His name was Thomas Sheather, and he was born in the Ouse Valley of
Sussex, between Lewes and Newhaven; her name was Kitty le Couteur, and
she lived at the Pêche à Agneau, in the Island of Sark; so it was
strange that they should have met and married. Nevertheless, their
marriage took place in the little island church of Peter the Fisherman,
among the memorials of the drowned, with their refrain. “_Ta voie a été
par la mer et tes sentiers dans les grosses eaux._”
Tom had come to Guernsey in a coaster from Deal, a tramp which had
butted her way along the coasts of Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and Dorset,
and then adventured south in the tomato season. There had been a longish
wait for repairs at St. Sampsons; the _Queen of the May_ had been built
for coasting, and the coasts of England, even at Land’s End, have no
weather like the weather of the Casquets and the Burhous. Tom had spent
a great deal of his time ashore, exploring this new island of forts and
greenhouses, and he had met Kitty le Couteur at the home of her cousins,
the le Cheminants, who kept an eating-house in St. Peter Port.
Kitty was small and slim and dark, with big black eyes burning in her
pointed face. She wore little dark modest garments with long tight
sleeves, and demure aprons of which she was not ashamed. She had never
seen a railway, and was afraid to go in a tramcar. She was quite unlike
the girls at home, and her voice was unlike their voices, with its
pretty Frenchy accent like the twitter of a bird. She called him Mister
Sheeter very sedately, and it was quite three days before he could
persuade her to come with him for a walk, and then nothing would make
her go out of Town. But she told him more about herself this time, about
her home in Sark, right away at the Pêche à Agneau, beyond the road’s
end; about her father, who kept the farm, and her brothers Eugene and
Philip, who sailed the cutter; about her own life, lived between sea and
sky, in which this visit to Guernsey was the first adventure.
“My father he not mind me come before, but my brother Eugene and my
brother Philip say, ‘If you go to Guernsey you meet strangers, and
perhaps you marry a stranger, or even an Englishman.’”
Tom cared nothing for brother Eugene nor for brother Philip. Kitty’s
pale face and dark eyes now held the magic which the sea was beginning
to lose. When the _Queen of the May_ started north with pounding
paddle-boxes and a cargo of tomatoes she left Tom Sheather behind in the
island of forts and greenhouses, taking in his stead a Cornishman, who
wanted to see his home after ten years of gathering vraic. Tom stayed
behind as an extra hand for the tomato-picking. He worked on an estate
near Torteval, and once a week he crossed over to Sark in the Saturday
excursion steamer, and walked along Sark’s high backbone to its granite
horns, to where Helier le Couteur’s house looks over the sloping bracken
to Rouge Caneau and Moie de la Bretagne.
He was well received by the old man himself, a kindly, simple creature,
who loved his daughter and was proud of the admiration she had kindled
in the stranger’s breast. He could speak very little English, so their
intercourse consisted chiefly of bowings and smiles. The brothers were,
unfortunately, more fluent, as a part of their business was to take
visitors fishing and sailing, and they were not slow to let Tom hear
their disapproval of his courtship.
“Our sister never marry a Guernseyman or an Englishman,” said Philip.
“Oh, my gar! she do not,” said Eugene.
But she did.
Old Helier was ruler of his household, and when he saw that not only did
the stranger love Kitty, but that Kitty loved the stranger, he refused
to let the island prejudices against England and Guernsey stand in her
light. Besides, it was not true, he told his sons, that the stranger was
_vagabond_. His parents lived in a comfortable house near the big town
of Sussex, and had written the bride’s father a very aristocratic
letter, which _le ministre_ had read to him, and in which they told him
of their intention to do well for the young couple. Then why did he go
to sea in a dirty coaster and turn tomato-picker? says Eugene. Why,
because there are horse-races in England, just as there are in Guernsey,
and the young man lost his money at them, just as they do in Guernsey,
and ran away to sea rather than face his father afterwards--which shows
he had been well brought up. But his father was now ready to forgive
him, and was delighted that he should be marrying a good, pretty girl
like Kitty, whose photograph, taken by a lady visitor, had been sent
over for him to see.
