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CARETTE OF SARK
BY JOHN OXENHAM
AUTHOR OF "WHITE FIRE" "HEARTS IN EXILE" "BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU"
"JOHN OF GERISAU" ETC.
WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS, FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
OF SARK, SPECIALLY TAKEN FOR THIS BOOK
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON MCMVII
WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR
GOD'S PRISONER
RISING FORTUNES
A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY
BONDMAN FREE
OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
JOHN OF GERISAU
UNDER THE IRON FLAIL
BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU
HEARTS IN EXILE
JOSEPH SCORER
A WEAVER OF WEBS
WHITE FIRE
THE GATE OF THE DESERT
GIANT CIRCUMSTANCE
PROFIT AND LOSS
THE LONG ROAD
TO
WILLIAM FREDERICK COLLINGS, ESQ.
Seigneur of Sark
AND
JOHN LINWOOD PITTS, ESQ., F.S.A. (Normandy)
Managing Director
of the Guille-Allès Library, Guernsey
AND ALL THOSE GOOD FRIENDS IN THE ISLANDS
WHO HAVE SHOWN SO GREAT AN INTEREST IN THIS BOOK
I INSCRIBE THE SAME
IN HEARTY RECOGNITION OF MANY KINDNESSES
_FOREWORD_
_Sercq is a small exclusive land where the forty farm holdings to-day are
almost identical with those fixed by Helier de Carteret in the time of
Queen Elizabeth; where feudal observances which date back to the time of
Rollo, Duke of Normandy, are still the law of the land; and where family
names and records in some cases run back unbroken for very many
generations._
_To obviate any personal feeling, I desire to state that, to the best of my
belief, no present inhabitant of Sercq is in any way connected with any of
the principal characters named in this book._
_The name Carré is still an honoured one in the Island. It is pronounced
Caury._
_The numbers on the map refer to the farms and tenants in the year
1800--the approximate date of the story. As this map has been specially
compiled, and is, I believe, the only one of its kind in existence, it may
be of interest to some to find at the end of this volume a list of the
holdings and holders in Sercq about one hundred years ago._
* * * * *
_The photographs from which this book is illustrated were specially taken
for me at considerable expenditure of time and trouble by various good
friends in Sark and elsewhere. If, in one or two cases, we have permitted
ourselves some little license in the adaptation of the present to the past,
it is only for the purpose of presenting to the reader as nearly as
possible what was in the writer's mind when working on the story._
* * * * *
_The map and list of the Forty Men of Sark and their properties in the year
1800 were compiled for me from the old Island records, by my friend Mr.
W.A. Toplis, over twenty years resident in Sark, and for all the time and
labour he expended upon them I here make most grateful acknowledgment._
* * * * *
_The length of the Coupée depends upon--one's feelings, one's temperament,
and the exact spots where it really begins and ends. To the nervous it
seems endless, and some have found themselves unable to cross it under any
conditions whatever. So high an authority as Ansted gives it as 600 feet,
others say 300; the simple fact being that, unless one goes for the express
