"You'll not forget to come back for us about eight," Graeme shouted to
the boatmen, as they pushed off from the fretted black rock on which
their passengers had just made precarious landing.
"Nossir!" and they pulled away to their fishing.
"If it should be a fine sunset," he explained to the ladies, "the view
of the Sark cliffs from Belême there, opposite the Gouliots, is one of
the finest sights in the island."
The place they had landed was a rough ledge on the south side just
under the Pente-à-Fouaille, some distance past the Pirates' Cave, and
the ascent, though steep, was not so difficult as it looked. Graeme,
however, in his capacity of chaperon, insisted on convoying them
separately to the top--whereby he got holding Margaret's hand for the
space of sixty pulse-beats--and then went down again for the cloaks
and provisions.
Brecqhou, at the moment, was uninhabited. Its late occupant had thrown
up his post suddenly, and gone to live on Sark with his wife, and a
new caretaker had not yet been appointed. So they went straight to the
house, deposited their belongings in the sitting-room, and then
started out for a long ramble round the island.
First they struck west to Le Nesté, and scrambled among the rough
rocks of the Point, stepping cautiously over the gulls' nests which
lay thick all about, some with eggs and some with young.
The wonders of the sea-gardens in the rock-pools of Moie Batarde, and
the entrancing views of Herm and Jethou and Guernsey, gleaming across
the sapphire sea, with a magnificent range of snowy cloud-mountain
breasting slowly up the deep blue of the sky behind, and looking solid
enough to sit on, as Miss Penny said, absorbed them till midday.
Then they returned to the house, lit a fire of dried gorse, filled
their kettle at the well and set it to boil, and carried out a table
and chairs, for eating indoors was out of the question with such
beneficence of sunshine inviting them to the open.
All the afternoon was occupied with the wonders of the Creux-à-Vaches,
with its bold scarps and rounded slopes draped with ferns and
enamelled with flowers, and the crannies and indentations of the
northern side of the island. They sat for a time on Belême cliff
entranced with the wonderful view of the bold western headlands of
Sark, unrolled before them like a gigantic panorama from Bec-du-Nez to
the Moie de Bretagne,--a sight the like of which one might travel many
thousand miles and still not equal. And they promised themselves a
still finer view when the setting sun washed every cliff and crag and
cranny with living gold.
But as they turned to tramp through the ragwort and bracken towards
the house, intent on cups of tea, the sight of the western sky gave
them sudden start. The solid range of snow-white cloud-mountains had
climbed the heavens half-way to the zenith, and was stretching thin
white streamers still further afield. And its base in the west had
grown dark and threatening, with pallid wisps of cloud scudding up it
like flying scouts bearing ill tidings.
"Wind, I'm afraid," said Graeme, "and maybe thunder--"
And as he spoke a zigzag flash ripped open the dark screen, and a
crackling peal came rattling over the lead-coloured sea and bellowed
past them in long-drawn reverberations.
"Johnnie was right after all, the little monkey."
"I'm sorry now I didn't give him that sixpence," said Miss Penny.
"I don't suppose it would have made much difference--except to
Johnnie. However, I hope it will soon blow over. Good thing we've got
a shelter, and we can enjoy our tea while the elements settle matters
among themselves outside."
The storm broke over them before the kettle boiled. The rain thrashed
the house fiercely under the impulse of a wild south-west wind, which
grew wilder every minute, and the thunder bellowed about them as
though the very heavens were cracking.
"This is a trifle rough on inoffensive pilgrims," said Graeme. "I'm
really sorry to have got you into it."
"You didn't do it on purpose, did you, Mr. Graeme?" asked Miss Penny,
with pointed emphasis.
"I did not. I devoutly wish you were both safe home in the Rue Lucas."
"All in good time. Meanwhile, we might be worse off, and this tea is
going to be excellent. Margaret, my child, do you know that tea under
these conditions is infinitely preferable to tea in Melgrave Square,
under any conditions whatsoever?"
"It is certainly a change," said Margaret.
"And a very decided improvement. It's what some of my young friends
would call 'just awfully jolly decent,'" said Miss Penny.
"We're not out of the wood--that is to say, the island--yet,"
suggested Graeme.
"Or we shouldn't be here enjoying ourselves like this. Brecqhou is
sheer delight."
"On a fine day," said Margaret quietly.
