“I’d sooner have their company than his, any day,” with a little moue in the direction of the cove.  “I just wish you wouldn’t take him out fishing with you, Daddy, that I do!”

“Why not, girl?”

“It’s he as works for himself and cares for himself and for no one else, does Pierre,” said the girl.  “Comin’ a moonin’ round and pretending he’s after courting me, when all he wants, with takin’ the fish round and that, is to get the custom into his own hands, and tells folks, if he had the ordering of it, there’d be no fear about them getting their fish punctual.”

“Tells ’em that, does he?” said the father, his sea-blue eyes suddenly clouding over.

“That he does; and says he’d take up the inshore fishing, if he’d the money to spend:  and they should be supplied regular with crabs and shrimps and such; and then drops a word that poor Andre he’s gettin’ old, and what with being lame, and one thing and another, what can you expect, and such blathers!”

“Diable!  Do you know that for certain, child?” said Andre, stopping in the path, and turning round upon her with a face ablaze with anger.  “I should like to hear him sayin’ that, I should.”

“Now, Daddy,” she cried with a sudden change of tone, “don’t you be getting into one of your tantrums with him.  Don’t, there’s a dear Daddy!  I only told you, so you shouldn’t be putting too much into his hands.  But he’d be the one that would come best out of a quarrel.  He’s only looking for a chance of doin’ you a mischief, it’s my belief.”

“H’m!  ‘Poor Andre a gettin’ old,’ is he?” grunted her father, somewhat calmed.  “Poor Andre won’t be takin’ him out with him again just yet awhile—­that’s a certain thing.  Paul Nevin would suit me a deal better in many ways, only I’ bin keepin’ Pierre on out o’ charity, his pore father havin’ bin a pal o’ mine.  But he’s a deal stronger in the arms, is Paul.”

They reached the cottage, which stood on the first piece of level ground on the way to the mainland.  There was no other building within sight; and with its bleak boulders and rocks of strangest form, in perpetual death-struggle with the mighty force of ocean, resounding night and day with the rush and tramp of the wild sea-horses, as they flung themselves in despair on their rocky adversary, and with the many voices of the winds, which scarcely ever ceased blowing in that exposed spot, while the weird notes of the sea-fowl floated in the air, like the cries of wandering spirits, the solitary headland seemed indeed as if it might be the world’s end.

The cottage consisted of one room, and a lean-to.  Nearly half the room was taken up with a big bed, and on the other side were the fire-place and cooking utensils.  Opposite the door was a box-sofa, on which Marie had slept since she was a child, and which with a small table, two chairs and a stool, completed the furniture of the room; the only light was that admitted by the doorway, the door nearly always standing open; the lean-to was little more than a dog-kennel, being formed in fact out of a great heap of stones and rubbish, which had been piled up as a protection to the cottage on the windward side; and three dogs and two hens were enjoying themselves in front of the fire.