"To the Bu de la Rue."

BOOK III

THE DEPARTURE OF THE _CASHMERE_

I

THE HAVELET NEAR THE CHURCH

When there is a crowd at St. Sampson, St. Peter's Port is soon deserted.
A point of curiosity at a given place is like an air-pump. News travel
fast in small places. Going to see the funnel of the Durande under Mess
Lethierry's window had been, since sunrise, the business of the Guernsey
folks. Every other event was eclipsed by this. The death of the Dean of
St. Asaph was forgotten, together with the question of the Rev. Mr.
Caudray, his sudden riches, and the departure of the _Cashmere_. The
machinery of the Durande brought back from the Douvres rocks was the
order of the day. People were incredulous. The shipwreck had appeared
extraordinary, the salvage seemed impossible. Everybody hastened to
assure himself of the truth by the help of his own eyes. Business of
every kind was suspended. Long strings of townsfolk with their families,
from the "Vesin" up to the "Mess," men and women, gentlemen, mothers
with children, infants with dolls, were coming by every road or pathway
to see "the thing to be seen" at the Bravees, turning their backs upon
St. Peter's Port. Many shops at St. Peter's Port were closed. In the
Commercial Arcade there was an absolute stagnation in buying and
selling. The Durande alone obtained attention. Not a single shopkeeper
had had a "handsell" that morning, except a jeweller, who was surprised
at having sold a wedding-ring to "a sort of man who appeared in a great
hurry, and who asked for the house of the Dean." The shops which
remained open were centres of gossip, where loiterers discussed the
miraculous salvage. There was not a foot-passenger at the "Hyvreuse,"
which is known in these days, nobody knows why, as Cambridge Park; no
one was in the High Street, then called the Grande Rue; nor in Smith
Street, known then only as the Rue des Forges; nobody in Hauteville. The
Esplanade itself was deserted. One might have guessed it to be Sunday. A
visit from a Royal personage to review the militia at the Ancresse
could not have emptied the town more completely. All this hubbub about
"a nobody" like Gilliatt, caused a good deal of shrugging of the
shoulders among persons of grave and correct habits.

The church of St. Peter's Port, with its three gable-ends placed side by
side, its transept and its steeple, stands at the water's side at the
end of the harbour, and nearly on the landing