Carette of Sark | Page 3

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