The Battle of the Strong | Page 5

the Bailly of the island, next in importance to the
Lieutenant-Governor.
The lad could almost see the face of the child, its humorous anger, its
wilful triumph, and also the enraged look of the Bailly as he raked the
stream with his long stick, tied with a sort of tassel of office. Presently
he saw the child turn at the call of a woman in the Place du Vier Prison,
who appeared to apologise to the Bailly, busy now drying his recovered
hat by whipping it through the air. The lad on the hill recognised the
woman as the child's mother.
This little episode over, he turned once more towards the sea, watching
the sun of late afternoon fall upon the towers of Elizabeth Castle and

the great rock out of which St. Helier the hermit once chiselled his lofty
home. He breathed deep and strong, and the carriage of his body was
light, for he had a healthy enjoyment of all physical sensations and all
the obvious drolleries of life. A broad sort of humour was written upon
every feature; in the full, quizzical eye, in the width of cheek- bone, in
the broad mouth, and in the depth of the laugh, which, however, often
ended in a sort of chuckle not entirely pleasant. It suggested a selfish
enjoyment of the odd or the melodramatic side of other people's
difficulties.
At last the youth encased his telescope, and turned to descend the hill to
the town. As he did so, a bell began to ring. From where he was he
could look down into the Vier Marchi, or market-place, where stood the
Cohue Royale and house of legislature. In the belfry of this court-
house, the bell was ringing to call the Jurats together for a meeting of
the States. A monstrous tin pan would have yielded as much assonance.
Walking down towards the Vier Marchi the lad gleefully recalled the
humour of a wag who, some days before, had imitated the sound of the
bell with the words:
"Chicane--chicane! Chicane--chicane!"
The native had, as he thought, suffered somewhat at the hands of the
twelve Jurats of the Royal Court, whom his vote had helped to elect,
and this was his revenge--so successful that, for generations, when the
bell called the States or the Royal Court together, it said in the ears of
the Jersey people--thus insistent is apt metaphor:
"Chicane--chicane! Chicane--chicane!"
As the lad came down to the town, trades-people whom he met touched
their hats to him, and sailors and soldiers saluted respectfully. In this
regard the Bailly himself could not have fared better. It was not due to
the fact that the youth came of an old Jersey family, nor by reason that
he was genial and handsome, but because he was a midshipman of the
King's navy home on leave; and these were the days when England's
sailors were more popular than her soldiers.

He came out of the Vier Marchi into La Grande Rue, along the stream
called the Fauxbie flowing through it, till he passed under the archway
of the Vier Prison, making towards the place where the child had
snatched the hat from the head of the Bailly.
Presently the door of a cottage opened, and the child came out,
followed by her mother.
The young gentleman touched his cap politely, for though the woman
was not fashionably dressed, she was distinguished in appearance, with
an air of remoteness which gave her a kind of agreeable mystery.
"Madame Landresse--" said the young gentleman with deference.
"Monsieur d'Avranche--" responded the lady softly, pausing.
"Did the Bailly make a stir? I saw the affair from the hill, through my
telescope," said young d'Avranche, smiling.
"My little daughter must have better manners," responded the lady,
looking down at her child reprovingly yet lovingly.
"Or the Bailly must--eh, Madame?" replied d'Avranche, and, stooping,
he offered his hand to the child. Glancing up inquiringly at her mother,
she took it. He held hers in a clasp of good nature. The child was so
demure, one could scarcely think her capable of tossing the Bailly's hat
into the stream; yet looking closely, there might be seen in her eyes a
slumberous sort of fire, a touch of mystery. They were neither blue nor
grey, but a mingling of both, growing to the most tender, greyish sort of
violet. Down through generations of Huguenot refugees had passed
sorrow and fighting and piety and love and occasional joy, until in the
eyes of this child they all met, delicately vague, and with the
wistfulness of the early morning of life.
"What is your name, little lady?" asked d'Avranche of the child.
"Guida, sir," she answered simply.

"Mine is Philip. Won't you call me Philip?"
She flashed a look at her mother, regarded him