But, on her first glimpse of young Tom's quick-eyed, bold-faced
Frenchwoman, she had vowed she would have none of her; and in the end,
as the result of some chaffering, it was arranged that Tom and his wife
should have the kitchen and all the rooms north of it, while Mrs. Hamon
and Nance and Bernel had the room next Grannie's for a kitchen, and the
great loft for bedrooms, all the necessary and duly specified
alterations to 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.