Chapter IX: Part THE SIXTH: I

Graeme was just finishing a beautiful knot in his tie, when he heard hasty feet crossing the verandah to the open front door. There was some unknown quantity in them that gave him sudden start.

"Graeme!" sharp, hoarse,--a voice he did not recognise.

He ran hastily out of the east bedroom, which he was using as a dressing-room.

"Hello there!" as he sprang down the stairs, "Why--Pixley? What's wrong, man?"

For Charles Pixley was standing there, leaning in at the doorway, looking as though he would fall headlong but for the supporting jamb. He had a brown envelope in his hand and a crumpled pink telegram. His face was white, and drawn, and haggard. His very figure seemed to have shrunk in these few minutes. Never had Graeme seen so ghastly a change in a man in so short a time.

Before Pixley could speak Miss Penny came hurrying along the path with a face full of sympathetic anxiety.

"What is it?" she asked. "I saw Mr. Pixley pass, and his face frightened me. Oh, what is wrong?"

Pixley glanced at her out of his woeful eyes, and at Margaret, who had just come running down the stairs. He seemed to hesitate for a moment. Then he groaned--

"You will have to know," and motioned them all into the dining-room and shut the door.

"This "--jerking out the telegram--"was waiting for me," and he handed it to Graeme, who smoothed it out and read, while Pixley dropped into a chair.

"Pixley. Bel-Air. Sark.

"Zizel, Amadou, Zebu, Zeta. Eno."

"Code," said Pixley briefly. "Meanings underneath," and dropped his head into his hands.

"Zizel," read Graeme slowly--"There is bad news. Amadou--your father. Zebu--has bolted. Zeta--we fear the smash will be a bad one. Eno--?"

"My partner's initials--they certify the wire," said Pixley hoarsely.

And they looked soberly at one another and very pitifully at the broken man before them.

"Don't take it too hard, Pixley," said Graeme quietly, laying a friendly hand on the other's shoulder. "It may not be as bad as this puts it. Codes are brutally bald things, you know"

The bowed head shook pitifully. He raised his white face and looked round at them with a shocked shrinking in his eyes.

"God forgive him!" he jerked. "And God forgive me, for I have doubted him at times! He was so--so--so demned good"--and Graeme's lips twitched in spite of himself, so closely was the expression in accord with his own feelings. But Pixley did not see the twitch, for he was looking at Margaret and Hennie Penny, and he was saying with vehemence--

"Will you believe me that I knew absolutely nothing of this? He never discussed his affairs with me nor I mine with him, and we had no business together except on purely business lines. If he had to buy or sell he sent it my way, of course,--nothing more. You will believe me, Graeme--"

"Every word, my boy--"

"We all believe it, Mr. Pixley," said Hennie Penny warmly.

"And I know it, Charles," said Margaret.

"It is very good of you all," he groaned. "I must get back at once, Graeme. How soon is there a boat?"

"Five o'clock. You'll have to stop a night in Guernsey, which is a nuisance."

Charles Svendt shook his head in dumb misery. It was crushing to be so far away--thirty hours at least, and he gnashing within to be on the spot and at work, learning the worst, seeing what could be done.

Then, with a preliminary knock on the door, Mrs. Carre came in with brilliant lobsters and crisp lettuces for lunch, and, hungry as they all were, their souls loathed the thought of eating.

"They are just out of the pot," beamed she, "and the lettuces were growing not five min'ts ago. Ech!"--at sight of Pixley--"is he ill?"

"Mr. Pixley has just had bad news from home, Mrs. Carre," said Graeme. "He will have to go by to-day's boat."

"Ach, but I am sorry! And him so happy yesterday and dancing the best in the room," and her pleasant face clouded sympathetically.

"Meg, I'll go up to your room for a minute and finish my hair," said Hennie Penny. "I ran out just as I was--"

"It was very kind of you," said Charles Svendt, and the general sympathy seemed to comfort him somewhat.

"No good feeling too bad about it, old man, till you know all the facts," said Graeme, when the girls had gone off upstairs.

"It hits me, Graeme. Not financially, as I said. But in every other way it hits me hard.--Have you reached the point of seeing that it may hit her too?"--and he nodded towards upstairs.

"I suppose there was a glimmering idea of the chance of that at the back of my head somewhere, but we won't trouble about it just now. How about your mother?"

Pixley shook his head dismally again. "It will be a terrible blow to her. He was a bit hard and cold at home, you know, but she looked up to him as immaculate. Yes, it will hit her very hard. As to money, of course, she will be all right. I have plenty. But the talk and the scandal--" and he groaned again at thought of it all.

"Send her over here for a time--or bring her yourself. We have heaps of room here. Miss Penny is coming to stop with us next week. Your mother was always fond of Margaret, I believe."

"She was--very fond of her.... That's a good thought of yours, Graeme. Are you sure Margaret--?"

"Of course she would. She and Miss Penny will just take care of her, and no word of the troubles will reach her. That's the thing to do, and maybe you'll find things not as bad as you expect when you get back."

But, from the look of him, Charles Svendt had small hope of matters being anything but what he feared.

When the girls came down they made an apology of a meal, for, in spite of their hunger, the stricken look of their friend took their appetites away.

The thought that there might still lurk in their minds a suspicion that he had had some knowledge of his father's position, when he came across to stop their marriage, still troubled him.

"I do hope you will all believe me when I say that I knew absolutely nothing of it all," he said, when they had finished an almost silent meal. "When I said I had doubted him at times, I simply meant that his everlasting and--and--well, very assertive philanthropies palled upon me. It was a little difficult at times to believe in the genuineness of it all, for we did not see very much of it at home, as you know,"--he looked at Margaret, who nodded. "In business matters he could be as hard as nails, and it was not easy to fit it all together."

"Not one of us believes anything of the kind of you, old man. Just get that right out of your head, once for all. We're only sorry for your sake that the trouble has come, and I'm sure we all hope it will turn out not so bad as you fear," said Graeme heartily.

"What about your mother, Charles?" said Margaret. "I'm afraid she will feel this dreadfully. Hennie and I were talking about it upstairs, and we were wondering if you could get her to come and stop with us for a time--"

"You see!" said Graeme, with a smile at Pixley. And to Margaret--"I suggested exactly the same thing while you were up doing your hair."

"It's awfully good of you all," said Charles. "If you're quite sure--"

"We're quite sure. Send her to us at once as soon as you reach home, and Jock shall meet her in Guernsey."

"I think I'd perhaps better bring her across myself. I don't suppose there will be much I can do when I've heard the worst--if they've got to it yet. Things may be all tangled up, and it may take time. And for ten days or so, until folks have had time to forget, the name of Pixley won't be one to be proud of."

