exactly five pennies in my pocket. Catch, bearer of good tidings!
Here you are--one, two, three, four, five! Well caught! Is it going to
keep fine?" and Marielihou stopped licking herself to look at Graeme,
and then went on again with an air of,--"I could tell you things if I
would, but it's not worth while,"--in her ugly green eyes.

"I don' think," said Johnnie, jumping at the chance of ill news.

"You don't, you little rascal? Here, give me back my hard-earned
pence! You're a little humbug."

"What's Johnnie been up to now?" asked Miss Penny, as she came out
into the open.

"He's giving me lessons in necromancy and the black art of crows. He
declines to pledge his honour on the continued brightness of the day."

"Oh, Johnnie! And we're going to Brecqhou!"

"I cann'd help."

"But you might send us on our way rejoicing."

"Gimme six pennies an' I will say it will be fine."

"I'm beginning to think you're of a grasping disposition, Johnnie. If
you don't take care you'll die rich."

"Go'zamin, I wu'n't mind."

Then Graeme came out again, with the hamper he had had packed in the
kitchen under his own supervision, and their cloaks, which, thanks to
Johnnie, he had picked off the nails in the passage, and they set off
for Havre Gosselin and Brecqhou.

XVI

"You'll not forget to come back for us about eight," Graeme shouted to
the boatmen, as they pushed off from the fretted black rock on which
their passengers had just made precarious landing.

"Nossir!" and they pulled away to their fishing.

"If it should be a fine sunset," he explained to the ladies, "the view
of the Sark cliffs from Beleme there, opposite the Gouliots, is one of
the finest sights in the island."

The place they had landed was a rough ledge on the south side just
under the Pente-a-Fouaille, some distance past the Pirates' Cave, and
the ascent, though steep, was not so difficult as it looked. Graeme,
however, in his capacity of chaperon, insisted on convoying them
separately to the top--whereby he got holding Margaret's hand for the
space of sixty pulse-beats--and then went down again for the cloaks
and provisions.

Brecqhou, at the moment, was uninhabited. Its late occupant had thrown
up his post suddenly, and gone to live on Sark with his wife, and a
new caretaker had not yet been appointed. So they went straight to the
house, deposited their belongings in the sitting-room, and then
started out for a long ramble round the island