Carette of Sark Part 1

Carette of Sark.

by John Oxenham.

_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 princ.i.p.al characters named in this book._

_The name Carre is still an honoured one in the Island. It is p.r.o.nounced 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 ill.u.s.trated 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 Coupee 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._

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 G.o.d has fashioned them with His wonderful tools, the wind, the wave, and the weather, I have to thank my mother, Rachel Carre, and my grandfather, Philip Carre,--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 sh.e.l.ls, 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 b.u.t.tresses, 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 n.o.bler 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 coa.r.s.er 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 p.r.i.c.kly 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 b.u.t.terflies 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 pa.s.sed 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 Senechal, 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 a.s.sistance of his two connetables, Elie Guille and Jean Vaudin, they were all just farmers like the rest. M. le Senechal 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 Senechal 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 pa.s.sage 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 Laches and pa.s.sed 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 Carre 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 a.s.sault 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 pa.s.sed 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 Carre.