methodic purpose of measuring it (which no one ever does), all thought,
save that of wonder and admiration, is lost the moment one's foot falls
upon it. The span from cliff to cliff is probably something over 300 feet,
while, from the dip of the path in Sark to the clearing of the rise in
Little Sark, it is probably twice as much._
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I PAGE
HOW PAUL MARTEL FELL OUT WITH SERCQ 1
CHAPTER II
HOW RACHEL CARRÉ WENT BACK TO HER FATHER 14
CHAPTER III
HOW TWO FOUGHT IN THE DARK 19
CHAPTER IV
HOW MARTEL RAISED THE CLAMEUR BUT FOUND NO RELIEF 24
CHAPTER V
HOW CARETTE AND I WERE GIRL AND BOY TOGETHER 31
CHAPTER VI
HOW CARETTE CAME BY HER GOLDEN BRIDGE 43
CHAPTER VII
HOW I SHOWED ONE THE WAY TO THE BOUTIQUES 53
CHAPTER VIII
HOW I WENT THE FIRST TIME TO BRECQHOU 65
CHAPTER IX
HOW WE BEGAN TO SPREAD OUR WINGS 77
CHAPTER X
HOW I BEARDED LIONS IN THEIR DENS 85
CHAPTER XI
HOW WE GREW, AND GROWING, GREW APART 94
CHAPTER XII
HOW AUNT JEANNE GAVE A PARTY 100
CHAPTER XIII
HOW WE RODE GRAY ROBIN 117
CHAPTER XIV
HOW YOUNG TORODE TOOK THE DEVIL OUT OF BLACK BOY 130
CHAPTER XV
HOW I FELT THE GOLDEN SPUR 142
CHAPTER XVI
HOW I WENT TO SEE TORODE OF HERM 156
CHAPTER XVII
HOW I WENT OUT WITH JOHN OZANNE 167
CHAPTER XVIII
HOW WE CAME ACROSS MAIN ROUGE 172
CHAPTER XIX
HOW I FELL INTO THE _RED HAND_ 184
CHAPTER XX
HOW I LAY IN THE CLEFT OF A ROCK 197
CHAPTER XXI
HOW I FACED DEATHS AND LIVED 202
CHAPTER XXII
HOW THE _JOSÉPHINE_ CAME HOME 214
CHAPTER XXIII
HOW I LAY AMONG LOST SOULS 222
CHAPTER XXIV
HOW I CAME ACROSS ONE AT AMPERDOO 230
CHAPTER XXV
HOW WE SAID GOOD-BYE TO AMPERDOO 237
CHAPTER XXVI
HOW WE FOUND A FRIEND IN NEED 246
CHAPTER XXVII
HOW WE CAME UPON A WHITED SEPULCHRE AND FELL INTO THE FIRE 253
CHAPTER XXVIII
HOW WE WALKED INTO THE TIGER'S MOUTH 264
CHAPTER XXIX
HOW THE HAWK SWOOPED DOWN ON BRECQHOU 277
CHAPTER XXX
HOW I FOUND MY LOVE IN THE CLEFT 283
CHAPTER XXXI
HOW I HELD THE NARROW WAY 294
CHAPTER XXXII
HOW WE WENT TO EARTH 307
CHAPTER XXXIII
HOW LOVE COULD SEE IN THE DARK 312
CHAPTER XXXIV
HOW LOVE FOUGHT DEATH IN THE DARK 324
CHAPTER XXXV
HOW WE HEARD STRANGE NEWS 332
CHAPTER XXXVI
HOW A STORM CAME OUT OF THE WEST 338
CHAPTER XXXVII
HOW WE HELD OUR HOMES 348
CHAPTER XXXVIII
HOW WE RAN AGAINST THE LAW FOR THE SAKE OF A WOMAN 357
CHAPTER XXXIX
HOW I CAME INTO RICH TREASURE 373
ILLUSTRATIONS
THE WEST COAST OF SARK AND BRECQHOU _Frontispiece_
THE CREUX ROAD _Facing Page_ 5
HAVRE GOSSELIN 19
TINTAGEU 47
THE LADY GROTTO 65
A QUIET LANE 117
THE EPERQUERIE 132
IN THE CLEFT OF A ROCK 197
BELOW BEAUMANOIR 226
BRECQHOU FROM THE SOUTH 273
THE COUPÉE 297
THE CHASM OF THE BOUTIQUES 308
THE WATER CAVE 321
EPERQUERIE BAY 349
DIXCART BAY 352
CREUX TUNNEL 355
CHAPTER I
HOW PAUL MARTEL FELL OUT WITH SERCQ
To give you a clear understanding of matters I must begin at the beginning
and set things down in their proper order, though, as you will see, that
was not by any means the way in which I myself came to learn them.
For my mother and my grandfather were not given to overmuch talk at the
best of times, and all my boyish questionings concerning my father left me
only the bare knowledge that, like many another Island man in those
times--ay, and in all times--he had gone down to the sea and had never
returned therefrom.
