Carette of Sark

The voyage had been a disastrous one all through. We had bad weather right across to the Indies, and had to patch up there as best we could. It was when we were slowly making ou...

When I recovered sufficiently to take notice of things, I was sitting in the tunnel with my back against the wall, a big fire of broken wood was burning brightly, and men were c...

George Hamon was sorely put out at the loss of his horse and by so cruel a death. In his anger he laid on young Torode a punishment hard to bear.

Cherbourg was at that time a town of mean-looking houses and narrow streets, ill-paved, ill-lighted, a rookery for blackbirds of every breed. It was a great centre for smuggling...

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...

I must have fallen into a stupor, as the effect of the terrible strain on mind and body of all I had gone through. For I remember nothing of that first night on the spar, and on...

It was close upon the dawn before Jeanne Falla's party broke up, and as I jogged soberly down the lane from La Vauroque on Gray Robin, I met the jovial ones all streaming homewa...

And so, once again I was pulling for dear life, and now indeed for more than life, with death, and more than death, coming on astern in venomous jerks and vicious leaps.

Carette says I slept through three days and nights, but that is only one of her little humours. When I woke, however, I was in infinitely better case than before, and as she her...

I was sorely tempted to run across to Brecqhou for one more sight of Carette before I left home, but decided at last to leave matters as they were. Beyond the pleasure of seeing...

Another scene stands out very sharply in my recollection of the boy and girl of those early days, from the fact that it gave our Island folk a saying which lasted a generation,...

It was a day of days--a perfect Midsummer Day. The sky was blue without a cloud, the blaze of the gorse was dimming, but the ferns and foxgloves swung in the breeze, the hedgero...

Are the later days ever quite as full of the brightness and joy of life as the earlier ones? Wider, and deeper, and fuller both of joys and sorrows they are, but the higher ligh...

I suppose I could fill a great book with my recollections of those wonderful days when I was a boy of twelve and Carette Le Marchant was a girl of ten, and far and away the pret...

On the sixteenth day of my imprisonment I had stood against my bars till the last faint glow of the sunset faded off a white cloud in the east, and all outside had become gray a...

We wandered a great way down that lonely coast before a fishing village hove in sight. At regular intervals we came upon watchmen on the look-out for invaders or smugglers, and...

It was a glorious evening, with a moon like a silver sickle floating over Guernsey. The sky was of a rare depth and purity, which changed from palest blue to faintest green, and...

Waited till the night seemed growing old to me, for the waiting in that dark cleft was weary work, with the water, which I could no longer see, swelling and sinking beneath me,...

I recall her in those days in a thousand different circumstances, and always like the sunlight or the lightning, gleaming, sparkling, flashing. For she could be as steadily radi...

I was in the best of spirits, for low spirits come of having nothing to do, or not knowing what to do or how to do it. My next step was settled, lead where it might. I was going...

"Not a bit, little mother," chirped Carette, as they kissed very warmly. "We have been quite happy, though, ma fé, it was as dark and still as the tomb, and there is a spring in...

There was no need to ask how the boats were heading. All eyes were fixed anxiously on them as they came straight for the north of the Island, and just as we came up Amice Le Cou...

We were well into the summer by the time Le Marchant was fully fit to travel, and we had planned and pondered over that outer stockade till our brains ached with such unusual ex...

That first night in Peter Port, when my grandfather had wrung my hand for the last time, looking at me with prayers in his eyes, and bidding me do my duty and keep clean, and ha...

My greatest hope was to return to French and English waters in the _Joséphine_. I could perhaps have slipped away into the island, but that would in no way have furthered my get...

Ten years make little change in the aspect of Sercq, nor ten times ten for that matter, though the learned men tell us that the sea and wind and weather take daily toll of the l...

It was dark, with a blackness of darkness to be felt, and all was very still, which meant that the tide was out, so it was probably early morning. But it seemed to me that a sou...

I had worked hard at my carvings, and had become both a better craftsman and a keener bargainer, and so had managed to accumulate a small store of money. I could see my way with...

But--"pas de rue sans but!" as we say in Sercq--there is no road but has an ending. And, just as the dawn was softening the east, and when we were nigh our last effort, we stumb...

George Hamon slept heavily that night while Nature repaired damages. In the morning he had his head in a bucket of water from the well, when he heard footsteps coming up the ste...

The Race was running furiously through the Gouliot, but I would have got through it if it had been twice as strong. There was a wild fury in my heart at thought of Carette in To...

As I said, I am not going to waste time telling you of my three long voyages, beyond what is absolutely necessary. These lie for the most part like level plains in my memory, th...

When George Hamon told me the next part of the story of those early days, his enjoyment in the recalling of certain parts of it was undisguised. He told it with great gusto.

"There has evidently been fighting outside, and he has got a knock on the head, and his wits are astray." But that strange thing he had said ran in my head, and made such play t...

So presently we set out, all laden to the extent of our powers, and went first to Belfontaine, since our way lay past it. And there my mother fell gratefully on Carette and me,...

That wide view was not without a charm of its own, though its long dull levels grew wearisome to eyes accustomed only to the bold headlands and sharp scarps of Sercq, or to the...

On the third day of my confinement, and as near as I could tell about midday, the small round porthole of my cabin was suddenly darkened by a flap of sail let down from above, p...

There was no difficulty in finding John Ozanne. I made out his burly figure and red-whiskered face on the harbour wall before I had passed Castle Cornet, and heard his big voice...

"You paid off some of your old score up there, last night, George," said one of the men who had stood watching the boat which carried Martel back to Guernsey.

The ship we were on was the 48-gun frigate _Swiftsure_, and of our treatment we had no reason to complain. We were landed at Portsmouth two days later, drafted from one full pri...

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 CLE...