As for Peter, to whom such advice was as useless as the act would have been impossible at that stage of the proceedings, he was almost as much upset as Nance herself.  He got up with a shamefaced—­

“Aw, Tom, boy, that was not good of you,” and made for his hat, while Tom sat with a broad grin at the result of his delicate diplomacy, and Gard’s great regret was that it was not possible for him to take the hulking fellow by the neck and bundle him out of doors.

Old Tom made some sharp remark to his son, who replied in kind; Mrs. Hamon sat quietly aloof, as she always did when Tom and his father got to words, and Bernel made play with his supper, as though such matters were of too common occurrence to call for any special attention on his part.

Then Nance’s face framed in a black sun-bonnet gleamed in at the outer door.

“Come along, Bern, and we’ll go and tell the Seigneur where his white horse is,” and she disappeared, and Bernel, having polished off everything within reach, got up and followed her.

“Will you please to take a look at the mines to-night?” asked old Tom of his guest, anxious to interest him in the work as speedily as possible.

“We might take a bit of a walk, and you can tell me all you will about things.  But I don’t take hold till the first of the month, and I don’t want to interfere until I have a right to.  I suppose my baggage will be coming up?”

“Ach, yes!  Tom, you take the cart and bring Mr. Gard’s things up.  They are lying on the quay down there.  Then we will go along, if you please!”

Old Tom marched him through the wonderful amber twilight to the summit of the bluff behind the engine-house—­whence Gard could just make out his box and carpet-bag still lying on the quay below.  And all the way the old man was volubly explaining the many changes necessary, in his opinion, to bring the business to a paying basis.  All which information Gard accepted for testing purposes, but gathered from the total the fact that through ill health on the part of the departing captain, the ropes all round had got slack and that the tightening of them would be a matter of no little delicacy and difficulty.

Sark men, Mr. Hamon explained, were very free and independent, and hated to be driven.  They did piecework—­so much per fathom, and were constitutionally, he admitted, a bit more particular as to the so much than as to the fathom.  While the Cornish and Welsh men, receiving weekly wages, had also grown slack and did far less work than they did at first and than they might, could, and should do.

“But,” said old Tom frankly, scratching his head, “I don’t know’s I’d like the job myself.  Your men are quiet enough to look at, but they can boil over when they’re put to it.  And our men—­well, they’re Sark, and there’s more’n a bit of the devil in them.”

“I must get things round bit by bit,” said Gard quietly.  “It never pays to make a fuss and bustle men.  Softly does it.”