John Oxenham - Carette of Sark

J >> John Oxenham >> Carette of Sark

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Sorely trying to stranger nerves at best of times was that wonderful
narrow bone of a neck which joins Little Sercq to Sercq,--six hundred feet
long, three hundred feet high, four feet wide at its widest at that time,
and in places less, and with nothing between the crumbling edges of the
path and the growling death below but ragged falls of rock, almost sheer on
the one side and little better on the other. On a clear day the
unaccustomed eye swam with the welter of the surf below on both sides at
once; the unaccustomed brain reeled at thought of so precarious a passage;
and the unaccustomed body, unless tenanted by a fool, or possessed of
nerves beyond the ordinary or of no nerves at all, turned as a rule at the
sight and thanked God for the feel of solid rock behind, or else went
humbly down on hands and knees and so crossed in safety with lowered crest.

To the eyes of the rat-faced man the path seemed but a wavering line in the
wavering mist. His hand gripped the boy's shoulder, grateful for something
solid to hang on to. And gripped it the harder when Carette skipped past
them and disappeared along that knife-edge of a dancing path.

"Come on!" said the boy,--the first words he had spoken.

But the preventive man's eyes were still fixed in horror on the place where
the girl had vanished.

"Come on!" said the boy again, and shook himself free, and went on along
the path.

"Aren't you coming?" he asked,--a shadow in the mist.

But the preventive man was feeling cautiously backwards for solid rock.

"Then I can't show you the Boutiques," said the boy, and passed out of
sight into the mist.

CHAPTER VIII

HOW I WENT THE FIRST TIME TO BRECQHOU

Are the later days ever quite as full of the brightness and joy of life as
the earlier ones? Wider, and deeper, and fuller both of joys and sorrows
they are, but the higher lights hold also the darker shadows, and
experience teaches, as Jeanne Falla used to say--"N'y a pas de rue sans
but." Neither lights nor shadows last, and the only thing one may count
upon with absolute certainty is the certainty of change.

But in the earlier days one's horizon is limited, and so long as it is
clear and bright one does not trouble about possible storms;--wherein, I
take it, the spirit of childhood is wiser than the spirit of the grown,
until the latter learn that wisdom which men like my grandfather call
faith, and so draw near again to the trustful simplicity of the earlier
days.

Altogether bright and very clear are my recollections of those days when
Carette and I, and Krok whenever he could manage it, roamed about that
western coast of our little Island, till we knew every rock and stone, and
every nook and cranny of the beetling cliffs, and were on such friendly
terms with the very gulls and cormorants that we knew many of them by
sight, and were on visiting terms, so to speak, though perhaps never very
acceptable visitors, among their homes and families.

Krok knew it all like a book, only better; for actual books were of late
acquaintance with him, and these other things he had studied, in his way,
for half his life.

In the hardest working life there are always off times, and Krok's Sundays,
outside the simple necessities of farm life, had always been his own. His
one enjoyment had been to scramble and poke and peer--without knowledge,
indeed, or even understanding, save such as came of absorbed watchfulness,
but still with the most perfect satisfaction--among the hidden things of
nature which lay in pools, and under stones, and away in dark caves where
none but he had been.

And all these things he introduced us to with very great enjoyment,
revealing to us at a stroke, as it were, the wonders which had taken him
years to find out for himself.

With him we lay gazing into the wonderful rock gardens under the Autelets
when the tide was out;--watching the phosphorescent seaweeds flame in the
darker pools; seeking out the haunts where the sea anemones lay in
thousands, waving their long pale arms hungrily for food and closing them
hopefully on anything that offered, even on one's fingers, which they
presently rejected as unsatisfying.

He would silently point out to us the beauties of the sea ferns and
flowers, and the curious ways and habits of the tiny creeping things and
fishes, and we three would lie by the hour, flat on the rocks, chin in
fist, watching the comedies and tragedies and the strange chancy life of
the pools. And they were absorbing enough to keep even Carette quiet,
although her veins seemed filled with quicksilver and her life went on
springs.

And at times he would take us up the cliffs, to points of vantage from
which we could look down into the sea-birds' nests and watch them tending
their young.

