CHAPTER XIII.
Superstition.
hile Adèle was thus pondering over her natural shocks, Frank was working, full of hope for the future.
His step-mother married, and he was left in possession of the house. He let it to an old couple, Pierre Merlin and his wife. Maît Pierre, as Frank called him, was a man of about sixty years of age. He worked for Frank who found that it was impossible for him to keep things ship-shape without re-enforcement.
This old man gloried in being a true Guernseyman, one of the old stock, of direct descent from those who fought for their country against the band of adventurers who invaded the island under Ivan of Wales. He did not say that the islanders had the worst of the fight. He only spoke in the patois, which Frank understood very well.
This species of the genus "homo" hailed from the parish of Torteval, and, being an old peasant and very illiterate, there is no cause for being astonished that he was superstitious.