f the cutting on the farther side.

"You were right. It's a terrible place in a gale."

"You wait," shouted Bernel. "We're not home yet."

"No more Coupees, any way," and they bent again into the storm.

They had not gone more than a hundred yards when, through some freakish
funnelling of the tumbled headlands, the gale gripped them like a giant
playing with pigmies, caught them up, flung them bodily across the road
and held Gard and Bernel pinned and panting against the green bank,
while Nance disappeared over it into the shrieking darkness.

"Good heavens!" gasped Gard, fearful lest she should have been blown
over the cliffs, and wriggled himself up under the ceaseless thrashing
of the gale and was whirled off the top into the field beyond.

There the pressure was less, and, getting on to his hands and knees to
crawl in search of Nance, he found her close beside him crouching in the
lee of the grassy dyke.

He crept into shelter beside her, and presently, in the lull after a
fiercer blast than usual, she set off, bent almost double, and in a
moment they were in comparative quiet. Nance crawled through a gap into
the road and they found Bernel waiting for them.

"Knew you'd come through there. That's what that gap's made for," he
shouted.

"I've been in many a storm but I never felt wind like that before," said
Gard, as soon as his breath came back.

"If you'd stopped with me you'd have been all right," said Bernel.
"There was no need for you to go after Nance. We've been through that
lots of times, haven't we, Nance?"

"Lots."

"I shall know next time," said Gard, and to Nance it was a fresh
experience to think of some one going out of his way to be of possible
service to her.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW TOM WANTED TO BUT DIDN'T DARE

Before the six weeks allowed by Sark law for the retraiting of the
property had expired, Grannie and Mrs. Hamon put in their claims, and it
became generally known that they would become the new owners of La
Closerie, in place of John Guille.

When the rumour at length reached Tom's ears, he, not unnaturally
perhaps, set down the whole matter as a plot to oust him from his
heritage and put Nance and Bernel in his place.

So his anger grew, and he was powerless. And the impotence of an angry
man may lead him into gruesome paths. Smouldering fires burst out at
times into devastating flames, and maddened bulls put down their heads
and charge regardless of consequences.