e the mighty folks had lived of whom he had read in
his grandfather's great book of plays,--and strange, wild notions he had
got of the land and the people; England, where they used to burn men and
women at the stake, and pinch them with hot irons, and sting them to death
with bees, and break them in pieces on wheels--a process he did not quite
understand, though it seemed satisfactorily horrible; England, which was
always at war with France, and was constantly winning great fights upon the
sea; England, of whom they were proud to be a part, though--somewhat
confusingly to twelve years old--their own ordinary speech was French; a
wonderful place that England, bigger even than Guernsey, his grandfather
said, and so it must be true. And sometime, maybe, he would sail across the
sea and see it all for himself, and the great city of London, which was
bigger even than Peter Port, though that, indeed, seemed almost past belief
and the boy had his doubts.

He told Carette of England and London at times, and drew so wildly on his
imagination--yet came so very far from the reality--that Carette flatly
denied the possibilities of such things, and looked upon him as a romancer
of parts, though she put it more briefly.

She herself lay facing west, gazing longingly at Herm and Jethou, with the
long line of Guernsey behind. Guernsey bounded her aspirations. Sometime
she was to go with Aunt Jeanne to Guernsey, and then she would be level
with Phil, and be able to take him down when he boasted too wildly of its
wonderful streets and houses and shops.

Suddenly she stiffened, as a cat does at distant sight of a mouse, gazed
hard, sat up, jumped to her feet and began to dance excitedly as was her
way.

"Phil! Phil!" and the boy's eyes were on the object at which her dancing
finger pointed vaguely.

"A boat!" said he, jumping with excitement also, for the boat Carette had
sighted was evidently astray, and, moreover, it was, as they could easily
see even at that distance, no Island boat, but a stranger, a waif, and so
lawful prey and treasure-trove if they could secure it.

"Oh, Phil! Get it! I want it! It's just what I've been wanting all my
life!"

It was a mere yellow cockleshell of a thing, almost round, and progressing,
with wind and tide, equally well bow or stern foremost, its holding
capacity a man and a half maybe, or say two children.

It came joggling slowly along, like a floating patch of sunlight, among the
sun-glint