So Tom and Kitty were married, in spite of the grumblings of Eugene and
Philip, and settled down in one of the outlying cottages of La Belle
Hautgarde. Tom helped the old man on his farm, living once more, there
in the midst of the sea, a landsman’s life; for the brothers would never
let him come into their boat.
Time passed and two children were born, both boys, and both with their
mother’s black eyes. Tom created ill-feeling by the names he chose for
them--first Leonard, then Daniel. They were English names; no such names
had ever been given to babies in Sark. There every boy was either Peter
or William or John if he was not Philip or Eugene or Helier--large
clumps of Peters and Williams existing bewilderingly among swarms of
Hamons and Carrés. The Sheathers already had a foreign surname by the
misfortune of their birth, and now their father had doubled their
strangerhood at the font.
Then, after five years, Helier le Couteur died, and his farm became the
property of Eugene, who had lately married a Hamon and begotten a Peter.
Tom Sheather found his position untenable. In his own words, he was fed
up. It was all very well to be on your guard with strangers--at home in
the farms between Lewes and Newhaven foreigners were generally on trial
for a year or two before being absorbed into the local life--but these
Sarkies were just about the limit ... when it came to making foreigners
of your own kin.... Ever since his marriage Eugene and Philip had
mysteriously forgotten the English language; and as he couldn’t learn
their outlandish speech, it was impossible even to have a good quarrel.
They refused to take him out in the cutter, though everyone knew he was
handier with a sail than anyone in this island of toy-boats--they had
persisted in treating him, their sister’s husband for five years, as an
outsider and interloper; and now when the old man, his only friend, was
dead he confessed himself sick of it. Life wasn’t worth living in these
damned islands.... He asked Kitty if she would go home with him to
England, and she agreed--for she loved her stranger.
Nevertheless, she would have liked her third child to be born like the
others in the little room whose windows were full of the sea; and when
he came it was hard to persuade her that he had not taken his fair hair
and blue eyes from the new pale country instead of from his father. She
could never quite get used to the pale, clear colours of the Downs, to
the white cliffs by Newhaven, and the grey, calm sea. But she said she
would never go back to Sark. “I never go back now. It is not my country
any more.” Perhaps this was because--or perhaps it was why--she loved
the flaxen child better than either of the black-eyed children born in
her father’s house.
The old Sheathers had a farm in the parish of Piddinghoe, almost in
the suburbs of Newhaven. The backward growth of the port into the Ouse
Valley had greatly improved the value of their land, and they were able
to do well for their prodigal, whose return they welcomed. They offered
to set him up on a small farm; but Tom had grown tired of farming, just
as he had grown tired of the sea; he thought he would like to be an
innkeeper for a change. Since his parents were anxious to provide for
him, wouldn’t they put him into a nice pub? He would like the Crown, at
Bullockdean, for choice. The landlord had just died.
But the price of the Crown, which was a free house with a substantial
piece of land attached to it, was too high even for a farmer whose
fields are being turned into streets. Another place must be found, and
after a time the George Inn, the other public-house in Bullockdean, came
into the market. It stood almost opposite the Crown, which was certainly
a superior concern in every way. Still, the old George wasn’t so bad. It
was a tied house, of course, but some people said it was none the worse
for that. Tom thought it would be rather fun to see if he couldn’t bust
the Crown. Also he had set his heart on establishing himself near Lewes,
for he had once again begun to frequent the races, the dim first cause
of his romance. Bullockdean was almost midway between Lewes and
Newhaven, and Tom saw the George becoming famous as a house of call for
sailors and racing men. After all, the Crown was much too high-class for
him--too much like a country hotel instead of an honest pub. He liked
something livelier.
So after six years beyond the sea Tom Sheather settled down as landlord
of the George at Bullockdean, and had soon forgotten the islands between
England and France. The mists of the Ouse Valley blotted out the cliffs
of Sark. He never thought of the unfriendly island, of Rouge Terrier or
Moie Fans, of the sunset red and black behind Brecqhou, or of Eugene and
Philip le Couteur mending their nets and talking to each other in their
throaty foreign tongue.
_PART I_