o inclination to learn; perhaps because, in the earlier days, the scanty
little farm and the fishing which eked it out took up all the men's time
and attention.

However that might be, now that he had begun to learn Krok learned quickly,
and the signs of his knowledge were all over the place.

He knew all that wonderful west coast of our Island as well as he knew the
fingers of his hand, and before long the ground all round the house was
strewn about with smooth flat stones on which were scratched the letters of
the alphabet, which presently, according to the pace of my studies indoors,
began to arrange themselves into words, and so I was encompassed with
learning, inside and out, as it were, and sucked it in whether I would or
no.

Well do I remember the puzzlement in old Krok's face when the mischief that
dwells in every boy set me to changing the proper order of his stones, and
the eagerness with which he awaited the evening lesson to compare the new
wrong order of things with his recollections of the original correct one,
and then the mild look of reproachful enquiry he would turn upon me.

But my mother, catching me at it one day, sharply forbade me meddling with
Krok's studies, and showed me the smallness of it, and I never touched one
of his stones again.

Both my mother and my grandfather could read and speak English, in addition
to the Norman-French which was the root of our Island tongue, and that was
something of a distinction in those days. He had learned it, perforce,
during his early voyagings. He had been twice round the world, both times
on English ships, and he was the kind of man, steady, quiet, thoughtful, to
miss no opportunities of self-improvement, though I do not think there ever
can have been a man less desirous of gain. His wants were very few, and so
long as the farm and the fishing provided us all with a sufficient living,
he was satisfied and grateful. He saw his neighbours waxing fat all about
him, in pursuits which he would have starved sooner than set his hand to.
To them, and according to Island standards, these things might be right or
wrong, but to him, and for himself, he had no doubts whatever in the
matter.

You see, long ago, in Guernsey, he had come across Master Claude Gray, the
Quaker preacher, and had been greatly drawn to him and the simple high-life
he proclaimed. Frequently, on still Sabbath mornings, he would put off in
his boat, and, if the wind did not serve, would pu