"Come if you can," said Graeme heartily. "You've seen nothing of Sark yet."

II

They all went down to the harbour to see him off--as is the custom when one's friends leave Sark. And when Charles Svendt had shaken hands with Margaret and Miss Penny--and had found a touch of comfort in the sympathetic droop of their faces--and had fancied Miss Penny's bright eyes were at once brighter and mistier than usual--and had thanked them again very humbly for all their kindness--he turned to say good-bye to Graeme.

"Come away, man!" said Jock cheerfully. "I'm coming too. Meg's given me a holiday, and I'm going to shake a free leg again in Guernsey--"

But Charles thought he saw through that.

"Don't you come on my account, Graeme"

"Not on your account at all, my boy, but the accounts of a good many shopkeepers over there which I've got to straighten out at once, while all the little differences are fresh in my mind. Something wrong in nearly all of them--some over, some under--and I'm still a bit of a business man though I do write books."

For, when Pixley went off to pack his portmanteau, Graeme had said to his wife, "Meg dear, what do you think of my going across to Peter Port with that young man? He'll have a bad black time all by himself. He's holding himself in before us, but when he's alone it'll all come back on him in a heap and he'll feel it."

And Margaret had said, "Yes, dear, go. You'll be a great comfort to him. I am very very sorry for him."

The last flicker of the waving handkerchiefs above the sea-wall, and their responsive wavings from the boat, had been abruptly cut by the intervening bastion of Les Laches, but Charles Svendt still leaned with his arms on the rail and looked back as though he could pierce the granite cliff and see the girls still standing there, and Graeme stood patiently behind him.

He straightened up at last with a sigh.

"I'm glad I came," he said, "though if I'd had any idea what was going to happen I'd have drowned myself first. It's when one's in trouble"--as though this were a discovery of his own--"that one finds out how kind people can be."

"Yes, trouble has its uses. I had a deuce of a time for the first few weeks after I got here. Your dad had told me you and Margaret were to be married very shortly, and it knocked life into a cocked-hat for me--"

"That's what he would have liked. Do you know, Graeme, I've been thinking that it's just possible your marriage helped to precipitate matters with him. I don't know, of course; but if he has been juggling her money in any way, he may have been counting on a marriage between us to help straighten things. Then, when he heard nothing from me--"

"It's possible. But if it acted as quickly as all that, I'm afraid the chances for Margaret's portion are pretty small."

"Gad! That would hurt me more than anything. I shall do everything in my power--"

"I'm sure of it, my dear fellow. And you must understand that her money--whatever it is--has never entered into our calculations in any way. I knew nothing of it till Lady Elspeth Gordon told me, and I had it all settled on her before the wedding took place. If it is gone we can do without it."

And Charles Svendt, if he said nothing, thought all the more.

III

The two girls were standing in the outermost seaward corner of the breakwater, as though they had never moved, when the _Assistance_ came nosing round Les Laches next morning, and made for the harbour. And to Graeme, the sight of his wife, after a separation of eighteen hours, was like a life-giving stream to a pilgrim of the desert, or the blessing of light to a darkened soul. His heart swelled almost to paining-point for very joy of her. He took deep breaths of gratitude for this sweet crowning of his life. He wondered vaguely why he should be so blest above all other men. He vowed his vows again and his eyes were misty.

They saw him standing by the captain, and waved glad welcomes, and presently, his glimpse into the depths of Margaret's eyes as he kissed her, told him that he had been missed even as he had missed.

"I am glad I went with him," he said, as they climbed the steep Creux Road. "It did him good to talk. He's feeling it terribly."

He did not tell them that they had got the previous day's papers in St. Peter Port, and that their scathing comments on a peculiarly bad failure, and on the remarkable contrast between the profession and the practice of Jeremiah Pixley's life, had driven Charles Svendt almost crazy. The wound was raw in their hearts. There was no need to turn the knife in it.

"We shall see him back here with Mrs. Pixley before the middle of next week, unless I'm very much mistaken," he said. "He says there's nothing doing on the Stock Exchange, and he can fix things with his partner to get away for a time, and it seems the wisest thing to do."

"I have liked Charles better this time than I ever did in my life before," said Margaret. "And I am very very sorry for him and Mrs. Pixley."

"He's not half a bad fellow," said Graeme heartily.

And perhaps, if it had been put to Miss Penny, she would have improved even upon that.

"I hope you're not very set on being a rich woman, Meg," said Graeme, when they were alone together.

"Oh, but I am," she said, with a smile which all the riches in the world could not have bought from her, or brought to her.

"Yes, I know,"--and he gathered the smile with a kiss. "But in coarse material wealth, I mean."

"I'm just as set on it as you are. I want just as much as will make you happy. You mean Mr. Pixley has made away with it all?"

"I'm very much afraid so, but I guess we can get along all right without it."

"Of course we can--splendidly. I'm a famous housekeeper and you'll be a famous author. There couldn't be a better team. It will bring out the very best that's in us."

"We can never come to actual want anyway, for my little bit--which, by the way, Lady Elspeth once took the trouble to impress upon me was just about enough to pay Mr. Pixley's servants' wages--is in Consols, and they're not likely to crack up. And my last book brought me about fifty pounds--"

"It ought to have brought you five thousand. I'm sure it was good enough."

"Of course it was, but it takes time to work up to the five thousand point. Some get there, I suppose. But I should imagine more starve off at the fifty line."

"We could live like princes on a couple of hundred a year in Sark here."

"It would pall on you in time, I'm afraid."

"You've been here twice as long as I have. Has it begun to pall on you yet?"

"I don't think it would ever pall on me, if I lived here for a century. But then I've got my work, you see."

"And I've got you, my dear. When you and Sark begin to pall I'll promise to let you know. It's heavenly."

"Oh, I don't claim all that, you know. Don't expect _too_ much--"

"Will Charles be involved at all, do you think, Jock?"

"I don't think so. They had not much to do with one another in business matters."

"I'm glad of that. Do you know"--with an introspective look in her eyes--"I've an idea--"

"Hennie Penny?"

Margaret nodded.

"That would be capital. She'd make him an excellent wife."

"I'm sure she would. She's just what he needs. She's as good as gold, and she has more genuine common-sense than anyone I know."

"Thousand thanks!"

"Oh, we're exceptions to all rules. But I do hope something--I mean everything--may come of it. And we would all have reason to bless this blessed little island all our days."

"Some of us will, anyway. It certainly shall not go unblest."

IV

On the Tuesday afternoon Graeme received a brief telegram from Charles Pixley--"Crossing tonight." And Wednesday morning found them all on the sea-wall awaiting the arrival of the steamer from Guernsey.