"Or in a thunderstorm," asserted Miss Penny militantly. But Margaret
would not fight lest it should seem like casting reflections on their
present estate.
The thunder rolled over the wide waters with a majesty of utterance
novel to their unaccustomed city ears, the rain drew a storm-gray veil
over everything past the well, the wind waxed into hysterical fury,
tore at the roof and gables, and went shrieking on over Sark. And
above the rush of wind and rain, in the short pauses between the
thunder-peals, the hoarse roar of the waves along the black bastions
of Brecqhou grew louder and louder in their ears.
Graeme's face grew somewhat anxious, as he stood at the window and
peered westward as far as he could see, and found nothing but fury and
blackness there. He had a dim recollection of hearing of outer islands
such as this being cut off from the mainland for days at a time. He
could imagine what the sea must be like among the tumbled rocks below.
And he had seen the Race of the Gouliot in storm time once before, and
doubted much if any boat would face the whirl and rush of its piled-up
waters.
What on earth were they to do if the men could not get across for
them?
Suppose they had to pass the night there?
Good Heavens! Suppose they could not get across for days? What were
they to live on?--to come at once to the lowest but most pressing
necessity of the situation?
They had weather-proof shelter. Firing they could procure from the
interior woodwork of the house and outbuildings. And they had a small
amount of tea and sugar, and half a tin of condensed milk, and rather
more than half of the day's provisions, since they had contemplated
high tea before embarking again. He determined that, if the storm
showed no signs of abating, the high tea must be a low one, since its
constituents might possibly have to serve for to-morrow's breakfast
as well.
Both girls, their own perceptions strung tight by the electric state
of matters outside, noticed the touch of anxiety in his face as he
turned from the window, but both declined to show it.
"How's her head, Captain?" asked Miss Penny jovially.
"Dead on to a lee shore," he answered in her own humour. "But the
anchorage is good and we're not likely to drift."
"Come! That's something to be thankful for, under the circumstances.
Brecqhou banging broadside on to that big black Gouliot rock would be
a most unpleasant experience. How about the sunset cliffs of Sark?"
"They're very much under a cloud. I'm afraid we must pass them for
this time and choose a better. The cliffs indeed are there, but the
sun is much a-wanting."
"Hamlet without the ghost of a father or even a sun."
"Truly!" And looking at Margaret, he said earnestly, "I can't tell you
how sorry I am it has turned out this way."
"But it is no fault of yours, Mr. Graeme. No one could possibly have
foreseen such a breakdown in the weather, with such a glorious morning
as we had."
"After all, I'm not at all sure it isn't all Mr. Graeme's fault," said
Miss Penny musingly.
"As how?" he asked.
"Didn't you stop me giving Johnnie Vautrin six demanded pennies to
keep it fine all day?"
"I discouraged the imposition, certainly. But I don't suppose Johnnie
could have done much--except with your sixpence."
"He's a queer clever boy, is Johnnie. He certainly said it wasn't
going to keep fine."
"Little humbug!"
"Yet you gave him fivepence for seeing--or saying he saw--two crows
and three crows, because two crows mean good luck and three crows
mean----"
"You talk as if you believed his nonsense, Hennie," broke in Margaret.
"Perhaps I do--to some extent. He certainly declined to pledge himself
to a fine day, and it remains to be seen if the rest of his--"
"--Humbug," suggested Graeme.
"We'll say predictions, since we're in a superstitious land,--come
true. I shouldn't be a bit surprised. Thunderstorms are not, as a
rule, deadly, and it is conceivable that they may, at times, even be
means of grace. Would you mind piling some more gorse on that fire,
Mr. Graeme? A counter-illumination is cheerful when the heavens
without are all black and blazing. What a joke it would be if we had
to stop here all night!"--she said it with intention, and Graeme
understood and blessed her.
"We'll hope it won't come to that," he said, as lightly as he could
make it. "But, if it should, we could make ourselves fairly
comfortable. Robinson Crusoes up to date!"
"No--Swiss Family Robinsons!" was Margaret's quota to the lightening
of gloom. "The way everything turned up just when that interesting
family required it struck me as marvellous even when I was a child."
"You always were of an acutely enquiring--not to say
doubting--disposition, my dear, ever since I knew you," said Miss
Penny.
"I always liked to get at the true truth of things, and humbug always
annoyed me."
