And when my words found vent she was ready for them, and I learned how firmly set upon her way may be a woman whom one had always looked upon as gentlest of the gentle and retiring beyond most.

“Not that, Phil, not that.  Anything but that.  I would sooner see you in your grave than a free-trader,”—­which seemed to me an extreme view to take of the matter, but I know now that she had her reasons, and that they were all-sufficient for her.

My grandfather set his face against it also, though, indeed, my mother’s strong feeling would have been enough for me.  He, however, being a man, understood better, perhaps, what was in me, for he had been that way himself, and he set himself to further my craving.

The only other openings were in the legitimate trading to foreign parts, or service on a King’s ship, or on a privateer, which latter business had come to be of very great importance in the Islands.  And between those three there could not be any question which my mother and grandfather would favour.  For the perils of the sea are considerable in themselves, and are never absent from any mother-heart in the Islands.  But add to them the harshness of the King’s service and the possibilities of sudden death at the hands of the King’s enemies, and there was no doubt as to which way the mother-heart would incline.

For myself, so hungry was I for wider doings, I would have put my neck under the yoke sooner than not go at all, and when they saw that spread my wings I must, they consented to my shipping on one of the Guernsey traders to foreign parts, and my heart was lighter than it had been for many a day.

I was eighteen, tall and strong, and, thanks to my grandfather and Krok, a capable seaman, so far as the limited opportunities of our little Island permitted, and the rest would come easily, for all their teaching had given me a capacity to learn.

That first parting from home and my mother and grandfather and Krok was a terrible wrench, full as I was of the wonderful world I was going out to see.  I had never been away from them before, and the sight of my mother’s woeful attempts at cheerfulness came near to breaking me down, and remained with me for many a day.  In my eagerness for the wider life I had forgotten the hole my going must make in hers.  And yet I do not think she would have had me stay, for she was as wise as she was gentle, and she ever set other people’s wishes before her own.  She had borne a man-child, and the inevitable Island penalty of parting with him she bore without a murmur, though the look on her face told its own tale at times.

“Change of pasture is good for young calves,” was Jeanne Falla’s characteristic comment when they were discussing the matter one evening.  And when my mother, in a moment of weakness, urged the likelihood, if not the absolute certainty, of my never returning alive, Aunt Jeanne’s trenchant retort, “Go where you can, die where you must,” put an end to the discussion and helped me to my wishes.