Besides Joan was not a woman to go
singly to her life's end.
There was scarcely a man on Isle of Days and in the parish of Ste.
Eunice, on the mainland, but would gladly have taken to wife the daughter
of Tarboe the smuggler, and it is likely that the cure of either parish
would not have advised against it.
Joan had had the taste of the lawless, and now she knew, as she sat and
listened to Bissonnette's music, that she also could dance for joy, in
the hope of a taste of the lawful. With this money, if it were got,
there could be another life--in Quebec. She could not forbear laughing
now as she remembered that first day she had seen Orvay Lafarge, and she
said to Bissonnette: "Loce, do you mind the keg in the water-pail?"
Bissonnette paused on an out-pull, and threw back his head with a
soundless laugh, then played the concertina into contortions.
"That Lafarge! H'm! He is very polite; but pshaw, it is no use that,
in whisky-running! To beat a great man, a man must be great. Tarboe
Noir can lead M'sieu' Lafarge all like that!"
It seemed as if he were pulling the nose of the concertina. Tarboe began
tracing a kind of maze with his fingers on the deck, his eyes rolling
outward like an endless puzzle. But presently he turned sharp on Joan.
"How many times have you met him?" he asked. "Oh, six or seven--eight
or nine, perhaps.
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