He tried to get a lodging elsewhere, but no one would receive him.
He begged for food. No one would give him a crust, and everyone he asked kept a watchful eye on him until he was clear of the premises.
He pulled some green corn, and husked it between his hands, and tried to satisfy his complaining stomach with that and half-ripe blackberries.
He crept up to a farmsteading after dark, intent on eggs, a chicken, a pigeon,—anything that might stay the clamour inside. The watch-dogs raised such a riot that he crept away again in haste.
The hay had been cut in the churchyard. That was No Man's Land, and none had the right to hunt him out of it. So he made up a bed alongside a great square tomb, and slept there that night, and scared the children as they went past to school next morning.
One of the cows at Le Port gave no milk that day, and Dame Vaudin pondered the matter weightily, and discussed it volubly with her neighbours, but did not try their remedies.
During the day he went over to Little Sercq in hopes of snaring a rabbit. But the rabbits understood him and were shy. When he found himself near the Cromlech it suggested shelter, and creeping in to curl himself up for a sleep, he came unexpectedly on a baby rabbit paralysed with fear at the sight of him. It was dead before it understood what was happening. He tore it in pieces with his fingers and ate it raw. They found its skin and bones there later on.
Under the stimulus of food his brain worked again. There was no room for him in Sercq, that was evident. He was alien, and the clan spirit was too strong for him.
He crept back across the Coupée in the dark, and passed a man there who bade him good-night, not knowing till afterwards who he was.
Next morning, when Philip Carré came in from his fishing and climbed the zigzag above Havre Gosselin, he was surprised at the sight of George Hamon smoking in the doorway of the cottage.