"There he is--in the front corner of the upper deck--keen to get here as soon as possible, I should say. I know just how he feels," said Graeme, with a laugh. "Looks a bit different from what he did the first time he came."

"That's Mrs. Pixley on the side seat," said Margaret, and they waved their welcomes.

There were two ladies on the side seat, and both stood up and waved vigorously in reply.

"Why--who--?" began Margaret. And then--excitedly, "Jock--I believe it's Lady Elspeth. I'm certain it is. It is. It is."

"Just like her! Hurrah for the Gordons!" and he sent them welcomes which a world full of Pixleys alone could not have excited in him.

"Now this _is_ delightful," he said, as he sprang on board and rushed at Lady Elspeth.

"All right, my boy! Don't shake my hand right off, if you can help it. Here, you may give me a kiss, though it's contrary to the usages of my country. We'll pretend I'm your mother again. Now say how do you do to Mrs. Pixley. How's Margaret? I've got crows to pick with you young people--"

"Make it seven, or it's unlucky," laughed Graeme.

"Eh? What?"

"Tell you later. We're great believers in crows here. Mrs. Pixley, I am very glad indeed to see you here. Charles, old man, you've done splendidly."

Charles wrung his hand in silence. His face was sober, with a latent glow of expectation in it. When he had seen to the luggage he joined the group on the quay, and it was Miss Penny who was the first to see him coming.

"Welcome back to Sark!" she said cheerfully.

"I'm uncommonly glad to be here. Everybody all right? How's Mrs. Carre?"

"Everybody's first-rate, especially Meg and Jock. Their spirits are enough to inflate the island."

"It's good to be young," and the sober mask lifted slightly and let the inner light shine through.

V

"Go to an hotel?" said Margaret indignantly, in reply to a suggestion from Lady Elspeth. "Indeed you'll do nothing of the kind,"--and, as the old lady hesitated still,--"If you do I'll never speak to you again as long as I live."

"Oh well, I couldn't stand that--"

"Of course you couldn't. Neither could I. An hotel indeed!"--with withering scorn--"And we with four empty bedrooms crying aloud at night because two of their fellows are occupied and they are left out in the cold! An hotel! I'd just like to see you!"

"My guidness! Is she often like this, Jock?"

"Oh, always! I thought you knew her. Why couldn't you warn me in time?--No!" as Lady Elspeth attempted to speak--"It's too late now. We're bound for life. There's no cutting the bond. The Vicar told us so."

"You're both clean daft together," said the old lady, with dancing eyes. "Well, I'll stop in one of your crying bedrooms--on conditions. We'll talk about that later on. Where's the rest of the island, and how do you get to it?"

"Old ladies and luggage ride. We youngsters walk. There's Charles waiting for you at the carriage. There you are! Au revoir!"

As the young people breasted the steep, Pixley--forgetting entirely his vow never to do it on foot again--unfolded to them Lady Elspeth's idea, which simply was, that if the Red House could hold them all,--of which she had her doubts, in spite of his assertions,--they should all share expenses and such household duties as so large a party would involve.

"You see--if you don't mind it, Mrs. Graeme,"--with an apologetic look at Margaret,--"it will give the two old ladies something to do and will leave us young folks freer to get about."

"It's a capital arrangement if the old ladies don't mind. Mrs. Carre can get in another girl. It will keep them all busy seeing that we have enough to eat. But they'll soon get used to looking forward two or three days and ordering Friday's dinner on Tuesday."

"How long can you stop, old man?" asked Graeme.

"A fortnight--all being well," and there was a touch of soberness in it as he said that. "There's really nothing doing, and Ormerod's a good fellow and insisted on it."

"We can do heaps in a fortnight," said Miss Penny jubilantly. "However did you manage to catch Lady Elspeth?"

"She's a grand old lady. I found her with my mother when I got there. She'd been with her ever since--since the trouble. And when I proposed bringing my mother she said at once that she was coming too. She had crows to pick with you two, and so on. I expect she thought my mother would feel things less if she was with her."

"She's an old dear," said Margaret. "They shall both have the very best time we can give them."

"I shall take them conger-eeling," said Graeme,--"and to Venus's Bath"

"And down the Boutiques and the Gouliots"--suggested Margaret.

"And ormering in Grande Greve," laughed Miss Penny, who had spent a day there on that alluring pursuit and had come home bruised and wet and dirty.

"Oh, there's lots of fun in store for them," said Graeme, laughing like a schoolboy out for a holiday. "And, as Hennie Penny says, we can do heaps in a fortnight."

VI

Having made up their minds that there was no earthly reason why Charles Pixley and Hennie Penny should not be as happy as they were themselves, Margaret and Graeme saw to it that nothing should be awanting in the way of opportunity.

Miss Penny's natural goodness of heart impelled her to the most delicate consideration towards Mrs. Pixley. Hennie Penny, you see, had come bravely through dire troubles of her own, and tribulation softens the heart as it does the ormer. She anticipated the nervous old lady's every want, soothed her bruised susceptibilities in a thousand hidden ways, tended her as lovingly as an only daughter might have done,--and all out of the sheer necessity of her heart, and with never a thought of reward other than the satisfaction of her own desire for the happiness of all about her.

Not that the others were one whit less considerate, but, in the natural course of things, Miss Penny's heart and time were, perhaps, a little more at liberty for outside service, and in Mrs. Pixley the opportunity met her half-way.

It is safe to say that the old lady had never in her life been so much made of. Margaret had always been gentle and sweet with her; but the cold white light of Mr. Pixley's unco' guidness had always cast a shadow upon the household, and Margaret had got from under it whenever the chance offered.

"You are very good to me, my dear," Charles heard his mother say to Hennie Penny, one day when they two were alone together and did not know anyone was near. "If I had ever had a daughter I would have liked her to be like you. How did you learn to be so thoughtful of other people?"

"I think it must have been through having come through lots of troubles of my own," said Hennie Penny simply.

"Troubles abound," said the tremulous old lady. "You have drawn the sting of yours and kept only the honey," which saying astonished Charles greatly. He had no idea his mother could say things like that. She had had time to think plenty of them, indeed, but there had never been room for more than one shining light in the household and that had cast strong shadows.

Charles had gone quietly away smiling to himself, and had been in cheerful spirits for the rest of the day.

The first night, when the ladies had gone chattering upstairs to make sure that all the arrangements were in order, Graeme and Pixley sat out on the verandah smoking a final pipe.

The ladies' voices floated through the open windows as they passed from room to room, and Graeme laughed softly. "What's up?" asked Pixley, gazing at him soberly.

