be made at Tom's expense, and Mr. Tanquerel to see them
carried out at once. Grannie's other room was to become their
sitting-room also and they were to provide for her as hitherto. By
boarding up the doors leading to the kitchen, and making a new entrance
to their own rooms, the families were therefore entirely separated, to
every one's complete satisfaction.

The division of the furniture and kitchen utensils gave Mrs. Hamon all
she needed. Tom, of course, took as _droit d'ainesse_, before the
division, the family clock--which still bore signs of strife, and had
refused to go since that night when Gard's buffet had sent him headlong
into it; and the farm-ladders and the pilotins--the stone props on which
the haystacks were built; and in addition to his own full share, as
between himself and Nance and Bernel, he exacted from them to the
uttermost farthing the extra seventh part of the value of all they
received--an Island right, but honoured more in the breach than in the
observance, and one which, in its exercise, tended to label the
exerciser as unduly mean and grasping.

Beyond that, everything was so fairly well balanced that Tom found
himself unable to secure all he had hoped, and so deemed himself
ill-used, and did not hesitate to express himself in his usual forcible
manner.

To obtain some of the things he specially wanted, Tanquerel had so
arranged the lots that he must sacrifice others, and these little
matters rankled in his mind and obscured his purview.

There was a good deal of unhappy wrangling, but in the end Mrs. Hamon
and Nance found themselves with a large cornfield, one for pasture, and
one for mixed crops, potatoes, beans and so on, besides rights of
grazing and gorse-cutting on a certain stretch of cliff common.

They had also a pony and two cows, and two pigs and a couple of dozen
hens and a cock--quite enough to keep Nance busy; and to them also fell
an adequate share of the byres and barns, and the free use of the well.

Tom, however, still looked upon them as interlopers, and grudged them
every stick and stone, and hoof and claw. If they had never come into
the family all would have been his. Whatever they had they had snatched
out of his mouth.

If it had not been for Philip Tanquerel the alterations agreed on would
never have been completed. He got down the carpenter and mason from
Sark, stood over them, day by day, till the work was done, and then
referred them to Tom for payment--