That was too common a thing to require any explanation, and it was not till
long afterwards, when I was a grown man, and so many other strange things
had happened that it was necessary, or at all events seemly, that I should
know all about my father, that George Hamon, under the compulsion of a very
strange and unexpected happening, told me all he knew of the matter.
This, then, that I tell you now is the picture wrought into my own mind by
what I gathered from him and from others, regarding events which took place
when I was close upon three years old.
And first, let me say that I hold myself a Sercq man born and bred, in
spite of the fact that--well, you will come to that presently. And I count
our little isle of Sercq the very fairest spot on earth, and in that I am
not alone. The three years I spent on ships trading legitimately to the
West Indies and Canada and the Mediterranean made me familiar with many
notable places, but never have I seen one to equal this little pearl of all
islands.
You will say that, being a Sercq man, that is quite how I ought to feel
about my own Island. And that is true, but, apart from the fact that I have
lived there the greater part of my life, and loved there, and suffered
there, and enjoyed there greater happiness than comes to all men, and that
therefore Sercq is to me what no other land ever could be,--apart from all
that, I hold, and always shall hold, that in the matter of natural beauty,
visible to all seeing eyes, our little Island holds her own against the
world.
My grandfather, who had voyaged even more widely than myself, always said
the same, and he was not a man given to windy talk, nor, indeed, as I have
said, to overmuch talk of any kind.
And for the opening of my eyes to the rare delight and full enjoyment of
the simple things of Nature, just as God has fashioned them with His
wonderful tools, the wind, the wave, and the weather, I have to thank my
mother, Rachel Carré, and my grandfather, Philip Carré,--for that and very
much more.
It has occurred to me at times, when I have been thinking over their lives
as I knew them,--the solitariness, the quietness, the seeming grayness and
dead levelness of them,--that possibly their enjoyment and apprehension of
the beauty of all things about them, the small things as well as the
great, were given to them to make up, as it were, for the loss of other
things, which, however, they did not seem to miss, and I am quite sure
would not have greatly valued. If they had been richer, more in the
world,--busier they hardly could have been, for the farm was but a small
one and not very profitable, and had to be helped by the fishing,--perhaps
they might not have found time to see and understand and enjoy those
simpler, larger matters. But some may look upon that as mere foolishness,
and may quote against me M. La Fontaine's fable about the fox and the
grapes. I do not mind. Their grapes ripened and were gathered, and mine are
in the ripening.
Sercq, in the distance, looks like a great whale basking on the surface of
the sea and nuzzling its young. That is a feature very common to our
Islands; for time, and the weather, and the ever-restless sea wear through
the softer veins, which run through all our Island rocks, just as
unexpected streaks of tenderness may be found in the rough natures of our
Island men. And so, from every outstanding point, great pieces become
detached and form separate islets, between which and the parent isles the
currents run like mill-races and take toll of the unwary and the stranger.
So, Sercq nuzzles Le Tas, and Jethou Crevichon, and Guernsey Lihou and the
Hanois, and even Brecqhou has its whelp in La Givaude. Herm alone, with its
long white spear of sand and shells, is like a sword-fish among the nursing
whales.
In the distance the long ridge of Sercq looks as bare and uninteresting as
would the actual back of a basking whale. It is only when you come to a
more intimate acquaintance that all her charms become visible. Just as I
have seen high-born women, in our great capital city of London, turn cold
unmoved faces to the crowd but smile sweetly and graciously on their
friends and acquaintances.
As you draw in to the coast across the blue-ribbed sea, which, for three
parts of the year, is all alive with dancing sunflakes, the smooth bold
ridge resolves itself into deep rents and chasms. The great granite cliffs
stand out like the frowning heads of giants, seamed and furrowed with ages
of conflict. The rocks are wrought into a thousand fantastic shapes. The
whole coast is honeycombed with caves and bays, with chapelles and arches
and flying buttresses, among which are wonders such as you will find
nowhere else in the world. And the rocks are coloured most wondrously by
that which is in them and upon them, and perhaps the last are the most
beautiful, for their lichen robes are woven of silver, and gold, and gray,
and green, and orange. When the evening sun shines full upon the Autelets,
and sets them all aflame with golden fire, they become veritable altars and
lift one's soul to worship. He would be a bold man who would say he knew a
nobler sight, and I should doubt his word at that, until I had seen it with
my own eyes.