"I was thinking of the changes here since the first night I slept in this house all by myself, and heard ghosts creeping about and all kinds of noises."

"Much jollier to hear _them_," said Charles, as Miss Penny's and Margaret's laughter came floating down the softness of the night.

"Ay, indeed! Very much jollier," and they smoked and listened.

No word had so far passed between them as to the troubles that lay behind. There had, indeed, been no opportunity until now, and Graeme had no mind to broach the matter.

But Pixley had only been waiting till they could discuss things alone, and the time had come.

"It will take them months to get to the bottom of things over there," he said quietly. "I saw the accountants, and they say everything's in a dreadful mess. He must have been involved for years. It makes me absolutely sick to think of it all, Graeme, and him--"

"I'm sure it must, old chap. Why think of it? It's done, and it can't be undone, and everyone knows you had nothing to do with it."

"I know. Everyone is very kind, but I can't get rid of it. It's with me all the time like a dirty shadow."

"We'll chase it away. No place like Sark for getting rid of bogeys and worries."

"How things will come out it's impossible to say. I made special enquiries into Margaret's affairs, and it's quite certain he's tampered with her money, but they could not say yet to what extent. On the other hand, certain of her securities are intact, so everything is not gone. But what I wanted to say was this. I am determined that Margaret shall not suffer, whatever may have happened. Any deficiency I shall make good myself."

"My dear fellow, she would never hear of it."

"That's why I'm talking to you."

"Well, I won't hear of it either. As I told you before, it was a trouble to me when I heard she had any money. Whatever she had I settled on herself, and we can get on very well without it."

"All the same I'm not going to have her lose anything through my--through him. Neither you nor she can stop me doing what I like with my own money."

"We can refuse to touch it."

"That would be nonsense."

"Not half as bad as you crippling yourself for life to make good what you'd never made away with."

"It wouldn't do that," said Charles quietly. "Ormerod's a long-headed fellow, and we made some pretty good hits before the bottom dropped out of things. You must let me have my own way in this matter, Graeme, if it's only for my own peace of mind. I'm going to ask Miss Penny to be my wife. Do you think--"

"My dear fellow," said Graeme, jumping up and shaking him heartily by the hand, "that's the best bit of news I've heard since Meg said 'I will' in the church there. She's an absolutely splendid girl, is Hennie. Except Meg herself, I don't know any girl I admire so much. She's as good and sweet as they make 'em, and for sound common-sense she's a perfect gold mine."

"And you don't think--?"

"I've never heard a hint of anyone else. Like me to ask Meg? She'd be sure to know. Girls talk of these things, you know."

"I don't know. Would it be quite--"

"Everything's fair in love and war,--proverbial, my boy. But I'm pretty sure you've a clear field, and I congratulate you both with all my heart. Come to think of it, she's been as dull as a ditch since you went away"

"Really?"

"Fact! I was trying the other night to prove to her that she'd got influenza coming on, or hay-fever, or something of the kind. She's as different as chalk from cheese since eleven o'clock to-day. It's you, I'll bet you a sovereign."

Charles did not respond to the offer. He sat smoking quietly and let his thoughts run along brighter paths than they had done for days.

VII

At breakfast next morning Graeme soberly suggested to Lady Elspeth that she should go conger-eeling with him that day. And the shrewd brown eyes looked into his, and twinkled in response to the deep blue and the brown ones opposite, and she said, "I mind I was just a wee bit feather-headed myself for a while after I was married. I caught congers before you were short-coated, my laddie, but I'm not going catching them now."

"They are a bit rampageous when they're grown up," he admitted. "We got one the other day about as thick round as one's leg, and it barked like a dog and tried to bite."

"And does he make you go congering, my dear?" she asked Margaret.

"Make?" scoffed Graeme. "Make, forsooth? How little you know! I'd like to see the man who could make that young person do anything but just what she wishes. Why, she twists us all round her little finger and----"

"Ay, ay! Well, discipline is good for the young, and you're just nothing but a laddie in some things."

"I'm going to keep so all my life. So's Meg! Well, suppose we say ormering then, if congering's too lively. Hennie Penny's an awful dab at ormering. If you'd seen her the other night when she came home! A tangle of vraic was an old lady's best cap in comparison--"

"And how many did I get, and how many did you get?" retorted Miss Penny.

"I got six and you got seven--"

"Seventeen, and you stole four of your six from Meg."

"Oh well, I found the mushrooms, coming home, and they were worth a pailful of ormers."

"You didn't beat them long enough. Ormers take a lot of beating," she explained to Lady Elspeth.

"Thumping, she means. My mushrooms beat them hollow,--tender and delicate and fragrant"--and he sniffed appreciatively as though he could scent them still.--"Your ormers were like shoe-soles."

"And as to the mushrooms," continued Hennie Penny, "you'd never have found them if I hadn't tumbled into them, and then you thought they were toadstools."

"Oh well!--Who can't take a hook out of a whiting's mouth? Who was it screamed when the lobster looked at her?"

"It nearly took a piece out of me."

"Who nearly upset the boat when a baby devilfish came up in the pot? And it wasn't above that size!"

"I draw the line at devil-fish. They're no' canny."

"Do they generally go on like this?" asked Lady Elspeth of Margaret.

"All the time," said Margaret, with a matronly air. "They're just a couple of children. I keep them out of mischief as well as I can, but it's hard work at times."

"She's just every bit as bad, you know, when we're alone," said Miss Penny. "But she's got her company manners on just now. You should see her when she's bathing."

"Ah--yes! You should see her when she's bathing," said Graeme, with a smack of the lips. "All the little waves and crabs and lobsters keep bobbing up to have another look at her. In Venus's Bath the other day--"

"Now, children, stop your fooling. Where shall we go to-day?" laughed Margaret, and Lady Elspeth could hardly take her eyes off her, so winsomely, so radiantly happy was she.

"We old folks will stay at home and talk to Mrs. Carre," said Lady Elspeth. "You young ones can go off and do what you like."

"Oh no, you don't," said Graeme. "You didn't come here to loaf in a verandah. When you come to Sark you've got to enjoy yourselves, whether you want to or not. Suppose we take lunch along to the Eperquerie, and the elders can bask and snooze, and we'll bathe three times off that black ledge under Les Fontaines. And if the Seigneur's out fishing perhaps he'll take some of us with him, those who don't scream when the poor fish gets a hook in its throat. And you'll see Margaret out on the loose. She always goes it when she's swimming."

"I hope you won't venture too far out, Charles," said Mrs. Pixley, with visions of his limp body being carried home.

"Miss Penny and I are sensible people when we're bathing," said Charles. "We don't lose our heads--"

"Nor any of the rest of you,--nor touch of the stones," laughed Graeme.