And--greatest wonder of all, and only when we had solemnly promised, finger
on lip, never to disclose the matter under any conditions to anyone
whatsoever--he led us right into the granite cliffs themselves, sometimes
through dark mouths that gaped on the shore, sometimes by narrow clefts
half-way up, sometimes down strange rough chimneys from the heights above.

Hand in hand we would creep, stumbling and slipping, clinging tightly to
one another for protection against ghosts, spirits, and fairies, in all of
which we half believed in spite of all wiser teaching, and never daring to
speak above a whisper for fear of we knew not what, but always in mortal
terror of losing Krok, and so being left to wander till we died, or fell
into some, dark pool and were drowned, or, more horrible still, were caught
by the tide and driven back step by step into far dark corners till the end
came.

I can hear, now as I write, the uncouth croak from which Krok got his name,
but which to us, in those awesome places, was sweeter than music. And I can
hear the beating of his stick on the rocks to guide us in the dark,--one
blow to tell us where he was; two, to look out for difficulties; three,
water. But at times he would bring with him a torch made of tar and grease
and rope, and then we would go in greater comfort and wax almost bold at
times, though never without scared glances over our shoulders at the black
mouths which gaped hungrily for us at every turn and corner.

We were, I believe, the very first--of our time at all events--to penetrate
into some of the caves which have since become a wonder to many, and if we
did not understand how very wonderful they really were, they were to us
treasure-houses of delight and a never-failing enjoyment.

Some of the higher caves were used as secret storehouses for goods which a
far-away Government--with which our people had little to do and which did
not greatly concern them--chose to embargo in various Ways. And it was in
the secret shipment of these to various ports in England and France that
the special--trade of the Islands largely consisted. So absolutely free of
all restrictions had our people always been, indeed so specially privileged
in this way above all other lands, that it took many years to bring them
under what they looked upon as the yoke. And some of them never could, or
would, understand why it should be considered unlawful for them to do what
their fathers had always done without let or hindrance. Whatever the
outside world might say, they saw no wrong, except on the part of those who
tried to stop them, and whom therefore they set themselves to circumvent by
every means in their power, and were mightily successful therein. Moreover,
the Island spirit resented somewhat this interference in their affairs by
what was, after all, a conquered people. For the privileges of the Islands
were granted them originally by the sovereigns of their own race who
captured England from the Saxon kings. We of the Islands never have been
conquered. At Hastings we were on the winning side, and we have been a
race to ourselves ever since, though loyal always to that great nation
which sprang like a giant out of the loins of the struggle.

Foremost among the free-traders were Carette's father and brothers on
Brecqhou, whereby, as I have said, Carette spent much of her time on Sercq
with her aunt Jeanne Falla, which was all for her good, and much to her and
my enjoyment.

When, by rights of flotsam and jetsam and gift and trover, she became the
proud possessor of her little yellow boat, the day rarely passed without
her flitting across to spend part of it at Beaumanoir or Belfontaine,
unless the weather bottled her up on Brecqhou.

One time, however, is very clear in my memory, when two whole days passed,
and fine days too, without any sign of her, and Aunt Jeanne Falla knew
nothing more of her than I did.

My grandfather was out fishing in our smaller boat, and Krok was bringing
home vraic in the larger, but it was not lack of a boat that could keep me
from news of Carette. I scrambled down the rocks by Saut de Juan, strapped
my guernsey and trousers on to my head with my belt, and swam across
through the slack of the tide without much difficulty.

As I drew in to the Gale de Jacob I saw the yellow cockleshell hanging from
its beam, and, between fear and wonder as to what could have taken Carette,
I scrambled in among the boulders and clambered quickly up the back stairs
into Brecqhou.

The Le Marchants discouraged visitors, and I had never been ashore there
except on the outer rocks after vraic. Carette never talked much about her
home affairs, and except that the house was built of wood I knew very
little about it. When I reached the top and stood on Beleme cliff, the
sight of Sercq as I had never seen it before filled me with a very great
delight. From Bec du Nez at one end to Moie de Bretagne at the other, every
cleft and chasm in the long line of cliffs was bared to my sight. Some
stood naked, shoulder high; and some were clothed with softest green to
their knees. Here were long green slides almost to the water's edge; and
here grim heaps of black rock flung together and awry in wildest confusion.

