ing his steady
rounds on the sand.

His preliminary task achieved, the man, after a few friendly smacks,
set the beast free to trot back to his loose pasture: proceeding
himself to unship his cargo.

Through the narrow frame of his window, the master, with eyes of
approval, could see the servant dexterously load himself with a
well-balanced pile of parcels, disappearing to return after intervals
empty-handed, within the field of view, and select another burden, now
heavier now more bulky.

In due course Rene came up and reported himself in person, and as he
stopped on the threshold the dark doorway framed a not unstriking
presentment; a young-looking man for his years (he was a trifle junior
to his master), short and sturdy in build, on whose very broad
shoulders sat a phenomenally fair head--the hair short, crisp, and
curly, in colour like faded tow--and who, in smilingly respectful
silence, gazed into the room out of small, light-blue eyes, brimful of
alertness and intelligence, waiting to be addressed.

"Renny," said Adrian Landale, returning the glance with one of
comfortable friendliness, "you will have to make your peace with
Margery; she considers that you neglect me shamefully. Why, you are
actually twenty minutes late after three days' journeying, and perils
by land and sea!"

The Frenchman answered the pleasantry by a broader smile and a scrape.

"And, your honour," he said, "if what is now arriving on us had come
half an hour sooner, I should have rested planted there" (with a jerk
of the flaxen head towards the mainland), "turning my thumbs, till
to-morrow, at the least. We shall have a grain, number one, soon."

He spoke English fluently, though with the guttural accent of
Brittany, and an unconquerable tendency to translate his own jargon
almost word for word.

In their daily intercourse master and man had come for many years past
to eschew French almost entirely; Rene had let it be understood that
he considered his proficiency in the vernacular quite undeniable, and
with characteristic readiness Sir Adrian had fallen in with the little
vanity. In former days the dependant's form of address had been
_Monseigneur_ (considering, and shrewdly so, an English landowner to
stand in that relation to a simple individual like himself); in later
days "Monseigneur" having demurred at the appellation, "My lord," in
his own tongue, the devoted servant had discovered "Your honour" as a
happy substitute, and a