went away, but came back again very soon, with an increase of anxiety in her face. "Don't go, dear Martin," she said, with her hand upon my shoulder; "the storm-glass is as troubled as it can be, and the wind is veering round to the west. You know what that foretells at this time of the year. There is a storm at hand; take my word for it, and do not venture across to Sark to-day."
"And what is to become of the poor woman?" I remonstrated. "Tardif says she has been suffering the pain of a broken limb these twenty-four hours. It would be my duty to go even if the storm were here, unless the risk was exceedingly great. Come, Julia, remember you are to be a doctor's wife, and don't be a coward."
"Don't go!" she reiterated, "for my sake and your mother's. I am certain some trouble will come of it. We shall be frightened to death; and this woman is only a stranger to you. Oh, I cannot bear to let you go!"
I did not attempt to reason with her, for I knew of old that when Julia was bilious and nervous she was quite deaf to reason. I only stroked the hand that lay on my shoulder, and went on with my dinner as if my life depended upon the speed with which I dispatched it.
"Uncle," she said, as my father came in with a small portmanteau in his hand, "tell Martin he must not go. There is sure to be a storm to-night."
"Pooh! pooh!" he answered. "I should be glad enough for Martin to stay at home, but there's no help for it, I suppose. There will be no storm at present, and they'll run across quickly. It will be the coming back that will be difficult. You'll scarcely get home again to-night, Martin."
"No," I said. "I'll stop at Gavey's, and come back in the Sark cutter if it has begun to ply. If not, Tardif must bring me over in the morning."
"Don't go," persisted Julia, as I thrust myself into my rough pilot-coat, and then bent down to kiss her cheek. Julia always presented me her cheek, and my lips had never met hers yet. My mother was standing by and looking tearful, but she did not say a word; she knew there was no question about what I ought to do. Julia followed me to the door and held me fast with both hands round my arm, sobbing out hysterically, "Don't go!" Even when I had released myself and was running down the drive, I could hear her still calling, "O Martin, don't go!"
I was glad to get out of hearing. I felt sorry for her, yet there was a considerable amount of pleasure in being the object of so much tender solicitude. I thought of her for a minute or two as I hurried along the steep streets leading down to the quay. But the prospect before me caught my eye. Opposite lay Sark, bathed in sunlight, and the sea between was calm enough at present. A ride across, with a westerly breeze filling the sails, and the boat dancing lightly over the waves, would not be a bad exchange for a dull Sunday afternoon, with Julia at the Sunday-school and my mother asleep. Besides, it was the path of duty which was leading me across the quiet gray sea before me.
Tardif was waiting, with his sails set and oars in the rowlocks, ready for clearing the harbor. I took one of them, and bent myself willingly to the light task. There was less wind than I had expected, but what there was blew in our favor. We were very quickly beyond the pier-head, where a group of idlers was always gathered, who sent after us a few warning shouts. Nothing could be more exhilarating than our onward progress. I felt as if I had been a prisoner, with, chains which had pressed heavily yet insensibly upon me, and that now I was free. I drew into my lungs the fresh, bracing, salt air of the sea, with a deep sigh of delight.
CHAPTER THE SECOND.
A PATIENT IN SARK.
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