Up above was the work of man, the greenery of fields and trees, soft and
beautiful in the sunshine, but these reached only to the cliff edge.
Wherever the land had fallen away, the wind and the sea had worked their
will, and the scarred and bitten rocks bore witness to it. The black
tumbled masses of the Gouliot were right before me, and in the gloomy
channel between, the tide, through which I had come, writhed and rolled
like a wounded snake, even at the slack.

I had seen Sercq from the outside many times before, but only from water
level, which limits one's view, though the towering cliffs are always
wondrous fine, and more striking perhaps from below than from above. But
Brecqhou always cut the view on one side or the other, whereas now, for the
first time, I saw the whole western side of the Island at a glance, and,
boy as I was, it impressed me deeply and made me swell with pride. For, you
see, thanks to my grandfather and my mother and Krok, my eyes were opening,
even then, to the wonders and beauties among which I lived.

I turned at last and tramped through the heather and ferns and the
breast-high golden-rod, stumbling among the rabbit holes with which the
ground was riddled, towards the house which stood in a hollow in the centre
of the Island. And I stared hard at it, for I had never seen the like
before.

It was not like our Sercq houses, granite-built, thick-walled, low in the
sides and high in the roof. It stood facing Sercq--that is, with its back
to the south and west--and the far end of it seemed to start out of the
ground and come sloping up to the front, till, above the doorway, it was
perhaps ten feet high. As a matter of fact cunning advantage had been taken
of a dip in the ground, and the house, built against the inside of the
hollow and sloping very gradually upwards, left nothing for the wild winter
gales from the south-west to lay hold of. The wildest wind that ever blew
leaped off the edge of the hollow and went shrieking up the black sky, but
never struck down at the squat gray house below. It was a good-sized house,
wide-spread, and all on one floor, and though it was only built of wood it
looked very strong and lasting, and to my thinking very comfortable. Coming
towards it from the front, it looked as though a great ship had run head on
into the hollow and sunk partly into the ground, leaving her stern high and
dry. For the front was in fact built up of fragments of an East Indiaman,
and the windows were her bulging stern windows, carved and ornamented,
though now all weathered to an ashen gray, and on each side of the doorway
ran a stout carved wooden railing which had come from a ship's poop.

When I had done staring at all this, I went rather doubtfully to the door,
with my eyes playing about all round, for the Le Marchants, as I have said,
did not favour visitors, and I was not sure of my welcome.

There seemed no one about, however, and at last I summoned courage to
knock gently on the door, which was of thick, heavy wood of a kind quite
new to me, and had once been polished.

"Hello, then! Who's there?" said a voice inside.

I waited, but no one came. It was no good talking through a door, so I
lifted the latch doubtfully and put in my head.

It was a large wide room, larger than Jeanne Falla's kitchen at Beaumanoir,
and though there was no fern-bed--and it was the first living-room I had
seen without one--there was a look of great warmth and comfort about it.
There was a fire of driftwood smouldering in a wide clay chimneyplace, and
a sweet warm smell of wood smoke in the air. There were a number of wooden
chairs, and a table, and several great black oaken chests curiously carved,
and a great rack hanging from the roof, on which I saw hams, and guns, and
tarpaulin hats, and oars, and coils of rope. The far end of the room was
dark to one coming in out of the sunshine, but, in some way, and I can
hardly tell how, it seemed to me that when the winter gales screamed over
Brecqhou that would be a very comfortable room to live in.

I could still see no one, till the voice cried out at sight of me--

"Now, who in the name of Satan are you, and what do you want here?" And
then, in a ship's bunk at the far end of the room, I saw a face lifted up
and scowling at me.

It was the face of a young man, and but for the black scowl on it, and a
white cloth tied round above the scowl, it might have been good-looking,
for all the Le Marchants were that.

"I'm Phil Carre," I faltered. "I've come to look for Carette."

And at that, Carette's voice came, like a silver pipe, from some hidden
place--

"Phil, mon p'tit, is that you? I'm here, but you mustn't come in. I'm in
bed. I've got measles. Father's gone across to see Aunt Jeanne about it."

"I was afraid you'd got drowned, or hurt, or something," I said. "If it's
only measles--"

"Just that--only measles, and it doesn't hurt the least bit."

"How long will it be before you're better?"

"Oh, days and days, they say."

"Oh!... And have you got it too?" I asked of the man in the bunk.