The great seamed rocks of the headlands are black, and white, and red, and
pink, and purple, and yellow; while up above, the short green herbage is
soft and smooth as velvet, and the waving bracken is like a dark green robe
of coarser stuff lined delicately with russet gold.
Now I have told you all this because I have met people whose only idea of
Sercq was of a storm-beaten rock, standing grim and stark among the
thousand other rocks that bite up through the sea thereabouts. Whereas, in
reality, our Island is a little paradise, gay with flowers all the year
round. For the gorse at all events is always aflame, even in the
winter--and then in truth most of all, both inside the houses and out; for,
inside, the dried bushes flame merrily in the wide hearthplaces, while,
outside, the prickly points still gleam like gold against the wintry gray.
And the land is fruitful too in trees and shrubs, though, in the more
exposed places, it is true, the trees suffer somewhat from the lichen,
which blows in from the sea, and clings to their windward sides, and slowly
eats their lives away.
And now to tell you of that which happened when I was three years old, and
I will make it all as clear as I can, from all that I have been able to
pick up, and from my knowledge of the places which are still very much as
they were then.
The front door of our Island is the tunnel in the rock cut by old Helier de
Carteret nearly three hundred years ago. Standing in the tunnel, you see on
one side the shingle of the beach where the boats lie but poorly sheltered
from the winter storms, though we are hoping before long to have a
breakwater capable of affording better shelter than the present one. You
see also the row of great capstans at the foot of the cliff by which the
boats are hauled as far out of reach of the waves as possible, though
sometimes not far enough. Through the other end of the tunnel you look into
the Creux Road, which leads straight up to the life and centre of the
Island.
Facing due east and sloping sharply to the sea, this narrow way between the
hills gets all the sun, and on a fine summer's morning grows drowsy with
the heat. The crimson and creamy-gold of the opening honeysuckle swings
heavy with its own sweetness. The hart's-tongue ferns, matted all over the
steep banks, hang down like the tongues of thirsty dogs. The bees blunder
sleepily from flower to flower. The black and crimson butterflies take
short flights and long panting rests. Even the late wild roses seem less
saucily cheerful than usual, and the branching ferns on the hillsides look
as though they were cast in bronze.
I have seen it all just so a thousand times, and have passed down from the
sweet blowing wind above to the crisp breath of the sea below, without
wakening the little valley from its sleep.
But on one such day it had a very rude awakening. For, without a moment's
warning, half the population of the Island came pouring down the steep way
towards the sea. First came four burly fishermen in blue guernseys and
stocking caps, carrying between them, in a sling of ropes, a fifth man,
whose arms and legs were tightly bound. His dark face was bruised and
discoloured, and darker still with the anger that was in him. He was a
powerful man and looked dangerous even in his bonds.
Behind these came Pierre Le Masurier, the Sénéchal, and I can imagine how
tight and grim his face would be set to a job which he did not like. For,
though he was the magistrate of the Island, and held the law in his own
hands, with the assistance of his two connétables, Elie Guille and Jean
Vaudin, they were all just farmers like the rest. M. le Sénéchal was,
indeed, a man of substance, and had acquired some learning, and perhaps
even a little knowledge of legal matters, but he trusted chiefly to his
good common-sense in deciding the disputes which now and again sprang up
among his neighbours. And as for Elie Guille and Jean Vaudin, they had very
little to do as officers of the law, but had their hands very full with the
farming and fishing and care of their families, and when they had to turn
constable it was somewhat against the grain, and they did it very mildly,
and gave as little offence as possible.
And behind M. le Sénéchal came two or three more men and half the women and
children of the Island, the women all agog with excitement, the children
dodging in and out to get a glimpse of the bound man. And none of them said
a word. The only sound was the grinding of the heavy boots in front, and
the bustle of the passage of such a crowd along so narrow a way. There had
been words and to spare up above. This was the end of the matter and of the
man in bonds, so far as the Island was concerned,--at least that was the
intention. There was no exultation fever the prisoner, no jibes and jeers
such as might have been elsewhere. They were simply interested to see the
end.
