"Doesn't sound like settling down sometimes," chirped the old lady again.
"Oh? I'm sorry to hear that. She doesn't look bad-tempered."
"Tom's got more'n enough for the two of them."
"I'm afraid she finds it a change from what she's been accustomed to," said Mrs. Hamon quietly. "She came in once or twice, but her talk is of things that don't interest us, and ours is of things that don't interest her, so we can't get as friendly as we would like to be."
"And Tom?"
"Tom considers us all robbers, as he always has done. He gives us his blackest face whenever he sees any of us."
"That's unpleasant, seeing you're such close neighbours."
"Yes, it's unpleasant, but we can't help it. It's just Tom. How is your work getting on?"
"Not as I would wish," said Gard, with a gloomy wag of the head. "Your Sark men are difficult—very difficult, and the others who ought to know better, and who do know better"—with more than a touch of warmth—"go on as though I was a slave-driver."
"Sark men are hard to drive," said Mrs. Hamon sympathetically.