"That's so," said Charles. "We like to know what's below us and that it's not too far away."

"It's very wise," said Mrs. Pixley plaintively. "One hears of such dreadful accidents. I'm very glad you're so sensible, my dear," to Miss Penny.

"Oh, I'm dreadfully sensible at times, especially when I'm bathing. But that's because I can only swim with one foot at the bottom."

"Any beach about there?" enquired Charles forethoughtfully.

"Nice little bit just round the corner, with a cave and all,--capital place for children. Paddle by the hour without going in above your ankles."

And so they wandered slowly up the scented lanes past the Seigneurie, laden with the usual paraphernalia of a bathing-lunch, and came out on the Eperquerie.

They established the old ladies in a gorsy nook, built a fireplace of loose stones, and collected fuel, and laid the fire ready for the match, which Lady Elspeth was to apply whenever they waved to her.

"If She isn't fast asleep," said Graeme.

Then they pointed out all the things that lay about, so that they might take an intelligent interest in their surroundings,--Guernsey, and Herm, and Jethou, and Alderney, and the Casquets, and the coast of France, and the Seigneur in his boat, and then they trooped off like a party of school-children.

And presently the old ladies saw them scrambling down the black, scarped sides of the headland opposite, and then they disappeared behind rocks and into crannies. Then a pink meteor flashed from the black ledge, followed in an instant by a dark-blue one, and both went breasting out to sea. And in front of the cave two less venturesome figures beguiled the onlookers and themselves into the belief that they were swimming, though they never went out of their depth and sounded anxiously for it at every second stroke.

And up above, the larks trilled joyously, and the air was soft and sweet as the air of heaven; and down below, the water was bluer than the sky and clear as crystal, so that they could see the great white rocks which lay away down in the depths, and they looked like sea-monsters crawling after their prey. And the shouts of the swimmers came mellowly up to them, and they could see their little limbs jerking like the limbs of frogs.

"It is good to be here," said Lady Elspeth enjoyably.

"It is very very good to be here. I am very glad we came," said Mrs. Pixley, with a sigh that was not all sadness.

VIII

Many such days of sheer delight they had, and kept the dark cloud resolutely below their horizon. They accommodated their activities to the limited powers of the elders, and took them wherever it was reasonably possible for them to go. They chartered a boat for the day, and took them and all the luncheon-things round from Creux Harbour to Grande Greve, subjecting Charles to long-unaccustomed labours at the oar. In the same way they introduced them to Dixcart Bay, and Derrible, and Greve de la Ville; and, choosing a fit day, they circumnavigated the island again in three boat-loads, landing for lunch on an even keel on Breniere, and penetrating into every accessible cave they came to,--Mrs. Pixley enjoying the wonders in fear and trembling, and breathing freely only when they were safely out in the open once more. And Graeme and Margaret watched the approximating of Hennie Penny and Charles with infinite delight. It needed only a full understanding between these two to complete their own great happiness.

But the dark cloud was there, though they might refuse to look at it, and clouds below the horizon have a way of rising, especially dark ones.

The post-office in Sark is a cottage, or the part of a cottage, turned from private to public use. In former times the service was of a very perfunctory character, Providence largely taking the place of post-master while that official attended first to his fishing and then to his duties, and any who had good and valid reason to expect a letter came down to the mail-bag where it lay on the beach and went through it for themselves.

The advent of visitors accustomed to more exact and business-like methods, however, has done away with this Arcadian simplicity, and now each day when the boat is in, all who prefer not to wait for the tardy delivery at their own houses, collect gradually round the official cottage, and in due course, and after the exercise of virtues, receive their mail across the counter. And some tear their letters open at once, regardless of spectators, and devour them on the spot, but the wiser carry them home for private consumption. For one never knows for certain what of heartbreak and disaster the most innocent-looking envelope may contain.

Graeme and Margaret and Miss Penny, however, being in retreat, and having cut the painter with the outside world, had not cultivated the post-office until Charles and Lady Elspeth arrived. But, as Charles had to keep more or less in touch with Throgmorton Street, they had now got into the habit of calling with him for his letters, except when the doing so interfered with the programme for the day. And many an amusing, and sometimes touching, insight did they get there into human nature. Graeme said it was worth while the trouble of going, just to sit in the hedge opposite and watch people's faces, especially the faces of those who tore open their letters and those who got none.

They were sitting so in the hedge one morning, quietly watching and commenting silently, and by looks only, on the vagaries of the letter-scramblers, and Charles had pushed into the crowded little room to antedate the delivery by a few minutes if possible.

As he came out, with his letters in his hand, they all saw at a glance that something had happened. His face, which had been gradually relaxing to its old look of jovial good-fellowship and satisfaction with the world, was tight and hard, and yet they saw that he had not opened a letter. He turned up the road with a mere jerk of the head, and they followed wondering, and all, as it came out afterwards, with the same dim idea as to the possible cause of his upsetting.

He handed Margaret a couple of letters for Lady Elspeth, and made an attempt at conversation as they went along, but the cloud they had been keeping out of sight was visible now to all of them. Among the unopened letters in his hand was one which disturbed him even before he knew what was in it, and they could only wait, with troubled minds, for developments.

Charles went straight to his room, as he usually did when business matters claimed his attention, and from the look on his face Graeme judged that the scramble, fixed for that day on account of a specially low tide, round the Autelets, whose rock-pools and phosphorescent seaweeds and beds of flourishing anemones were a perpetual delight, would be off for the time being at all events.

But Pixley came down presently and intimated that he was ready, and they trooped away, leaving the elders at home for a day's rest, since rock-scrambling was outside their limits.

Their progress, however, was not the usual light-hearted saunter enlivened by merry jokes and laughter. The lanes were fragrant as ever, the air was full of larks and sunshine, but the cloud had risen and overshadowed them, and Graeme guessed why Charles had come. There was something he wanted to discuss with them alone, out of the hearing of his mother and Lady Elspeth.

He was not surprised--when they had scrambled down into Port du Moulin, and had passed through the arch, and were sitting on the rocks above the first of the sea-gardens,--when Charles said, "There's something I want to consult you about, and I couldn't do it at the house, as I want it kept to ourselves. I got this, this morning. Will you read it?" and he handed Graeme a letter. Graeme opened it and read it out.

"99A HIGH STREET, ALDERNEY.

