quickly. "You think--?"

"I think what you are thinking, my friend. If they are beaten over
there--and they will be, unless the Guernsey men are bigger fools than they
used to be--we may see some of them across here again and in a still worse
temper. If they make a bolt at the last, they'll make for France, and ten
to one they'll take a bite at us in passing. They came to stop trouble
before, now they'll come to make it."

"It's what was in my mind. I'll see Amice Le Couteur at once."

"B'en! and give the word to all you see, George," she called after him.
"And bid the women and children to the Gouliots if they hear they are
coming--the upper chamber above the black rock. It won't be just
hide-and-seek this time."

"Good idea!" Uncle George called back over his shoulder.

"Common sense," said Aunt Jeanne. "I'd undertake to hold the Gouliots
against the lot of them if the tide was at flood."

"And you really think they may come across here again, Aunt Jeanne?" I
asked.

"Ma fe, yes, I do. They were angry men before, but if the Guernsey men have
smoked them out they'll be simply devils, and it's just as well to look
ahead. How is that arm of yours?"

"The other one's all right. I can do my share."

"You'll be wanted if they come. I doubt if we can muster more than thirty
men at most, and there may be more than that left of them, and madmen at
that."

"We won't let them land."

"You can't close every door with thirty men, mon gars."

"One at the Coupee, if they make for Gorey. Three at Dos d'Ane. Three at
Havre Gosselin. Half a dozen at the Creux--"

"Ta-ta! What about Eperquerie and Dixcart, my boy? Those are the open
doors, and they know it just as well as you do. They're not going to climb
one by one when they can come all in a heap. Mon Dieu, non!" she said,
shaking her head ominously. "If they come there'll be rough work, and the
readier we are for it the better."

Carette's face had shadowed at this gloomy talk, when she had been hoping
that our troubles were over. And I could find little to reassure her, for
it seemed to me more than likely that Aunt Jeanne's predictions would be
fulfilled.

"I'll go along to Moie de Mouton and keep a look-out," I said.

"I also," said Carette, and we went off over the knoll together.

We sat in the short sweet grass of the headland, just as we had sat many a
time when we were boy and girl, when life was all as bright as the inside
of an ormer shell and we were