The days were packed with enjoyment for Graeme; not less for Miss
Penny; nor--illuminated and titillated with a conposed expectancy as
to whither all this might be leading her--for Margaret herself.
Graeme took the joyful burden of their proper entertainment entirely
on his own shoulders. He reaped in full now the harvest of his lonely
wanderings, and compared those former gloomy days with these golden
ones with a heart so jubilant that the light of it shone in his eyes
and in his face, and made him fairly radiant.
"That young man grows handsomer every day," was Miss Penny's
appreciative comment, in the privacy of hair-brushing.
Margaret expressed no opinion.
"I thought him uncommonly good-looking as soon as I set eyes on him,
but he's growing upon me. I do hope, for his sake, that I shan't fall
in love with him."
And at that a tiny gleam of a smile hovered for a moment in the curves
of Margaret's lips, behind the silken screen of her hair.
No trouble was too great for him if it added to their pleasure. He
provisioned their expeditions with lavish discrimination. He forgot
nothing,--not even the salt. He carried burdens and kindled fires for
the boiling of kettles, and saw to their comfort and more, in every
possible way. He assisted them up and down steep places, and
Margaret's hand grew accustomed to the steady strength of his. She
came to look for the helping hand whenever the ways grew difficult. At
times she--yes, actually, she caught herself grudging Hennie-Penny
what seemed to her too long an appropriation of it.
Never surely were the beauties of Sark seen under happier auspices, or
through eyes attuned to more lively appreciation. For love-lit eyes
see all things lovely, and no more perfect loveliness of sea and rock
and flower and sky may be found than such as go to the making of this
little isle of Sark.
He guided their more active energies through the anemone-studded and
sponge-fringed caves under the Gouliots; through the long
rough-polished, sea-scoured passages of the Boutiques; down the seamed
cliffs at Les Fontaines and Grande Grève; along the precarious tracks
and iron rings into Derrible; with the assistance of a rope, into Le
Pot. And for rest-times they spent long delightful afternoons sitting
among the blazing gorse cushions of the Eperquerie, and on that great
rock that elbows Tintageu into the waves, and looks down on the one
side on Port du Moulin and the Autelets, and on the other into Pegane
Bay and Port á la Jument.
This high perch had a peculiar fascination for Margaret. She could
have sat there day after day with perfect enjoyment. She never tired
of it all--the crisp green waters below, with their dazzling fringe of
foam round every gray rock and headland; the gold-tipped pinnacles of
the Autelets, with their fluttering halos of gulls and sea-pies and
cormorants, and their ridi-fringe of tawny seaweed and foamy lace; the
rounded slopes of the Eperquerie; the bold cliffs behind, with their
sprawling gray feet in the emerald sea, and their green and gold
shoulders humping up into the blue sky; beyond them the black Gouliot
rocks and foaming Race, and the long soft bulk of Brecqhou with its
seamy sides and black-mouthed caves.
And here one day they had a novel experience, and Margaret learned
something--got fullest proof, at all events, of something her heart
had already told her.
They were sitting in the sea-ward cleft of this great rock behind
Tintageu, one afternoon, and Graeme had just succeeded in getting the
kettle to boil by means of an armful of old gorse bushes, when,
straightening up for a rest, he said suddenly,--"Hello! Look at that
now!" and pointed out towards Guernsey.
And there they saw a low white cloud, lying on the sea as though it
had just dropped solidly out of the sky. Sea and sky were vivid vital
blue, the sun shone brilliantly, Guernsey, Jethou, and Herm gleamed
like jewels, and the white cloud lay between the upper and the nether
blue like the white ghost of a new-born island not yet invested with
the attributes of earth.
And, as they watched, it crept quickly along the blue-enamelled plain.
It swallowed up the southern cliffs of Guernsey. Its creeping nose was
level with the tall Doyle column. It crept on and on, till Castle
Cornet disappeared and Peter Port was lost to sight. On and on--Jethou
was gone, and bit by bit the long green and gold slopes of Herm were
conquered, and its long white spear of sand ran out of the low white
cloud. And still on, till all the outlying rocks and islands vanished,
and where had been the glow and colour of life was nothing now but
that strange pall-like cloud.
The blue of the sea in front had whitened, and suddenly the sentinel
rocks at the tail of Brecqhou disappeared, and the white cloud came
sweeping towards the watchers on the rock by Tintageu.
"We're in for it too," said Graeme, hastily emptying his kettle and
packing up the tea-things. "Seems to me we'd better get ashore."
But the cloud was on them, soft films of gauzy mist with the sun still
bright overhead. Then quickly-rolling folds of dense white cloud
blotted out everything but the path on which they stood. The gorse and
blue-bells and sea-pinks at their feet drooped suddenly wan and
colourless, as though stricken with mortal sickness, and wept sad
tears. They stood bewildered, while the pallid folds grew thicker and
thicker, lit from above with a strange spectral glare, and coiling
about them like the trailing garments of an army of ghosts. From the
unseen abysses all round came the growl and wash of wave on rock and
shingle, from the cliff above Pegane came the frightened bleat of a
lamb, and an invisible gull went squawking over their heads on his way
inland.
With an instinct for safer quarters, Miss Penny had started off
towards the path which led precariously across the narrow neck to the
mainland. The neck itself, with white clouds of mist billowing on
either side, and streaming raggedly across the path, looked fearsome
enough. She gave a startled cry and stood still.
"Stay here!" said Graeme to Margaret. "Don't move an inch!" and he
felt his way, foot by foot, towards the causeway.
And Margaret, who had been regarding it all simply as a curious
experience, felt suddenly very lonely and not very safe.
She heard him speak to Miss Penny, but she could not see two feet in
front of her.