And he looked at me for a minute, and then laughed, and said, "Yes, I've
got it too. Don't you come near me," for I had come into the room at sound
of Carette's voice, and he looked very much nicer when he laughed.

"Oh--Hilaire!" cried the unseen Carette. "What a great big--"

"Ta-ta!" laughed her brother. "Little yellow heels should keep out of
sight,"--which was not meant in rudeness, but only, according to an Island
saying, that little people should not express opinions on matters which
don't concern them.

Before he could say more, the door behind me swung open and a surprised
voice cried--

"Diantre! What is this? And who are you, mon gars?" and I was facing
Carette's father, Jean Le Marchant, of whose doings I had heard many a wild
story on Sercq.

He was a very striking-looking man, tall and straight, and well-built. His
face was keen as a hawk's, and tanned and seamed and very much alive. His
eyes were very sharp and dark, under shaggy white eyebrows. They seemed to
go through me like a knife, and made me wish I had not come. His hair was
quite white, and was cut so short that it bristled all over, and added much
to his fierce wide-awake look, as though he scented dangers all round and
was ready to tackle them with a firm hand. He had a long white moustache
and no other hair on his face.

While I was still staring at him, Carette's voice came from its
hiding-place--

"It is Phil Carre come to look for me, father. He is my good friend. You
will give him welcome."

"Ah-ha! Mademoiselle commands," and the keen face softened somewhat and
broke into a smile, which was still somewhat grim. "Monsieur Phil Carre, I
greet you! I can hardly say you are welcome, as I do not care for visitors.
But since you came to get news of the little one, I promise not to kill and
eat you, as you seem to expect."

"Merci, monsieur!" I faltered. For, from all accounts, he was quite capable
of the first, though the second had not actually suggested itself to me.

"How did you come? I did not see any boat."

"By the Gale de Jacob. I swam across."

"Ma foi! Swam across! You have courage, mon gars;" and I saw that I had
risen in his estimation.

"He swims like a fish and he has no fear," chirped Carette from her
hiding-place.

"All the same, bon Dieu, the Gouliot is no pond," and he looked through me
again. "How old are you, mon gars?"

"Thirteen next year."

"And what are you going to make of yourself when you grow up?"

"I don't know."

"For boys of spirit there are always openings," he said, and I knew very
well what he meant, and shook my head.

"Ah, so! You are not free-traders at Belfontaine," he laughed. At which I
shook my head again, feeling a trifle ashamed of our uncommon virtue, which
could not, I thought, commend itself to so notorious a defier of preventive
law.

"All the same, he is a fine man, your grandfather, and a seaman beyond
most. You will follow the sea?--or are you for the farming?"

"The sea sure, but it will be in the trading, I expect."

"It is larger than the farming, but not very large after all."

"When will I be able to see Carette, m'sieur?"

"Not for ten days or so. As soon as she is well enough I shall carry her
over to Mistress Falla's. Then you can see her."

"Thank you, m'sieur. I think I will go now."

"Going back same way?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'll see you off. Sure you can manage it?"

"Oh yes. Good-bye, Carette!" as he moved towards the door.

"Good-bye, Phil! I'll be at Aunt Jeanne's just as soon as I can," piped
Carette, out of the darkness of her inner room.

And Jean Le Marchant led me back across the Island to the Gale de Jacob,
and stood watching me from Beleme till I scrambled in among the rocks at
the foot of Saut de Juan.

That was the first time I visited Carette's home and met her father, though
her brothers I had seen at times on Sercq, viewing them from a distance
with no little awe on account of the many strange stories told about them.
They were not in the habit of mixing much with the Island men, however.
They kept their own counsel and their own ways, and this aloofness did not
make for good comradeship when they did come across.

It was years before I set foot on Brecqhou again.

These brief glimpses of those bright early days I have set down that you
might know us as we were. For myself I delight to recall them, but if I
were to tell you one quarter of all our doings and sayings when we were boy
and girl together, with but one will--and that Carette's--it would make a
volume passing bounds.

And it is possible that my recollection of these things is coloured
somewhat with the knowledge and feeling of the later times, for a man may
no more fully enter again into the thoughts of his childhood than he may
enter full grown into his childhood's clothes. I have told them, however,
just as they are present in my own mind, and they are at all events true.

