WHERE
DEEP SEAS
MOAN.
E. GALLIENNE-ROBIN
FREDERICK CLARKE.
Printer and Publisher.
MCMVII.
"Where Deep Seas Moan."
CHAPTER I.
he autumn wind blew in great gusts over the rocky island ofGuernsey, and in the country parishes rushed up hill and down dale,leaving not a lane undisturbed by its vagaries. It rattled theleafless trees which grew at the back of Colomberie Farm, whose deepbrown-thatched roof rested against the lichened red tiles of thebarn adjoining. Surrounded on all sides by green fields outside itscharming garden, Colomberie looked the picture of comfort; and itscheery interior laughed the wind to scorn as the curtains were drawnacross the kitchen window, and the crâsset was lit at the side ofthe wide hearth. But the wind had its revenge, for it blew acrossthe country roads pretty young Blaisette, the daughter ofColomberie, who was going out to spend the evening; and whostruggled with all her healthy vigour against the impertinent[Pg 2]buffetting of the bleak north-wester. When she disappeared into asheltered hollow, the wind, hushed and non-plussed for a minute,paused to meditate further mischief; then, with regathered rage, ittore across country, and boomed, with sullen roar, into a valleyshut in by brackened and heather-covered hills.
Here, a granite-built house, sheltered under the rocky cliff, had anair of stern and unkempt loneliness; and there was somethingsinister about the watermill, whose dingy wheel, green with disuse,was close against the side of the building. Yet there was prosperityto be read in the large open barn stacked high with corn and hay, inthe many cows that fed in the meadow below the hill, and in thehorses that stamped impatiently in the stable.
The master of Orvillière Farm was Dominic Le Mierre, a bachelor, ahard worker, and a more than respectable member of the parish ofSaint Pierre du Bois. It seemed that he did not mind the boisterouswind this evening as he ate his supper hurriedly in the gloomykitchen, whose windows shook at every touch of the blast.
Over the hills, and once more across country, the howling wind madeits way, past the old church of Saint Pierre du Bois, past the lanesto Torteval parish, and along the high road to Pleinmont, where ithad full play over a wide moorland district, dotted with low massesof gorze and groups of boulders.
Here, too, was just one little cottage to shake and grip and freezewith biting draughts. It stood in a slight hollow on the summit of acliff overlooking Rocquaine Bay. Its mossy thatched roof overhungtiny latticed windows, whose panes were golden red from the light of[Pg 3]the fire of dried sea-weed and furze heaped up on the hearth ofstone raised above the earthen sanded floor.
Round the fire a group of girls was gathered; for the most part theywere just homely, pleasant creatures, but two stood out distinctlyfrom the rest; one, by reason of her beauty, the other, because ofher original and