"MY DEAR CHARLES,--I will not at the moment attempt any
explanation of the calamity which has befallen our house. If you
knew all, you would not blame me as I fear you must be doing. Let
me say, however, that I have every reason to hope that in course
of time I may be able to redeem the position by making good all
deficiencies and so clearing our name of reproach. To do so, I
must get away--to Spain in the first instance, and for that I
need your assistance. The end came unexpectedly and took me
unawares, and I am almost penniless here. In asking your help, I
do so the more confidently as, in the path I have indicated, lies
the only hope of redemption. In assisting me you will not only be
doing what a prosperous son might reasonably be expected to do
for his father in his day of misfortune, but you will be acting
for the general weal in putting me into a position to make good
what I have all unwittingly become responsible for, and to that
sacred end the remainder of my life shall be most solemnly
dedicated.

"I came here from Cherbourg, and am for the moment safe from
oversight. As soon as you place me in position to do so, I shall
get away and begin my new life-work, which I am earnestly
desirous of doing at the earliest possible moment.

"Address me as above--Revd. J. Peace.

"Your affectionate FATHER."

Graeme kept the humorous wrinkles about his eyes and mouth in order with difficulty as he read this very characteristic effusion, but Margaret was the only one who saw it. Charles had kept his eyes intently on the pool below, and Miss Penny had been regarding him sympathetically.

"What do you make of it?" said Charles. "It makes me sick."

"He evidently needs your help," said Miss Penny.

"Yes, but have I the right to give it him? That's the question."

"He says----" began Graeme.

"Oh, he says!" growled Charles. "Trouble is, he's been saying for the last twenty years, and it has all been a lie. This is probably all a lie too. Not all"--he added grimly. "As I read it, he has got funds stowed away somewhere and he's anxious to get to them."

"So that he may make restitution," urged Miss Penny.

"Yes, that's what he says," said Charles, in a tone that showed no slightest tincture of conviction. "What would you do," he asked, looking up at Graeme, "if you were in my place?"

Graeme filled his pipe thoughtfully.

"Let us look at it quietly all round," he said, and lit up and puffed away contemplatively.

"From what he says,"--checking off his points on his fingers,--"if you don't assist him, he may be taken, and the--the unpleasantness of the situation be thereby increased.... I do not see that his punishment would help anyone--except maybe as a deterrent, and that is problematical.... I gather from this, as you do, that he has funds awaiting him somewhere.... You have no great faith in his promises--"

"None," growled Charles.

"And I presume, as a business man, you would count a bird in the hand worth several in the bush--in other words, you would sooner have what he has stowed away--somewhere, than what he hopes to make some time--"

"Sight sooner!"

"Then, I should say, offer him such assistance as he needs to get away, and, if you can see your way to it, a bit to live on afterwards, on condition of his placing in your hands everything he has got stowed away, so that you can pass it on to the receiver."

Charles shook his head. "I couldn't trust him."

"Then there's only one thing to do if he agrees, and that is to go with him and bring the property back with you."

Charles groaned. "It may mean the Argentine. Spain's no place for investments these days."

"It's rough on you, old man, but it's the best I can think of," said Graeme.

"And supposing he tells me to go hang?"

"Then," said Graeme, with a shrug, "I don't see that you can help him. I have no personal feeling against him whatever, but I cannot see how you can help him except on some such lines as I've indicated. How does it strike you, Meg?"

But Margaret shook her head. "I feel very much as you do. If he is caught and punished it will only add to Mrs. Pixley's and Charles's trouble, and benefit nobody. But he is very obstinate. He has evidently planned out his future. I doubt if he'll turn from it."

"And you, Hennie?" asked Graeme.

"I think you should help him if you possibly can. It's horrible to think of him hiding there and in fear of being caught--"

"Helping him in any case is against the law--"

"Blood is thicker than water," said Hennie Penny earnestly.

"--But if some present benefit was to come to his creditors I should consider it right to do it, not otherwise."

"Suppose you go across, and see him, and talk it over with him, Mr. Pixley?" said Hennie Penny.

"I suppose that's the only thing to be done," groaned Charles. "How do you get there?"

"The _Courier_ would call here by arrangement--up at the Eperquerie," said Graeme. "She can't come in, of course. It means lying out in a small boat and waiting for her. What do you say to us all going? In fact, unless we do, how are we going to explain Charles's going to Mrs. Pixley?"

Charles nodded.

"You could go and see him and we could talk it over again afterwards. I'm inclined to think that he won't accept, you know."

"I don't believe he will, and it'll be a bit hard to refuse him any help, if he really is on his beam ends."

"He wouldn't have written to you if he could have done without, you may count upon that."

"Is he as safe there as he seems to think?" asked Charles.

"Yes, I think so. Safer probably than in Cherbourg. It's an out-of-the-way place, from all accounts."

Discuss it as they would, they could not get beyond Graeme's proposal, and so at last they went back home, decided on the visit to Alderney on the morrow, but all feeling doubtful, and some of them distinctly nervous, as to the outcome of it.

IX

The little party that lay in wait for the Alderney steamer in old Jack Guille's boat off the Eperquerie, next morning, was eminently lacking in the vivacity that usually distinguishes such parties when the sea is smooth and the sky is blue. In fact, when they got on board, the Captain decided in his own mind that they must all have quarrelled before starting. There was no sign of anything of the kind about them now, it is true, but that might just be their good manners. For English people are not like the Sark and Guernsey folk, who, when they do quarrel, let all the world know about it.

These four had apparently little to say to one another and less to anyone else. If they had been going to a funeral they could hardly have been more reserved.

And to something very like a funeral they were going, with the added anxiety of very grave doubts as to the result of their visit.

They had had no difficulty in persuading the elder ladies that Alderney was not for them. The steep path down to the Eperquerie landing, and the tumbling about in a small boat until the steamer came, did not greatly appeal to them. Moreover, Lady Elspeth's clear eyes had noticed the signs of their clouding, in spite of their efforts after naturalness, for to experienced eyes there is nothing so unnatural as the attempt to be natural. If Mrs. Pixley noticed nothing it was probably because her faculties had not yet fully recovered from the shock to which they had been subjected. If she noticed she said nothing, having no desire, perhaps, to add to the weight of her already heavy burden.

"Now, my boy, what is it?" Lady Elspeth asked, when she had persuaded Graeme to take her for a stroll in the evening, under plea of cramp through overmuch sitting.

"Jeremiah Pixley is in Alderney and has written to Charles begging his help to get on his way."

"Ah! And what are you going to do about it?".

Graeme outlined their ideas on the matter.

"He's an old rascal," said Lady Elspeth softly. "I doubt very much if you'll get anything out of him."

"Can you suggest any better way of dealing with the matter?"

"I don't know that I can at the moment, but I doubt if you'll get any satisfaction out of him. He'll stick to all he can, and his promise of restitution is all bunkum, I should fear."

"And would you help him to get away in any case?"