CHAPTER IX

HOW WE BEGAN TO SPREAD OUR WINGS

Ten years make little change in the aspect of Sercq, nor ten times ten for
that matter, though the learned men tell us that the sea and wind and
weather take daily toll of the little land and are slowly and surely
wearing it away. It has not changed much in my time, however, and I have no
doubt it will still stand firm for those who are to follow.

But ten years in the life of a boy and girl--ten years, which about double
in number those that have gone, and increase experiences tenfold--these
indeed bring mighty changes.

In those ten years I grew from boy to man, and Carette Le Marchant grew
into a gracious and beautiful woman, and--we grew a little apart.

That was inevitable, I suppose, and in the natural course of things, for
even two saplings planted side by side will, as they grow into trees, be
wider apart at the top than they are down below. And perhaps it is right,
for if they grew too close together both would suffer. Growth needs space
for full expansion if it is not to be lop-sided. And boy and girl days
cannot last for ever.

Those ten years taught me much--almost all that I ever learned, until the
bitterer experiences of life brought it all to the test, and sifted out
the chaff, and left me knowledge of the grain.

And once again I would say that to my mother, Rachel Carre, and to my
grandfather and Krok, and to William Shakespeare and John Bunyan and to my
grandfather's great Bible, I owe in the first place all that I know. All
those books he made me read very thoroughly, and parts of them over and
over again, till I knew them almost by heart. And at the time I cannot say
that this was much to my liking, but later, when I came to understand
better what I read, no urging was needed, for they were our only books,
except Foxe's _Martyrs_, in which I never found any very great enjoyment,
though Krok revelled in it. And I suppose that a man might pass through
life, and bear himself well in it, and never feel lonely, with those books
for his companions.

I should not, however, omit mention of M. Rousselot, the schoolmaster, who
took a liking to me because of the diligence which was at first none of my
own, but only the outward showing of my mother's and grandfather's strict
oversight. But, as liking begets liking, I came to diligence for M.
Rousselot's sake also, and finally for the sake of learning itself. And
also I learned no little from Mistress Jeanne Falla, who had the wisest
head and the sharpest tongue and the kindest heart in all Sercq.

But I was never a bookworm, though the love of knowledge and the special
love of those books I have named is with me yet.

"Whatever you come to be, Phil, though it be only a farmer-fisherman, you
will be all the better man and the happier for knowing all you can," my
grandfather would say to me, when we grew into closer fellowship with my
growing years. "It is not what a man is in position but what he is in
himself that makes for his happiness. And I think," he would add
thoughtfully, "that the more a man understands of life and the more he
thinks upon it--in fact, the more he has inside himself--the less he cares
for the smaller things outside." And I believe he was right.

He taught me all he knew concerning the farm and the land and the crops,
and taught me not by rule of thumb, but showed me the why and wherefore of
things, and opened the eyes of my understanding to notice the little things
of nature as well as the great, which many people, I have found, pass all
through their lives without ever seeing at all.

The same with the fishing. He and Krok gave me all they had to give; and,
without vainglory, but simply as grateful testimony to their goodness, I
think that at two-and-twenty I knew as much as any of my age in Sercq, and
more than most. I knew too that there were things I did not know, and did
not care to know, and for that, and all the higher things, I have to thank
my dear mother and my grandfather.

But growth in its very nature requires a widening sphere. Contentment comes
of experience and satisfaction, and youth, to arrive at that, must needs
have the experience, but craves it as a rule for itself alone.

Sercq is but a dot on the map, and not indeed that on most, and outside it
lay all the great world, teeming with wonders which could only be seen by
seeking them.

Up to the time I was sixteen, and Carette fourteen, we were comrades of the
sea and shore and cliffs, and very great friends. Then Aunt Jeanne Falla
insisted on her being sent to school in Peter Port--a grievous blow to us
both, for which we lived to thank her. For Carette, clever as she was by
nature, and wonderfully sharp at picking things up, had no inducements at
home towards anything beyond bodily growth, except, indeed, when she was at
Beaumanoir with Aunt Jeanne, and those times were spasmodic and were
countered by her returns to the free and easy life on Brecqhou. And Aunt
Jeanne loved her dearly and knew what was best for her, and so she
insisted, and Carette went weeping to Peter Port to the Miss Maugers'
school in George Road.

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