“I draw the line at devil-fish.  They’re no’ canny.”

“Do they generally go on like this?” asked Lady Elspeth of Margaret.

“All the time,” said Margaret, with a matronly air.  “They’re just a couple of children.  I keep them out of mischief as well as I can, but it’s hard work at times.”

“She’s just every bit as bad, you know, when we’re alone,” said Miss Penny.  “But she’s got her company manners on just now.  You should see her when she’s bathing.”

“Ah—­yes!  You should see her when she’s bathing,” said Graeme, with a smack of the lips.  “All the little waves and crabs and lobsters keep bobbing up to have another look at her.  In Venus’s Bath the other day—­”

“Now, children, stop your fooling.  Where shall we go to-day?” laughed Margaret, and Lady Elspeth could hardly take her eyes off her, so winsomely, so radiantly happy was she.

“We old folks will stay at home and talk to Mrs. Carre,” said Lady Elspeth.  “You young ones can go off and do what you like.”

“Oh no, you don’t,” said Graeme.  “You didn’t come here to loaf in a verandah.  When you come to Sark you’ve got to enjoy yourselves, whether you want to or not.  Suppose we take lunch along to the Eperquerie, and the elders can bask and snooze, and we’ll bathe three times off that black ledge under Les Fontaines.  And if the Seigneur’s out fishing perhaps he’ll take some of us with him, those who don’t scream when the poor fish gets a hook in its throat.  And you’ll see Margaret out on the loose.  She always goes it when she’s swimming.”

“I hope you won’t venture too far out, Charles,” said Mrs. Pixley, with visions of his limp body being carried home.

“Miss Penny and I are sensible people when we’re bathing,” said Charles.  “We don’t lose our heads—­”

“Nor any of the rest of you,—­nor touch of the stones,” laughed Graeme.

“That’s so,” said Charles.  “We like to know what’s below us and that it’s not too far away.”

“It’s very wise,” said Mrs. Pixley plaintively.  “One hears of such dreadful accidents.  I’m very glad you’re so sensible, my dear,” to Miss Penny.

“Oh, I’m dreadfully sensible at times, especially when I’m bathing.  But that’s because I can only swim with one foot at the bottom.”

“Any beach about there?” enquired Charles forethoughtfully.

“Nice little bit just round the corner, with a cave and all,—­capital place for children.  Paddle by the hour without going in above your ankles.”

And so they wandered slowly up the scented lanes past the Seigneurie, laden with the usual paraphernalia of a bathing-lunch, and came out on the Eperquerie.

They established the old ladies in a gorsy nook, built a fireplace of loose stones, and collected fuel, and laid the fire ready for the match, which Lady Elspeth was to apply whenever they waved to her.

“If She isn’t fast asleep,” said Graeme.