HOW NANCE CAME UP THE MAIN SHAFT WITHOUT GOING DOWN IT
It was a few days after this that Gard had another proof of Nance’s and
Bernel’s fearlessness and prowess in the waters they had conquered into
friendliness.
Bernel was a great fisherman. He could wheedle out rock-fish by the
dozen while envious miners sat about him tugging hopefully at empty
lines.
He had gone down one afternoon to the overhanging wooden slip at Port
Gorey, and had excellent sport, until a sudden shift of the wind to the
south-west began piling the waters into the gulf on an incoming tide.
Then he drew in his lines and sat dangling his legs for a few minutes,
before gathering up his catch and going home.
Nance saw him from the other headland and came tripping round to see how
he had fared.
“Bern,” she cried, as she came up. “Tell that man he’s not safe down
there. The waves are bad there sometimes.”
“Hi, you!” cried Bernel, to a miner who had been watching his success
and had then climbed down seaward over the furrowed black ledges, hoping
to do better there. “Come back! It’s not safe there.”
But the fisherman, intent on his sport, either did not, or would not,
hear him.
“Oh, well, if you won’t,” said Bernel.
And then, without warning, a wave greater than any that had gone before
it, hurled itself up the rocks and came roaring over the black ledges
into the bay, and the man was gone.
Nance and Bernel had straightened up instantly at the sound of its
coming.
Their eyes swept the rocks, and caught a glimpse of the dark body
tumbling with the cascade of foam into Port Gorey.
“Oh, Bern!” cried Nance, with up-clasped hands.
But Bernel, loosing his belt and kicking off his breeches with a glance
at the derelict, launched himself clear of the pier with a shout. And
Nance, seeing the bulk of the man, and careless of everything but Bernel
who seemed so very small compared with him, threw off her sun-bonnet and
linen jacket, loosed a button, and was gone like a white flash after the
two of them.
Gard was in the assay office not far away. He heard the shout and ran
out just in time to see Nance go, and running to the slip he saw their
clothes lying and the meaning of it all.
Bern had hold of the miner by the collar of his coat, and was doing his
best with one hand to tow him to the shingle at the head of the gulf,
the almost drowned one splashing wildly and doing his utmost to get hold
of and drown his rescuer. Every now and again Bernel found it necessary
to let go in order to keep out of his way.
Nance swam steadily up and the sinking one made a frantic clutch at her.
“Lie quiet or you shall drown,” she cried. “Do you hear? Lie quiet and
you are safe! See!” and she held his right hand while Bernel took his
left and the man found himself no longer sinking, and they struck out
for the shingle.
Others of the miners had run down with ropes, but ropes were useless in
that deep gulf. Nance and Bernel were doing the only thing possible, and
Gard saw that they were all right now that the man had ceased to
struggle.
He picked up Bernel’s things, and Nance’s, with a curious feeling of
delight and a touch of shyness, her sun-bonnet, her little linen jacket,
her woollen skirt, her neat little wooden sabots, and ran swiftly with
them to the shaft at the head of the gulf.
They would make for the adit, he thought, and so gain the shaft and come
up by the ladders, if, indeed, John Thomas was in any state to climb
ladders.
“Bring some brandy,” he shouted to one of the men, and ran on. Nance was
more to him than all the miners in Sark, and it was not brandy she would
be wanting, he knew, but her clothes.
And, since a man needs both his hands to go down almost perpendicular
ladders, he left at the top all that she would not instantly need and
took only the little jacket and the woollen skirt. These he rolled into
a bundle as he ran, and gripped in his teeth as he began the descent,
and rejoiced all the way down in this close intimacy with her clothing.
Indeed, on one of the stages, when he stopped for a moment’s breathing,
he kissed the little garments devoutly, and then laughed shamefacedly at
himself for his foolishness, and glanced round quickly lest any should
have witnessed it.
So down, down, till he came to the level, and crept along the adit to
the shore.
They had dragged John Thomas up on to the shingle, and he lay there
half-dead and fuller of water than was his custom.
Nance looked up quickly at the sound of Gard’s feet, and the paled-brown
of her face flushed red at sight of him, and then a grateful gleam
lighted it as he dropped her things into her hand and bent over John
Thomas, who was showing signs of life in a dazed and water-logged
fashion.
“You did splendidly, you two,” he said to Bernel. “It’s a grand thing to
save a man’s life, even if it’s only John Thomas,” for John Thomas had
found this land of free spirits too much for him, and had become a
soaker and an indifferent workman.
“He’ll be all right after a bit,” he added. “I told them to send down
some brandy,” at which John Thomas groaned heavily to show his
extremity. “As soon as it comes, Bernel, you help Nance up the ladders.
Then run home both of you. Your things are at the top, Bernel. And here
comes the brandy. Now, up you go! Do you think you can manage the
ladders?” he asked Nance.
“I’ll manage them,” and they crept away into the darkness of the adit,
and Nance thought she had never been in such a hideous place in her
life.