“Mad? No. Not more mad than country gentlemen always are when they live by themselves and have nobody to contradict their whims,” retorted the plain-spoken peasant, scoffingly. “I call it more like madness for a gentleman to play the spy upon his relations and to hang about where he has been given to understand that he is not wanted.”
“I shall have an inquiry made into this,” said Bayre, shortly. “There are others concerned.”
And he walked away without further comment.
That he had alarmed Pierre Vazon by this threat of bringing outside inquiry into the matter was evident a few moments later when Pierre came running down the avenue after him, his manner changed from insolence to abject servility.
“One moment, monsieur,” he cried, gaining his point by his earnestness, and inducing the young man to stop and listen. “Pardon my rough manners if I said anything to displease you. I am but a peasant, with the manners of the soil. Remember, I love my master; I’ve served him many years now, and the thought that he should be interfered with, even in his caprices, seems like treason to me. Look here, monsieur. I know monsieur your uncle is eccentric; everyone knows it. But it is the eccentricity of a good man, a generous one, one with a good heart. If he amuses himself as others do not, where is the harm? Leave him in peace to enjoy the few years of life remaining to him, months only, it may be, for he is old and broken now.”
Doubtful though he was of Vazon’s entire good faith, the young man could not help being touched by his earnestness, and he promised not to do anything rashly or without due thought.
“But mind,” he went on, “I am not going to leave the island again without having seen my uncle and judged of his condition with my own eyes. So I warn you that, when I return, as I shall do in a few days, you had better rather help me than hinder me in my purpose of getting an interview with him.”
The old peasant gave a curious glance at the dark sea, which was already even rougher than it had been a couple of hours before, when Bayre came across from St Luke’s. And Bayre wondered whether the old man was speculating as to the chances of communication between the islands being cut off, as it was sometimes in the winter, by the spell of tempestuous weather.
“Certainly, certainly, monsieur, I will do my best, my very best. And when Pierre Vazon gives his word it is as the word of a gentleman.”
And with this parting speech, uttered with an air of uncouth dignity, raising his cap with great deference, Pierre Vazon disappeared in the direction of his own cottage.