"Personally, I think a course of penal servitude would be of the greatest service to him. But, for Charles's sake and his mother's, the sooner the whole matter is buried the better, and so I should be sorry to hear of him being taken. It would only revive the scandal."

"That's just what we all feel;" and he saw that the problem of Jeremiah Pixley was too much even for Lady Elspeth.

And so the party of four on the _Courier_ lacked vivacity, and found no enjoyment in the lonely austerity of the Casquets or Ortach; and the frowning southern cliffs of Alderney itself, as the steamer raced up the Swinge to Braye Harbour, seemed to them but a poor copy of their own little isle of Sark, lacking its gem-like qualities. But then their minds were intent upon the business ahead and their outlook was darkened.

X

"Would you like me to come up with you, Charles?" Graeme asked, as the steamer rounded the breakwater.

"Yes, I'd like it," said Charles gloomily. "But I think I'd better go alone. I don't believe anything's going to come of it."

"I'm afraid not--as far as we're concerned. You'll just have to keep a stiff upper lip and stick to what you believe the right thing to do." To which Charles replied only with a grim nod, and they went ashore.

"We'll walk up to the town with you," said Graeme, when they got outside the harbour precincts. "When you've got as far as you can with him, come down to the shore due West. You'll find us by that old fort we saw from the boat;" and presently they branched off towards the sea, while Charles went doggedly on into St. Anne on as miserable an errand as ever son had.

He tramped on along the hot white road, till he found himself in the sleepy little town, where the grass grew between the granite sets in the roadways and a dreamy listlessness pervaded all things. He sought out No. 99A High Street and knocked on the door.

It was opened by an elderly woman who seemed surprised at sight of a visitor.

"Mr. Peace?" asked Charles, feeling thereby _particeps criminis_.

"He's inside. Will you come in?"

She opened a door off the passage, said, "A gentleman to see you;" and Charles went in and closed the door behind him.

His father had started up from a couch where he had been lying. There was a startled look in his eyes and his face was pale and worn, but a touch of colour came back into his cheeks when he saw who his visitor was.

He had shaved off his bit of side whisker. His face was grayer and thinner and his body somewhat shrunken, even in these few days. He wore a white tie, and his coat and waistcoat were of clerical cut. On the table was a pair of gold spectacles and on the sideboard a soft billycock hat. He looked the not-too-well-off country parson to the life. The only outward and visible sign of the old Jeremiah was the heavy gold pince-nez which lay between the top buttons of his waistcoat, which he hauled out and fingered as of old the moment he began to speak.

"Ah, Charles! This is good of you. I hardly expected a personal visit. I was beginning to fear you had not got my letter, or that you had decided not to answer it."

"It followed me to Sark."

"Ah! you are back in Sark?"

"I thought it well to take my mother there, to be out of things for a time."

"Quite so, quite so! That was very thoughtful of you. This is a terrible calamity that has befallen us. But, as I said in my letter, I have every hope of being able to redeem matters if I can only get to where that is possible."

"Where's that?"

"Well, in the first place to Spain--"

"And afterwards?"

Mr. Pixley hesitated. "Perhaps--for your own sake--it would be as well you should not know--for the present, at all events. You may be asked questions. If you don't know, you can truthfully say so."

"I gather that you have funds put away somewhere."

"If I can get to where I want to go, I can at all events make a fresh start. And I am prepared to devote the rest of my life to the one object I have named.... The last few years have been very wearying. I have had trouble with my heart at times;" and he put his hand to his side to emphasise it. "But if I can get quietly away I shall soon pull round and be ready for work again, now that the strain is over."

"You know you're asking me to do what I've no right to do?" said Charles gloomily.

"I know, my boy, and it is very bitter for me to have to ask it. But I can't get away without your help, and the alternative is not pleasant to think of--for either of us.... I do not ask more than I would willingly have done for you if the positions were reversed.... On the whole, I do not think I have been a bad father to you. Circumstances, indeed, have been too strong for me at the end, but--"

"I am willing to do what you want--and more, on one condition."

"What is that? Anything in reason--"

"I will provide you with funds to get away, and I will send you three hundred pounds each year--"

"Good lad!"

"On condition that you hand over to me all the property you've got stowed away--"

"Damn!"

"So that I may hand it over to your creditors."

"Why not write at once to Scotland Yard and tell them where I am? But, after all, I'm not sure that even your world would applaud so filial an act as that."

"I'm prepared to make sacrifices myself to help right some of this wrong--"

"I had to make many for you, my boy, before you were old enough to understand it--before my own position was assured. Ay, and since too. I would have flung it all up years ago but for you. I wanted you to be set firmly on your feet before the crash came. It has been killing work. I'm glad it's over--whatever the end may be. If you can't see your way to help me, the end is obvious and close at hand. I have, I think, something under two pounds in my pocket. If I'd waited to get more I should not be here. The end came unexpectedly. Old Coxley called for some securities which I had--which I couldn't give him at the moment, and I had to go at once or not at all."

Charles stood up. He would have liked to tell him all he felt about the matter. How the tampering with securities hit him more hardly than almost anything could have done, since straight dealing in such matters is the very first of Stock Exchange tenets. How, if he had come to him, he would have strained himself to the utmost to set things right.

But, facile talker as he was on matters that were of no account, he found himself strangely tongue-tied here.

"Well?" he asked. "Will you let me help you?"

"As you will, my boy ... If you do, it offers me a chance--my only chance. If you don't----" he shrugged his heavy shoulders meaningly.

"Do what I ask," urged Charles. "It is the only possible amends you can make."

Mr. Pixley shook his head. "It is out of the question. I could do nothing with three hundred a year----"

"You could live quietly on that in many places."

"I don't want simply to live. I want to work and redeem myself."

"You have worked hard enough and long enough," said Charles; and he might have added, as was in his mind, "And it has all ended in this."

"I would like to help you," he said, as he moved slowly towards the door, striving hard to keep the stiff upper lip Graeme had enjoined on him. "But I don't think you should expect me to do what I know to be wrong. I'll do what I said----"

Mr. Pixley shook his head. His face was gray, his lips pinched in. Charles went out and closed the door behind him.

But he could not leave him so. He had known from the first that he would have to help him, right or wrong.

He opened the door again quietly and went in. His father was sitting at the table with his head in his hands. Charles laid down the money he had, with Graeme's assistance, prepared, laid his hand on his shoulder for a moment, and went quietly out again, and out of the house.

It was a miserable business altogether. He never forgot that last sight of him sitting at the mean little table in the mean little room with his head in his hands.

XI

Charles went soberly down the green slopes towards the sea, and presently discovered the dismantled fort they had seen from the steamer as they ran up the Swinge that morning. And sitting on the broken wall of a gun platform was a figure which he knew by the dress to be Miss Penny.

