Carette of Sark | Page 2

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 _JOS��PHINE_ 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 COUP��E 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 Carr��, and my grandfather, Philip Carr��,--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,