It struck me after a while that my friend Tardif was unusually silent.
The shifting of the sails appeared to give him plenty to do; and to my
surprise, instead of keeping to the ordinary course, he ran recklessly
as it seemed across the _grunes_, which lie all about the bed of the
channel between Guernsey and Sark. These _grunes_ are reefs, rising a
little above low water, but, as the tide was about half-flood, they were
a few feet below it; yet at times there was scarcely enough depth to
float us over them, while the brown seaweed torn from their edges lay in
our wake, something like the swaths of grass in a meadow after the
scythe has swept through it. Now and then came a bump and a scrape of
the keel against their sharp ridges. The sweat stood in beads upon
Tardif's face, and his thick hair fell forward over his forehead, where
the great veins in the temples were purple and swollen. I spoke to him
after a heavier bump over the _grunes_ than any we had yet come to.
"Tardif," I said, "we are shaving the weeds a little too close, aren't
we?"
"Look behind you, Dr. Martin," he answered, shifting the sails a
little.
I did not look behind us. We were more than half-way over the channel,
and Guernsey lay four miles or so west of us; but instead of the clear
outline of the island standing out against the sky, I could see nothing
but a bank of white fog. The afternoon sun was shining brightly over it,
but before long it would dip into its dense folds. The fogs about our
islands are peculiar. You may see them form apparently thick blocks of
blanched vapor, with a distinct line between the atmosphere where the
haze is and where it is not. To be overtaken by a fog like this, which
would almost hide Tardif at one end of the boat from me at the other,
would be no laughing matter in a sea lined with sunken reefs. The wind
had almost gone, but a little breeze still caught us from the north of
the fog-bank. Without a word I took the oars again, while Tardif devoted
himself to the sails and the helm.
"A mile nearer home," he said, "and I could row my boat as easily in the
dark as you could ride your horse along a lane."
My face was westward now, and I kept my eye upon the fog-bank creeping
stealthily after us. I thought of my mother and Julia, and the fright
they would be in. Moreover a fog like this was pretty often succeeded by
a squall, especially at this season; and when a westerly gale blew up
from the Atlantic in the month of March, no one could foretell when it
would cease. I had been weather-bound in Sark, when I was a boy, for
three weeks at one time, when our provisions ran short, and it was
almost impossible to buy a loaf of bread. I could not help laughing at
the recollection, but I kept an anxious lookout toward the west. Three
weeks' imprisonment in Sark now would be a bore.
But the fog remained almost stationary in the front of Guernsey, and the
round red eyeball of the sun glared after us as we ran nearer and nearer
to Sark. The tide was with us, and carried us on it buoyantly. We
anchored at the fisherman's landing-place below the cliff of the Havre
Gosselin, and I climbed readily up the rough ladder which leads to the
path. Tardif made his boat secure, and followed me; he passed me, and
strode on up the steep track to the summit of the cliff, as if impatient
to reach his home. It was then that I gave my first serious thought to
the woman who had met with the accident.
"Tardif, who is this person that is hurt?" I asked, "and whereabout did
she fall?"
"She fell down yonder," he answered, with an odd quaver in his voice, as
he pointed to a rough and rather high portion of the cliff running
inland; "the stones rolled from under her feet, so," he added, crushing
down a quantity of the loose gravel with his foot, "and she slipped. She
lay on the shingle underneath for two hours before I found her; two
hours, Dr. Martin!"
"That was bad," I said, for the good fellow's voice failed him--"very
bad. A fall like that might have killed her."
We went on, he carrying his oars, and I my little portmanteau. I heard
Tardif muttering. "Killed her!" in a tone of terror; but his face
brightened a little when we reached the gate of the farm-yard. He laid
down the oars noiselessly upon the narrow stone causeway before the
door, and lifted the latch as cautiously as if he were afraid to disturb
some sleeping baby.
He had given me no information with regard to my patient; and the sole
idea I had formed of her was of a strong, sturdy Sark woman, whose
constitution would be tough, and her temperament of a stolid, phlegmatic
tone. There was not ordinarily much sickness among them, and this case
was evidently one of pure accident. I expected to find a nut-brown,
sunburnt woman, with a rustic face, who would very probably be impatient
and unreasonable under the pain I should be compelled to inflict upon
her.
It had been my theory that a medical man, being admitted to the highest
degree of intimacy with his patients, was bound to be as insensible as
an anchorite to any beauty or homeliness in those whom he was attending
professionally; he should have eyes only for the malady he came to
consider and relieve. Dr. Dobrée had often sneered and made merry at my
high-flown notions of honor and duty; but in our practice at home he had
given me no opportunities of trying them. He had attended all our
younger and more attractive patients himself, and had handed over to my
care all the old people and children--on Julia's account, he had said,
laughing.
Tardif's mother came to us as we entered the house. She was a little,
ugly woman, stone deaf, as I knew of old. Yet in some mysterious way she
could make out her son's deep voice, when he shouted into her ear. He
did not speak now, however, but made dumb signs as if to ask how all was
going on. She answered by a silent nod, and beckoned me to follow her
into an inner room, which opened out of the kitchen.
It was a small, crowded room, with a ceiling so low, it seemed to rest
upon the four posts of the bedstead. There were of course none of the
little dainty luxuries about it with which I was familiar in my mother's
bedroom. A long, low window opposite the head of the bed threw a strong
light upon it. There were check curtains drawn round it, and a
patchwork-quilt, and rough, homespun linen. Every thing was clean, but
coarse and frugal--such as I expected to find about my Sark patient, in
the home of a fisherman.
But when my eye fell upon the face resting on the rough pillow I paused
involuntarily, only just controlling an explanation of surprise. There
was absolutely nothing in the surroundings to mark her as a lady, yet I
felt in a moment that she was one. There lay a delicate, refined face,
white as the linen, with beautiful lips almost as white; and a mass of
light, shining, silky hair tossed about the pillow; and large dark-gray
eyes gazing at me beseechingly, with an expression that made my heart
leap as it had never leaped before.
That was what I saw, and could not forbear seeing. I tried to recall my
theory, and to close my eyes to the pathetic beauty of the face before
me; but it was altogether in vain. If I had seen her before, or if I had
been prepared to see any one like her, I might have succeeded; but I was
completely thrown off my guard. There the charming face lay: the eyes
gleaming, the white forehead tinted, and the delicate mouth contracting
with pain: the bright, silky curls tossed about in confusion. I see it
now just as I saw it then.