She had evidently been on the look-out for him. She stood up and waved her hand, and he waved his in reply, and plunged down the slope. His heart was sore at what had just passed. It turned gratefully to one whom he knew to be full of sympathy for him.

When he reached the foot of the hill, they were crossing the causeway which led from the fort to the shore.

"Well, old man, you've got through with it?" said Graeme; and all their faces showed the anxiety that was in them to know how he had prospered.

He nodded. "Let's go back and sit there for a few minutes. I feel like a whipped dog;" and they all went back to the fort, which, in its dismantlement and ruin, whispered soothingly of the rest and peace that sometimes lie beyond broken hopes and strenuous times.

"Well, how did you find him?" asked Graeme, as they seated themselves on the broken wall again, with the fair blue plain of the sea dimpling and dancing in front.

"Very broken, but as obstinate as ever," said Charles gloomily. "Wouldn't listen to my proposal, says he's set on redeeming himself, and so on. I offered him all I could, but it was no use. So I left him--"

"You never did--" began Miss Penny, with a pained look on her face.

"I did. But I couldn't leave it so. I went back, and he was sitting with his head in his hands.... I just gave him all I had brought and came away.... I know it was all wrong--"

"It wasn't. You did quite right," said Miss Penny vehemently.

"I don't suppose any of us would have done differently when it came to the point. I don't really see what else you could have done," said Graeme.

"He reminded me of all he had done for me when I was a boy, and so on, and told me that if I didn't help him there was no hope for him. I did my best--"

"You have done quite right, Charles," said Margaret. "I do hope he will get away all right."

As he gave them the details of his interview, their quiet sympathy restored him by degrees to himself. The bruised, whipped soreness wore off, to some extent at all events, and there remained chiefly a feeling of thankfulness that the matter was over, and that, in doing the only thing possible to him, if he offended against the law, he had still done what commended itself to his own heart and to those whose good opinion he chiefly valued.

If there were no signs of merriment about them as they wandered quietly about the strand, if they still bore something of the aspect of a funeral party, it was at all events the aspect of a party after the funeral. Their corpse was laid, so far as they were concerned, and their thoughts and hearts were more at liberty to turn to other matters.

They have none of them ever cared greatly for Alderney, and they always speak of it as a remote, unfriendly, melancholy, and slow little place, lacking the gem-like beauty and joyous vitality of Sark. But then one's outlook is always coloured by one's inlook, and an overcast mind sees all things shadowed.

They lunched at the Scott Hotel, in the garden, and felt better than they had done for two days when their feet once more trod the deck of the _Courier_.

The southern cliffs were filmy blue in the distance, Ortach and the Casquets were dim against the horizon, and Charles and Miss Penny stood together in the stern looking back over the long straight track of the boat, and thinking both of the lonely one in the mean little house in St. Anne. Margaret and Graeme had stood watching for a time, and had then stolen away forward. Their outlook was ahead, where Sark was rising boldly out of the blue waters.

"I doubt if we'll ever hear anything more of him," said Charles, with a sigh at thought of it all.

"You will always remember that you have done your duty by him. You could not have done more."

"You have been very kind to me all through, very kind, all of you. And you especially.... Hennie--will you marry me?"

And she looked up at him with a happy face, and said quietly, "Yes, I will. I believe we can make one another very happy."

"I'm sure we can. Come along and tell the others;" and they also turned from the past and went forward.

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

Hearts in Exile._

With Photogravure Frontispiece by HAROLD COPPING. THIRD EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

"Exceptionally powerful, vivid, and realistic.... Sketched with a generous hand and bold touches, the characters hold trie reader's sympathies throughout. The most graphic, vigorous, and lifelike presentment of Russian administrative barbarity which we recollect to have ever come across."--_Daily Telegraph_.

A Princess of Vascovy.

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"Mr. Oxenham tells a good exciting story with great swing and zest. It seems almost unnecessary to recommend a story that is in every way worthy of the pen that produced 'Barbe of Grand Bayou.' 'A Princess of Vascovy' is just as picturesquely romantic and just as full of incident and adventure as Mr. Oxenham's most famous work."--_Athenaum_.

White Fire.

Red cloth, 2s. net; red leather, 2s. 6d. net.

"'White Fire' combines religion and adventure; but the date is modern, and the admirable missionary and his undaunted wife and comrades protect their converts in the South Seas from kidnappers and other pests with the aid of Maxims and Winchester rifles. Mr. John Oxenham has already proved his descriptive and analytic powers, and these strong-hearted champions of morality are not less original than their surroundings are romantic. A tidal wave is among the trials of the hero's constancy. The illustrations by Mr. Grenville Manton are good."--_Athenaum_.

Barbe of Grand Bayou.

Red cloth, 2s. net; red leather, 2s. 6d. net.

"There is a fascination about Mr. John Oxenham's books which grows upon one. Barbe is a clean-cut, fine drawn character, human, alive, womanly, real. Her history is so simply related, with such convincing straightforwardness that one is bound to admit it could not have happened otherwise. It had to be. The tribulations of the pair of lovers are delightfully set forth with the art of the true story teller. Quite one of the best books of the winter season; worth buying and reading; not merely ordering from the library."--_Academy_.

Giant Circumstance.

Illustrated by CHARLES HORRELL.

THIRD EDITION. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

"A hearty and manly book, written in telling style of which Mr. Oxenham has proved himself a master."--_Times_.

"Told in Mr. Oxenham's usual spirited and vivid style. Those who relish a good story well told will welcome 'Giant Circumstance,' and will set it on a level with the best of Mr. Oxenham's books."--_British Weekly._

"A good story--should prove popular."--_Athenaeum_.

"Bright, healthy, and interesting, will strengthen his position in the regard of readers who like a good story of the doings of wholesome unexaggerated characters."--_Daily Telegraph_.

Rising Fortunes.

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Carette of Sark.

Illustrated. Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s.

"All who either know the Channel Islands or love a full-blooded, exciting story, should speedily make the acquaintance of Carette."--_Pall Mall Gazette_.

"No one who likes tales of adventure--and who does not--could wish for a better tale than this. It is of Sark, in the beginning of last century, when its people were peaceable and law-abiding, save on the question of 'free trade' and when privateering was a legitimate business; so naturally adventurers were more easily come by than in conventional days like these. The youth who tells the tale, one Philip Carre by name, comes by them all too easily for his liking. He is scarcely out of one peril before he is into another, and quite split-hairbreadth are his escapes from the Terrible Torode of Herm. And it is all on account of Carette, charming Carette, the pride of the island, and worth many dangers to win."--_Daily Chronicle_.