Well, yes, he was good-looking in a way, but it passed his understanding why any Sercq girl should want to marry a foreigner while home lads were still to be had.

He did not think there would be much marrying outside the Island for some time to come, but it was bitter hard that Rachel Carre should have had to suffer in order to teach them that lesson.
Gr-r-r! but he would like to have Monsieur Martel up before him just for ten minutes or so, with a clear field and no favour.

Martel was strong and active, it was true, but there--he was a drinker, and a Frenchman at that, and drink doesn't run to wind, and a Frenchman doesn't run to fists.

Very well--say twenty minutes then, and if he--George Hamon--did not make Monsieur Martel regret ever having come to Sercq, he would deserve all he got and would take it without a murmur.
He was full of such imaginings, when at last he fell asleep, and he dreamt that he and Martel met in a lonely place and fought.

And so full of fight was he that he rolled off the fern-bed and woke with a bump on the floor, and regretted that it was only a dream.