HOW TWO FELL OUT
It was but a thin strip of a moon that had risen above the evening
mists--a mere sickle of red gold--but such as it was it sufficed to lift
the pall of darkness from the earth and set the black sky back into its
proper place.
To Gard the night had suddenly become spacious and ample, and the
peaceful slip of a moon, which grew paler and brighter every minute, was
full of promise.
He was so full of Nance that he had almost forgotten Tom and his
scurrilous insolences.
He crossed the Coupée without any difficulty, enjoyed over again the
recollection of that last crossing, and stood in the cutting on the Sark
side for a moment to marvel at the change an hour had made in his
outlook on things in general.
Tom? Why, he could almost forgive Tom, for it was he who had helped to
bring matters to a head--unconsciously, indeed, and probably quite
against his wish. Still, he had been the instrument--the drop of acid in
the solution which had crystallized their love into set form and made it
visible, and fixed it for life.
Truly, he was half inclined to consider himself under obligation to
Tom--if only his boorishness could be kept in check for the future. For,
of a certainty, he was not going to allow Nance to be made miserable by
his loutish insolences.
He had climbed the cutting and was on the level, when he heard heavy
footsteps coming towards him, and the next moment he was face to face
with the object of his thoughts.
Possibly Tom had expected to meet him and had been preparing for the
fray, for he opened at once with a volley of patois which to Gard was so
much blank cartridge.
“Oh--ho, le velas--corrupteur! Amuseur! Séducteur! Ou quais noutre
fille? Quais qu’on avait fait d’elle d’on?”
“Quite finished?” asked Gard quietly, as the other came to a stop for
want of breath. “Say it all over again in English, and I’ll know what
you’re talking about.”
“English be----!” he broke out afresh, in a turgid mixture of tongues.
“Séducteur, amuseur! Where’s our Nance? Gaderabotin, what have you done
with the girl? I know you, corrupteur! Running after men’s wives--and
our Nance, too! See then--you touch la garche and I’ll--”
“See here! We’ve had enough of this,” said Gard, gripping him by the
shoulders and shaking him. “If you weren’t drunk I’d thrash you within
an inch of your life, you brute. Come back when you’re sober, and I’ll
give you a lesson in manners.”
Tom had been struggling to get his arms up. At last he wrenched himself
free and came on like a bull. One of his flailing fists caught Gard
across the face, flattening his nose and filling one eye with stars; the
other hand, trying to grip his opponent, ripped open his coat, tearing
away both button and cloth.
“You lout!” cried Gard, his blood up and dripping also from his nose.
“If you must have it, you shall;” and he squared up to him to administer
righteous punishment.
And then the futility of it came upon him. The man was three-parts
drunk, in no condition for a fight, scarce able to attempt even to
defend himself.
No punishment of Tom drunk would have the slightest moral effect on Tom
sober. He would remember nothing about it in the morning, except that he
had been knocked about.
When he received his next lesson in deportment it was Gard’s earnest
desire and hope that it might prove a lasting and final one.
So he decided to postpone it, and contented himself with warding and
dodging his furious lunges and rushes, and gave him no blow in return.
Until, at last, after one or two heavy falls of his own occasioning, Tom
gave it up, spluttered a final commination on his opponent, and turned
to go home.
He went blunderingly down into the hollow way, and Gard stood watching
him in doubt.
It seemed hardly possible he could cross the Coupée in that state, and
he felt a sort of moral responsibility towards him. Much as he detested
him, he had no wish to see him go reeling over into Coupée bay.
So he set off after him to see him safely across, and Tom, hearing him
coming, groped in the crumbling side wall till he found a rock of size,
and sent it hurling up the path with another curse.
Then he blundered on, and Gard followed. And Tom stopped again by one of
the pinnacles and sought another rock, and flung it, and it dropped
slowly from point to point till it landed on the shingle three hundred
feet below.
He stood there in the dim light, cursing volubly in patois and shaking
his fist at Gard; but at last, to Gard’s great relief, he humped his
back and stumbled away up the cutting on the further side.
And Gard, very sick of it all, and with an aching head and a very tender
nose, but withal with a warm glow at the heart which no aches or pains
could damp down, turned and went home to bed.