drew it from its sheath at his back and flung it among the bracken.

Then, without a word, they tackled one another. No gripping now, but hard fell blows straight from the shoulder, warded when possible, or taken in grim silence. They fought, not as men fight in battle,--for general principles and with but dim understanding of the rights and wrongs of the matter; but with the bitter intensity born of personal wrongs and the desire for personal vengeance. To Hamon, Martel represented the grievous shadow on Rachel Carre's life. To Martel, Hamon represented Sercq and all the contumely that had been heaped upon him there.

Their faces were set like rocks. Their teeth were clenched. They breathed hard and quick--through their noses at first, but presently, and of necessity, in short sharp gasps from the chest.

It was a great fight, with none to see it but the placid moon, and so strong was her light that there seemed to be four men fighting, two above and two below. And at times they all merged into a writhing confusion of fierce pantings and snortings as of wild beasts, but for the most part they fought in grim silence, broken only by the whistle of the wind through their swollen lips, the light thud of their feet on the trampled ground, and the grisly sound of fist on flesh. And they fought for love of Rachel Carre, which the one had not been able to win and the other had not been able to keep.

Martel was the bigger man, but Hamon's legs and arms had springs of hate in them which more than counterbalanced. He was a temperate man too, and in fine condition. He played his man with discretion, let him exhaust himself to his heart's content, took with equanimity such blows as he could not ward or avoid, and kept the temper of his hatred free from extravagance till his time came.

Martel lost patience and wind. Unless he could end the matter quickly his chance would be gone. He did his best to close and finish it, but his opponent knew better, and avoided him warily. They had both received punishment. Hamon took it for Rachel's sake, Martel for his sins. His brain was becoming confused with Hamon's quick turns and shrewd blows, and he could not see as clearly as at first. At times it seemed to him that there were two men fighting him. He must end it while he had the strength, and he bent to the task with desperate fury. Then, as he was rus.h.i.+ng on his foe like a bull, with all his hatred boiling in his head, all went suddenly dark, and he was lying unconscious with his face on the trodden gra.s.s, and George Hamon stood over him, with his fists still clenched, all battered and bleeding, and breathing like a spent horse, but happier than he had been for many a day.

Martel lay so still that a fear began to grow in Hamon that he was dead. He had caught him deftly on the temple as he came on. He had heard of men being killed by a blow like that. He knelt and turned the other gingerly over, and felt his heart beating. And then the black eyes opened on him and the whites of them gleamed viciously in the moonlight, and Hamon stood up, and, after a moment's consideration, strode away and kicked about in the bracken till he found the other's knife. Then he picked up his jacket, and went back to the cottage with the knife in one hand and his jacket in the other, and went inside and bolted the door, which was not a custom in Sercq.

CHAPTER IV

HOW MARTEL RAISED THE CLAMEUR BUT FOUND NO RELIEF

George Hamon slept heavily that night while Nature repaired damages. In the morning he had his head in a bucket of water from the well, when he heard footsteps coming up the steep way from the sh.o.r.e, and as he shook the drops out of his swollen eyes he saw that it was Philip Carre come in from his fis.h.i.+ng.

"h.e.l.lo, George--!" and Carre stopped and stared at his face, and knew at once that what he had feared had come to pa.s.s.--"He's back then?"

"It feels like it."

"Where did you meet?"

"He came in here in the middle of the night. We fought on Longue Pointe."

"Where is he now?"

"I left him in the gra.s.s with his wits out."

"She'll have no peace till he's dead and buried," said Carre gloomily.

Then they heard heavy footsteps in the narrow way between the hedges, and both turned quickly with the same thought in their minds. But it was only Philip Tanquerel coming down to see to his lobster pots, and at sight of Hamon's face he grinned knowingly and drawled, "Bin falling out o' bed, George?"

"Yes. Fell on top of the Frenchman."

"Fell heavy, seems to me. He's back then? I doubted he'd come if he wanted to."

Then more steps between the hedges, and Martel himself turned the corner and came straight for the cottage.