Читать книгу Carette of Sark - John Oxenham - Страница 13

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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 shore, and as he shook the drops out of his swollen eyes he saw that it was Philip Carré come in from his fishing.

"Hello, George—!" and Carré stopped and stared at his face, and knew at once that what he had feared had come to pass.—"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 grass with his wits out."

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

He made as though he would go in without speaking to the others, but George Hamon planted himself in the doorway with a curt, "No, you don't!"

"You refuse to let me into my own house?"

"Yes, I do."

"By what right?"

"By this!" said Hamon, raising his fist. "If you want any more of it you've only to say so. You're outcast. You've no rights here. Get away!"

"I claim my rights," said Martel through his teeth, and fell suddenly to his knees, and cried, "Haro! Haro! Haro! à l'aide mon prince! On me fait tort."

The three men looked doubtfully at one another for a moment, for this old final appeal to a higher tribunal, in the name of Rollo, the first old Norseman Duke, dead though he was this nine hundred years, was still the law of the Islands and not to be infringed with impunity.

All the same, when the other sprang up and would have passed into the cottage, Hamon declined to move, and when Martel persisted, he struck at him with his fist, and it looked as though the fight were to be renewed.

"He makes Clameur, George," said Philip Tanquerel remonstratively.

"He may make fifty Clameurs for me. Let him go to the Sénéchal and the Greffier and lay the matter before them. He's not coming in here as long as I've got a fist to lift against him."

"You refuse?" said Martel blackly.

"You had better go to the Greffier," said Philip Carré. "The Court will have to decide it."

"It is my house."

"I'm in charge of it, and I won't give it up till the Sénéchal tells me to. So there!" said Hamon.

Martel turned on his heel and walked away, and the three stood looking after him.

"I'm not sure—" began Tanquerel, in his slow drawling way.

"You're only a witness, anyway, Philip," said Hamon. "I'm the oppressor, and if he comes again I'll give him some more of what he had last night. He may Haro till he's hoarse, for me. Till the Sénéchal bids me go, I stop here;" and Tanquerel shrugged his shoulders and went off down the slope to his pots.

"More trouble," said Carré gloomily.

"We'll meet it—with our fists," said Hamon cheerfully. "M. le Sénéchal is not going to be browbeaten by a man he's flung out of the Island."

And so it turned out. The cutter had brought M. Le Masurier a letter from the authorities in Guernsey which pleased him not at all. It informed him that Martel, having married into Sercq and settled on Sercq, belonged to Sercq, and they would have none of him, and were accordingly sending him home again.

When Martel appeared to lodge his complaint, and claim the old Island right to cessation of oppression and trial of his cause, M. le Sénéchal was prepared for him. It was not the man's fault that he was back on their hands, and he said nothing about that. As to his complaint, however, he drew a rigid line between the past and the future. In a word, he declined to interfere in the matter of the cottage until the case should be tried and the Court should give its judgment.

"Hamon must not, of course, interfere with you any further. But neither must you interfere with him," said the wise man. "If you should do so he retains the right that every man has of defending himself, and will doubtless exercise it."

At which, when he heard it, George smiled crookedly through his swollen lips and half-closed eyes, and Martel found himself out in the cold.

He reconnoitred at a safe distance several times during the day, but each time found Hamon smoking his pipe in the doorway, with a show of enjoyment which his cut lips did not in reality permit.

He stole down in the dark and quietly tried the bolted door, but got only a sarcastic grunt for his pains.

He tried to get a lodging elsewhere, but no one would receive him.

He begged for food. No one would give him a crust, and everyone he asked kept a watchful eye on him until he was clear of the premises.

He pulled some green corn, and husked it between his hands, and tried to satisfy his complaining stomach with that and half-ripe blackberries.

He crept up to a farmsteading after dark, intent on eggs, a chicken, a pigeon—anything that might stay the clamour inside. The watch-dogs raised such a riot that he crept away again in haste.

The hay had been cut in the churchyard. That was No Man's Land, and none had the right to hunt him out of it. So he made up a bed alongside a great square tomb, and slept there that night, and scared the children as they went past to school next morning.

One of the cows at Le Port gave no milk that day, and Dame Vaudin pondered the matter weightily, and discussed it volubly with her neighbours, but did not try their remedies.

During the day he went over to Little Sercq in hopes of snaring a rabbit. But the rabbits understood him and were shy. When he found himself near the Cromlech it suggested shelter, and creeping in to curl himself up for a sleep, he came unexpectedly on a baby rabbit paralysed with fear at the sight of him. It was dead before it understood what was happening. He tore it in pieces with his fingers and ate it raw. They found its skin and bones there later on.

Under the stimulus of food his brain worked again. There was no room for him in Sercq, that was evident. He was alien, and the clan spirit was too strong for him.

He crept back across the Coupée in the dark, and passed a man there who bade him good-night, not knowing till afterwards who he was.

Next morning, when Philip Carré came in from his fishing and climbed the zigzag above Havre Gosselin, he was surprised at the sight of George Hamon smoking in the doorway of the cottage.

"Why, George, I thought you were off fishing," he said.

"Why then?"

"Your boat's away." And Hamon was leaping down the zigzag before he had finished, while Carré followed more slowly. But no amount of anxious staring across empty waters will bring back a boat that is not there. The boat was gone and Paul Martel with it, and neither was seen again in Sercq.

For many months Rachel Carré lived in instant fear of his unexpectedly turning up again. But he never came, and in time her mind found rest. The peace and aloofness of Belfontaine appealed to her, and at her father's urgent desire she stayed on there, and gave herself wholly to the care of the house and the training of her boy. The name of Martel, with its unpleasant memories, was quietly dropped, and in time came to be almost forgotten. The small boy grew up as Phil Carré, and knew no other name.

I am assured that he was a fine, sturdy little fellow, and that he took after his grandfather in looks and disposition. And his grandfather and Krok delighted in him, and fed his hungry little mind from their own hard-won experiences, and taught him all their craft as he grew able for it, so that few boys of his age could handle boat and nets and lines as he could. And Philip the elder, being of an open mind through his early travels, and believing that God was more like to help them that helped themselves than otherwise, made him a fearless swimmer, whereby the boy gained mighty enjoyment and sturdy health, and later on larger things still.

But it was his mother who led him gently towards the higher things, and opened the eyes of his understanding and the doors of his heart. She taught him more than ever the schoolmaster could, and more than most boys of his day knew. So that in time he came to see in the storms and calms, more than simply bad times and good; and in the clear blue sky and starry dome, in the magical unfoldings of the dawn and the matchless pageants of the sunset, more than mere indications of the weather.

Yet, withal, he was a very boy, full of life and the joy of it, and in their loving watchfulness over his development his mother and grandfather lost sight almost of the darker times out of which he had come, and looked only to that which he might in time come to be.