“George, my boy, you should come in oftener.”

“Ay, ay!  If I came as often as I wanted you’d be for turning me out,”—­with a nod to Krok, who replied with a cheerful smile, and went to the fire.

“You know better.  Your welcome always waits you.  What’s in the wind now?”

“Phil wants to go privateering,” said my mother.  “And George has come to help him.”

“Ah, I expected it would come to that,” said my grandfather quietly.  “It’s a risky business, after all, Phil,”—­to me, sitting on the green-bed and feeling rather sheepish.

“I know, grandfather.  But there are risks in everything, and—­”

“And, to put it plainly, he wants Carette Le Marchant, and he’s not the only one, and that seems the quickest way to her,” said George Hamon.

My mother’s quiet brown eyes gave a little snap, and he caught it.

“When a lad’s heart is set on a girl there is nothing he won’t do for her.  I’ve known a man wait twenty years for a woman—­”

She made a quick little gesture with her hand, but he went on stoutly—­

“Oh yes, and never give up hoping all that time, though, mon Gyu, it was little he got for his—­”

“And you think it right he should go?” interrupted my mother hastily.  And, taken up as I was with my own concerns, I understood of a sudden that there was that between my mother and George Hamon which I had never dreamed of.

“I think he will never settle till he has been.  And it’s lawful business, and profitable, and your objection to the free-trading doesn’t touch it.  There is some discipline on a privateer, though it’s not as bad as on a King’s ship.  My advice is—­let him go.”

“It’s only natural, after all,” said my grandfather, with a thoughtful nod.  “Who’s the best man to go with, George?”

“Torode of Herm makes most at it, they say.  But—­”

“A rough lot, I’m told, and he has to keep a tight hand on them.  But I know nothing except from hearsay.  I’ve never come across him yet.”

“Jean Le Marchant could tell you more about him than anyone else round here,” said Uncle George, looking musingly at me.  “They have dealings together in trading matters, I believe.  Then, they say, John Ozanne is fitting out a schooner in Peter Port.  He’s a good man, but how he’ll shape at privateering I don’t know.”

“Who’s going to command her?” I asked.

“John himself, I’m told.”

“Then I’ll go across and see Jean Le Marchant,” I said.

At which prompt discounting of John Ozanne, Uncle George laughed out loud.

“Well, I don’t suppose it can do any harm, if it doesn’t do much good.  He’s at home, I believe.  Someone got hurt on their last run, I heard—­”

“Yes, Aunt Jeanne told me,—­two of them.”

“Maybe you’ll not find them in any too good a humour, but you know how to take care of yourself.”

“I’ll take care of myself all right.”