Behind them all, slowly, and as though against his will yet determined to
see it out, came a tall man of middle age, like the rest half farmer, half
fisherman, but of a finer--and sadder--countenance than any there. When all
the rest poured noisily through the tunnel and spread out along the
shingle, he stood back among the capstans under the cliff and watched
quietly.
The bearers placed their burden in one of the boats drawn up on the beach,
and straightened their backs gratefully. They ran the boat rasping over the
stones into the water, and two of them sprang in and rowed steadily out to
sea. The others stood, hands on hips, watching them silently till the boat
turned the corner of Les Lâches and passed out of sight, and then their
tongues were loosed.
"So!" said one. "That's the end of Monsieur Martel."
"Nom de Gyu! We'll hope so," said the other. "But I'd sooner seen him dead
and buried."
"'Crais b'en!" said the other with a knowing nod. For all the world knew
that if Paul Martel had never come to Sercq, Rachel Carré might have become
Mistress Hamon instead of Madame Martel--and very much better for her if
she had.
For Martel, in spite of his taking ways and the polished manners of his
courting days, had proved anything but a good husband, and he had wound up
a long period of indifference and neglect with a grievous bodily assault
which had stirred the clan spirit of the Islanders into active reprisal.
They would make of it an object-lesson to the other Island girls which
would be likely to further the wooings of the Island lads for a long time
to come.
Martel, you see, came from Guernsey, but he was only half a Guernsey man at
that. His father was a Manche man from Cherbourg, who happened to get
wrecked on the Hanois, and settled and married in Peter Port. Paul Martel
had grown up to the sea. He had sailed to foreign parts and seen much of
the world. He was an excellent sailor, and when he tired of a roving life
turned his abilities to account in those peculiar channels of trade which
the situation of the Islands and their ancient privileges particularly
fitted them for. The Government in London had, indeed, tried, time after
time, to suppress the free-trading, and passed many laws and ordinances
against it, but these attempts had so far only added zest to the business,
and seemed rather to stimulate that which they were intended to suppress.
Martel was successful as a smuggler, and might in time have come to own his
own boat and run his own cargoes if he had kept steady.
The Government now and again had harsh fits which made things difficult for
the time being in Guernsey, and at such times the smaller islands were
turned to account, and the goods were stored and shipped from there. And
that is how he came to frequent Sercq and made the acquaintance of Rachel
Carré.
George Hamon, I know, never to his dying day forgave himself for having
been the means of bringing Martel to Sercq, and truly he got paid for it as
bitterly as man could.
Martel might, indeed, have found his way there in any case, but that, to
Hamon, did not in any degree lessen the weight of the fact that it was he
brought him there to assist in some of his free-trading schemes. And if he
had guessed what was to come of it, he would never have handled keg or bale
as long as he lived rather than, with his own hand, spoil his life as he
did.
For a time they were very intimate, he and Martel. Then Martel made up to
Rachel Carré, and their friendship turned to hatred, the more venomous for
what had gone before.
But even George Hamon admits that Paul Martel was an unusually good-looking
fellow, with very attractive manners when he chose, and a knowledge of the
world and its ways, and of men and women, beyond the ordinary, and he won
Rachel Carré's heart against her head and in the teeth of her father's
opposition.
Perhaps if her mother had been alive things might have been different. But
she died when Rachel was eight years old, and her father was much away at
the fishing, for the farm was poorer then than it became afterwards, and
Martel found his opportunities and turned them to account.
I do not pretend to understand fully how it came about--beyond the fact
that the little god of love goes about his work blindfold, and that women
do the most unaccountable things at times. Even in the most momentous
matters they are capable of the most grievous mistakes, though, on the
other hand, that same heart instinct also leads them at times to wisdom
beyond the gauging of man's intelligence. A man reasons and keeps tight
hand on his feelings; a woman feels and knows; and sometimes a leap in the
dark lands one safely, and sometimes not.
