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Page 25
She did not tell Peter this time about the step.
A week or two afterwards, when Peter Girard was returning from the rocks
with a basketful of crabs, he was joined on the way by his mate,
Mesurier.
The two fishermen trudged along in silence for some time, one a little
in front of the other, after the manner of their kind; then Mesurier
remarked, "We shall be wanting some new line before we go out for
mackerel again." (Mackerel are caught by lines in those parts, where the
sea-bottom is too rocky for trawling).
Peter turned round and stood still to consider the question.
"I've got some strands knotted, if you and I set to work we can plait it
before night."
"I must go up to Jean's for some bait first; there won't be more than
three hours left before dark, and how are we to get it done in that
time? I'd better get some in the village when I'm up there."
"Hout, man! pay eight shillings for a line," said the economical Peter,
"and a pound of horsehair will make six. I'll send Louise for the bait,
and you come along with me--we'll soon reckon out the plait."
Mesurier, a thick-set, vigorous-looking man, shorter than Peter, stood
still a moment, looking at him rather queerly out of his keen, grey
eyes.
"Been up to Jean's much of late?" he asked, trudging on again.
"No, not I," said Peter. "Hangin' round in the village isn't much after
my mind."
"Best send Louise instead, hey?"
Peter wheeled his huge frame round in a moment.
"What do you mean, man?" he demanded, in a voice that seemed to come
from his feet.
Mesurier's face was devoid of expression, as he replied, "Nothing, to be
sure. Of course Louise will be going to the shop now and again."
Peter laid his hand, like a lion's paw, on Mesurier's shoulder, as if he
would rend the truth out of him.
"And what's the matter with her going to the shop?" said Peter, so
rapidly and thickly as to be hardly articulate.
"None that I know of," said the other uneasily, shrugging off Peter's
hand, with an attempted laugh.
"Now you understand," said Peter, with blazing eyes, "you've either got
to swear that you've heard nothing at all about Louise which you
oughtn't to have heard, or else you'll tell me who said it, and let him
know he's got me to reckon with," and Peter clenched his fist in a way
that would have made most people swear whatever he might have happened
to wish.
"Well, mate," said the other man. "You go and see Jean, and ask him what
company he's had of late." Then seeing Peter's face becoming livid, he
added briefly, "There's been a queer-looking fish staying with him the
last three weeks--walks all on one side--and Louise was talking to him
t'other evening under the church wall. 'Twas my wife saw her. That's the
truth. Nobody else has said nought about her."
Peter swung round without a word, and marched off in the direction of
the village. Mesurier watched him a moment, then called after him, "I
say, mate! mind what you're doing: the man's a poor blighted creature,
more like a monkey than a Christian."
Peter said something in his throat while he handed the crabs to
Mesurier: his hand shook so violently as he did so that the basket
nearly fell to the ground. Then he strode on again. Mesurier had glanced
at his face, and did not follow.
It took Peter less than an hour, at the pace at which he was walking,
to reach the next village along the coast where Jean lived. The mellow
afternoon sunshine was lighting up the cottage wall, and the long strip
of gaily flowering garden, as he approached. He entered the front room,
which was fitted up as a sort of shop, in which fishermen's requisites
were sold. There was no one there. He pushed the door open into the
inner room: it was also empty. He felt as if he could not breathe within
the cottage walls, and went out again. The cliff overhung the sea a few
yards in front of the cottage. He went to the edge and was scanning the
shore for a sign of Jean, when below, on a narrow, zigzag path which led
down the cliff to the beach, he perceived his wife. She stood at a turn
in the path, looking downwards. There was something about her that to
Peter made her seem different from what she had ever seemed before. He
looked at Louise, and he saw a woman with a shadow of guilt upon her.
The path below her was concealed from Peter's sight by an over-hanging
piece of rock, but she seemed to be watching someone coming slowing up
it. Then she glanced fearfully round, and saw Peter standing on the top
of the cliff. She made a hasty sign to the person below, but already a
man's hand leaning on a stick was visible beyond the edge of the rock.
Peter strode straight down the face of the cliff to the turning in the
path. Louise screamed. Peter seized by the collar a puny, crooked
creature, whom he scarcely stopped to look at, and held him, as one
might a cat, over the cliff-side.
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