Carette of Sark

by John Oxenham

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.

Her going made a great gap in my life, and the outer things began to call on me. My ideas respecting them were dim and distorted enough, as I afterwards found, but their call was all the more insistent for that. Lying flat on Tintageu, chin on fist, I would watch the white-sailed ships pushing eagerly to that wonderful outer world and long to be on them. There were great ships carrying wine and brandy to the West Indies, where the people were all black, and the most wonderful plants grew, and the palm trees. And to Canada and Newfoundland, where the great icebergs came down through the mist. And some carrying fish to the Mediterranean, whose shores were all alive with wonders, to say nothing of the chances of seeing some fighting on the way, for England was at war with France and Spain, and rumours of mighty doings reached us at times. And some taking tea and tobacco to Hamburg and Emden, where the people were all uncouth foreigners who spoke neither French nor English and so must offer mighty change from Sercq.

Then there were multitudes of smaller vessels, sloops and chasse-marées, bound on shorter and still more profitable, if more dangerous voyages. Wherever they were going, on whatsoever errand bent, it was into the great outside world, and they all cried, "Come!"