"No wonder you found Mr. Pixley a trial, dear," said Miss Penny.
"You don't mean to cast stones of doubt at that shining pillar of the
law and society, Miss Penny?" said Graeme, tempted to enlarge on so
congenial a subject.
"Mr. Pixley does not appeal to me--nor I to him. I like him just as
much as he likes me. And that's just that much,"--with a snap of the
fingers.
"I'm afraid you and I are in the same boat," said Graeme enjoyably.
"I shouldn't be a bit surprised,--and for the same reason. We both
like--"
"What shall we do for provisions, Mr. Graeme, if the storm continues?"
asked Margaret, and Miss Penny smiled knowingly.
"I suggest husbanding those we have. It can't surely last long."
"Mrs. Carré was telling us the other night that once no steamer could
get to Sark from Guernsey for three weeks," chirped Miss Penny. "If a
steamer couldn't get to Sark, how should a small boat get to
Brecqhou--Q.E.D.?"
"Gracious!" cried Margaret in dismay.
"Mr. Graeme would have to catch rabbits for us--and fish. And I
believe there are potatoes growing outside there. Our clothing will be
in rags, Meg. Mr. Graeme will be a wild man of the woods, and all our
portraits will appear in the illustrated papers. The Outcasts of
Brecqhou. Marooned on an Uninhabited Island. Three Weeks Alone."
"I'm off for a look round," said Graeme. "If that boat should be
waiting for us, somewhere down below, it would be too stupid for us to
be waiting for it up here," and he turned up his coat collar and
pulled his cap over his brows.
"You'll get soaked," said Margaret. "Please take this, it will help a
little," and she jumped up and thrust her golfing cloak into his
hands. He seemed about to refuse, then thanked her hastily, and threw
it over his shoulders and went out.
The wind caught him and whirled him along towards Belême cliffs. He
tacked to the south and made a slant for the place where they had
landed. As soon as he was out of sight of the house he drew the hood
of the cloak over his head and rejoiced in it.
To be wearing her cloak brought Margaret appreciably nearer. Possibly
that hood had even been over her head, had touched her shining hair,
her fair soft cheek. He pressed it to his face, to his lips, and the
hot blood danced in his veins at his temerity. The gale bellowed
outside and drove him staggering, but inside the hood was the
uplifting warmth and glow of personal contact with the beloved. Her
very mantle was sacred to him. He fancied he could detect in it a
subtle intimation of herself. He hugged it close, and leaned back upon
the gale, and drifted towards the southern cliffs.
One glance at the black rocks below,--now hidden by the rushing fury
of the surges, now outstanding gaunt and grim, with creamy cascades
pouring back into the roaring welter below,--showed him how impossible
it would have been for any boat to approach there.
He plunged on through the masses of dripping ragwort towards the
eastern cliff, and stood absorbed by the grim fury of the Gouliot
Race. The driven waves split on the western point of Brecqhou and came
rocketing along the ragged black rocks on either side in wild bursts
of foam. The Gouliot Passage was roaring with the noise of many
waters, and boiling and seething like a gigantic pot. The sea was
white with beaten spume for half a mile each way, and up through the
tumbling marbled surface great black coils of water came writhing and
bubbling from their tribulation on the hidden rocks below. The black
fangs of the Gouliots were grimmer than ever. The long line of scoured
granite cliffs on either side looked like great bald-headed eagles
peering out hungrily for their prey.
There were no boats at the anchorage in Havre Gosselin. He learned
afterwards that they had all run to the shelter of Creux Harbour on
the other side of the island. He breasted the gale and headed for the
house.
"I'm very much afraid we're stuck for the night," he said, as they
looked up enquiringly on his entrance. "There's not a sign of a boat,
and I'm quite sure no boat could face that sea. Sark looks like an
outcast island--the very end of the world."
"Then we'll make ourselves comfortable here," said Miss Penny. "We
began to fear you'd been blown over the cliffs. Is there plenty of
wood in the house?"
"I'll go and get some more," and he came back with a great armful of
broken driftwood, and went again for as much gorse as he could carry
in a rude wooden fork he found near the stack.
"You must be soaked through and through," said Margaret.
"Bit damp, but your cloak was a great help," and he piled gorse and
chunks of wood on the fire till its roaring almost drowned the noise
of the storm outside.