Torode brought him to reason with a violent hand, and flung himself off with a black face.

“How then, Carre?” he broke out.  “Mademoiselle promised to ride with me to-day.”

“And with me also.  So she said she would ride half the day with each of us.”

“But, nom-de-dieu, what is the good of that?  There is no sense in it.”

“It is her wish.”

He flogged a gorse bush angrily with a switch he had cut for Black Boy’s benefit, and looked more than half inclined to fling himself back on to his horse and ride away, which would have been quite to my taste.  Black Boy watched him viciously, with white gleams in his eyes, and winced at sound of the switch.

But before Torode had made up his mind, Jeanne Falla’s sharp voice called from the gate, “Now then, you two, the coffee’s getting cold.  Come in and eat while you have the chance.”

Coffee never tastes so good as just after morning watch, and I turned in at once, while young Torode proceeded to make sure that Black Boy should not make off while he was inside.

Aunt Jeanne’s brown old face creased up into something like a very large wink as we went up the path, and she said softly, “First pig in trough gets first bite.  You’ll enjoy a cup of coffee at all events, mon gars.  Seems to me there are two Black Boys out there, n’es c’ pas?”

And if such coffee as Jeanne Falla made, with milk warm from the cow, could have been curdled by sour looks, young Torode had surely not found his cup to his liking.

His ill-humour was not simply ill-concealed, it was barely kept within bounds, and was, to say the least of it, but poor return for Aunt Jeanne’s double hospitality.  But Aunt Jeanne, far from resenting it, seemed actually to enjoy the sight, and as a matter of fact, I believe she was hoping eagerly that Carette would come down in time to partake of it also.

She chatted gaily about her party, and plumed herself on its success.

“We did it all our own two selves, the little one and I. Nothing like washing your own shirt, if you want it well done,” brimmed she.

“It couldn’t have been better, Aunt Jeanne.  And as for the gache—­it was simply delicious.”

“Crais b’en!  If there’s one thing I can do, it’s make gache.  And it’s not all finished yet,” and she went to the press and brought out a cake like a cartwheel, and cut it into spokes.

“There are not many things you can’t do, it seems to me, Aunt Jeanne,” I said.  “That cider was uncommonly good too.”

“Ma fe, when you’ve learned to make cider for the Guernsey men you can make it for most folks, I trow....  It’s a tired man you’ll be to-night, Phil, mon gars.  We were just turning in, the little one and I, when we heard a horse snuffle outside, and nothing would satisfy her but she must up and peep out of the window, and she said, ’Why, there’s Phil Carre standing on the knoll.  Mon Gyu, what does he want there at this time of day?’