To make a long story short, however, Paul Martel and Rachel Carré were
married, to the great surprise of all Rachel's friends and to the great
grief of her father.
Martel built a little cottage at the head of the chasm which drops into
Havre Gosselin, and her father, Philip Carré, lived lonely on his little
farm of Belfontaine, by Port à la Jument, with no companion but his dumb
man Krok.
Rachel seemed quite happy in her marriage. There had been many predictions
among the gossips as to its outcome, and sharp eyes were not lacking to
detect the first signs of the fulfilment of prophecy, nor reasons for
visits to the cottage at La Frégondée with a view to discovering them. And
perhaps Rachel understood all that perfectly well. She was her father's
daughter, and Philip Carré was one of the most intelligent and
deep-thinking men I have ever met.
Her nearest neighbour and chief friend was Jeanne Falla of Beaumanoir,
widow of Peter Le Marchant, whose brother John lived on Brecqhou and made a
certain reputation there both for himself and the island. She was old
enough to have been Rachel's mother, and Rachel may have confided in her.
If she did so her confidence was never abused, for Jeanne Falla could talk
more and tell less than any woman I ever knew, and that I count a very
great accomplishment.
She was a Guernsey woman by birth, but had lived on Sercq for over twenty
years. Her husband was drowned while vraicking a year after they were
married, and she had taken the farm in hand and made more of it than ever
he would have done if he had lived to be a hundred, for the Le Marchants
always tended more to the sea than to the land, though Jeanne Falla's
Peter, I have been told, was more shore-going than the rest. She had no
child of her own, and that was the only lack in her life. She made up for
it by keeping an open heart to all other children, whereby many gained
through her loss, and her loss turned to gain even for herself.
When Rachel's boy came she made as much of him as if he had been her own.
And the two between them named him Philip Carré after his
grandfather,--instinct, maybe, or possibly simply with the idea of pleasing
the old man, whose heart had never come fully round to the
marriage,--happily done, whatever the reason.
For Martel, outside business matters, which needed a clear head and all a
man's wits about him unless he wanted to run himself and his cargoes into
trouble, soon proved himself unstable as water. The nature of his business
tended to conviviality. Successful runs were celebrated, and fresh ones
planned, and occasional losses consoled, in broached kegs which cost
little. Success or failure found equal satisfaction in the flowing bowl,
and no home happiness ever yet came out of a bung-hole.
Then, too, Rachel Carré had been brought up by her father in a simple,
perhaps somewhat rigorous, faith, which in himself developed into
Quakerism. I have thought it not impossible that in that might be found
some explanation of her action in marrying Paul Martel. Perhaps her father
drew the lines somewhat tightly, and her opening life craved width and
colour, and found the largest possibilities of them in the rollicking young
stranger. Truly he brought colour enough and to spare into the sober gray
of her life. It was when the red blood started under his vicious blows that
their life together ended.
Martel had no beliefs whatever, except in himself and his powers of
outwitting any preventive officer ever born.
Rachel Carré's illusions died one by one. The colours faded, the gray
darkened. Martel was much away on his business; possibly also on his
pleasures.
One night, after a successful run, he returned home very drunk, and
discovered more than usual cause for resentment in his wife's reproachful
silence. He struck her, wounding her to the flowing of blood, and she
picked up her boy and fled along the cliffs to Beaumanoir where Jeanne
Falla lived, with George Hamon not far away at La Vauroque.
Jeanne Falla took her in and comforted her, and as soon as George Hamon
heard the news, he started off with a neighbour or two to Frégondée to
attend to Martel.
In the result, and not without some tough fighting, for Martel was a
powerful man and furious at their invasion, they carried him in bonds to
the house of the Sénéchal, Pierre Le Masurier, for judgment. And M. le
Sénéchal, after due consideration, determined, like a wise man, to rid
himself of a nuisance by flinging it over the hedge, as one does the slugs
that eat one's cabbages. Martel came from Guernsey and was not wanted in
Sercq. To Guernsey therefore he should go, with instructions not to return
to Sercq lest worse should follow. Hence the procession that disturbed the
slumbers of the Creux Road that day.