Just Sixteen.

by Susan Coolidge

It sounds such a fine thing to be the daughter of the Seigneur of Sark, that perhaps you will imagine that Otillie was used to kings and queens and fine company of all sorts, and wonder that she should feel so much excited on this occasion. Not at all! The Seigneur of Sark is only a quiet, invalid clergyman who owns his little island just as other English gentlemen do their estates, letting out the land to farmers and collecting his rents and paying his taxes like other people; and Otillie was a simply brought-up girl of fourteen, who knew much less of the world than most girls of her age in Boston or New York, had never been off the Channel Islands, and never set eyes on a "crowned head" in her life, and she felt exactly as any of us would if we were suddenly told that a queen was coming to take a meal in our father's house.

Queens are not common apparitions in any of the Channel Islands, and least of all in little Sark. It is a difficult place to get to even for common people. The island, which is only three miles long, is walled by a line of splendid cliffs over three hundred feet high. Its only harbor is a strip of beach, defended by a tiny breakwater, from which a steep road is tunnelled up through the rocks to the interior of the island. In rough weather, when the wind blows and the sea runs high, which is the case five days out of seven in summer, and six-and-a-half days out of seven in winter, boats dare not make for this difficult landing, which is called by the natives "The Creux"—or hole. It is reported that some years since when the Lords of the Admiralty were on a tour of inspection they sailed all round Sark and sailed away again, reporting that no place could be discovered where it was possible to land, which seemed to the Sarkites a very good joke indeed.

There are four principal islands in the Channel group: Alderney and Jersey, from which come the cows all of us know about; Guernsey, whose cattle, though not so celebrated on this side of the sea, are held by the islanders as superior to all others; and Sark, the smallest and by far the most beautiful of the four. It is a real story-book island. The soft, sea-climate and the drifting mists of the Gulf Stream nourish in its green valleys all manner of growing things. Flowers flourish there as nowhere else. Heliotropes grow into great clumps, and red and pink geraniums into bushes. Fuchsias and white-starred jessamines climb to the very roofs of the mossy old farm-houses, which stand knee-deep, as it were, in vines and flowers. Long links of rose-colored bindweed lie in tangles along the dusty roadside; you tread on them as you walk through the shady lanes, between hedge-rows of ivy and sweet-brier and briony, from whose leaves shine out little glittering beetles, in mail coats of flashing, iridescent green, like those which the Cuban ladies wear on their lace dresses as a decoration. There is only one wagon kept for hire on the island, and all is primitive and peaceful and full of rest and repose.

But there are wonderful things too, as well as beautiful ones,—strange spouting-holes in the middle of green fields, where the sea has worn its way far inland, and, with a roar, sends sudden shocks of surf up through its chimney-like vent. Caves too, full of dim green light, in whose pools marvellous marine creatures flourish—

"The fruitage and bloom of the Ocean,"

or strange spines of rock path linking one end of the island with the other by a road not over five feet wide, from whose undefended edges the sheer precipice goes down on either side for hundreds of feet into the ocean. There are natural arches in the rocks also through which the wonderful blue-green sea glances and leaps. All about the island the water is of this remarkable color, like the plumage of a peacock or a dragonfly's glancing wings, and out of it rise strange rock-shapes, pyramids and obelisks and domes, over which white surf breaks constantly.

Some of the most remarkable of these rocks are beneath the Seigneurie, whose shaven lawns and walled gardens stretch to the cliff top and command a wide sea-view. It is a fine old house, with terraces and stone balustrades over which vines cluster thickly, and peacocks sit, spreading their many-eyed tails to the sun, as if trying to outdo the strange, flashing, iridescent sea.

Otillie herself always fed these peacocks, which were old family friends. There were six of them, Bluet and Cramoisie,—the parents of the flock, who had been named by Mrs. Le Breton, who was a Frenchwoman,—Peri and Fee de Fees, and Lorenzo the Magnificent and the Great Panjandrum, these last christened by Otillie herself on account of their size and stately demeanor. The beautiful creatures were quite tame. They would take food from her hand, and if she failed to present herself at the accustomed time with her bowl of millet and bread, they would put their heads in at the terrace windows and scream, till she recollected her duty and came to them.

I am afraid that the peacocks were rather neglected for the few days preceding the Queen's visit, for everybody at the Seigneurie was very busy. Mr. Le Breton, as a general thing, lived simply enough. His wife had died when Otillie was only six years old. Miss Niffin the governess, Marie the cook, two housemaids, and an old butler who had served the family for a quarter of a century made up the establishment indoors. Otillie had her basin of porridge and cream and her slice of bread at eight o'clock every morning, and bread and milk and "kettle-tea" for supper, with now and then a taste of jam by way of a treat. The servants lived chiefly on "Jersey soup," a thick broth of oatmeal, vegetables, and fish, with a trifle of bacon or salt-beef to give it a relish. Mr. Le Breton had his morning coffee in his study, and the early dinner, which he shared with Otillie and Miss Niffin, was not an elaborate one.

These being the customs of the Seigneurie, it can easily be imagined that it taxed every resource of the establishment to provide suitably for the Queen's entertainment. All the island knew of the important event and longed to advise and help. The farmers sent their thickest cream and freshest strawberries and lettuces, desirous to prove their loyalty not to their sovereign only, but also to their landlord. Marie, the cook, spent the days in reading over her most difficult recipes, and could not sleep at night. A friend of hers, once second cook to the Earl of Dunraven, but now retired on her laurels into private life, offered to come for a few days to assist, and to fabricate a certain famous game pasty, of which it was asserted the English aristocracy are inordinately fond. Peter the butler crossed over to Guernsey twice during the week with a long list of indispensables to be filled up at the shops there, hampers of wine came from London, and hot-house grapes and nectarines from friends in Jersey; the whole house was in a bustle, and nothing was spoken of but the Queen and the Queen's visit, what she would wear and say and do, whom she would bring with her, and what sort of weather she would have for her coming.