Carette of Sark Part 6

Krok's ideas in the matter of seigneurial rights of flotsam and jetsam were by no means as strict as his master's, especially where Carette was concerned. In his mute, dog-like way he wors.h.i.+pped Carette. In case of need, he would, I believe, have given his left hand in her service; and the right, I think he would have kept for himself and me. He procured from somewhere a great beam of s.h.i.+p's timber, and with infinite labour fixed it securely in a crevice of the rocks, high up by the Gale de Jacob, with one end projecting over the shelving rocks below. Then, with rope and pulley from the same ample storehouse, he showed Carette how she could, with her own unaided strength, hitch on her c.o.c.klesh.e.l.l and haul it up the cliff side out of reach of the hungriest wave. He made her a pair of tiny sculls too, and thenceforth she was free of the seas, and she flitted to and fro, and up and down that rugged western coast, till it was all an open book to her. But so venturesome was she, and so utterly heedless of danger, that we all went in fear for her, and she laughed all our fears to scorn.

CHAPTER VII

HOW I SHOWED ONE THE WAY TO THE BOUTIQUES

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, and whenever I heard the saying it brought the whole matter back to me.

"Show him the way to the Boutiques," became, in those days, equivalent to "mislead him--trick him--deceive him"--and this was how it came about.

I can see the boy creeping slowly along the south side of Brecqhou in a boat which was big enough to make him look very small. It was the smaller of the two boats belonging to the farm, but it was heavily laden with vraic. There had been two days of storm, the port at Brecqhou was full of the floating seaweed, and the fields at Belfontaine hungered for it. Philip Carre and Krok and the small boy had been busy with it since the early morning, and many boat-loads had been carried to Port a la Jument as long as the flood served for the pa.s.sage of the Gouliot, and since then, into Havre Gosselin for further transport when the tide turned.

The weather was close and heavy still, sulky-looking, as though it contemplated another outbreak before settling to its usual humour. There was no sun, and now and again drifts of ghostly haze trailed over the long sullen waves.

But the small boy knew every rock on the sh.o.r.e of Brecqhou, and the more deadly ones that lay in the tideway outside, just below the surface, and whuffed and growled at him as he pa.s.sed. His course shaped itself like that of bird or fish, without apparent observation.

The boat was heavy, but his bare brown arms worked the single oar over the stern like tireless little machines, and his body swung rhythmically from side to side to add its weight to his impulse.

He kept well out round Pente-a-Fouille with its jagged teeth and circles of sweltering foam. The tide was rus.h.i.+ng south through the Gouliot Pa.s.s like a mill-race. It drove a bold furrow into the comparatively calm waters beyond, a furrow which leaped and writhed and spat like a tortured snake with the agonies of the narrow pa.s.sage. And presently it sank into twisting coils, all spattered and marbled with foam, and came weltering up from conflict with the rocks below, and then hurried on to further torment along the teeth of Little Sark.

At the first lick of the Race on his boat's nose, the small boy drew in his oar without ever looking round, dropped it into the rowlock, fitted the other oar, and bent his st.u.r.dy back to the fight.

The twisting waters carried him away in a long swirling slant. He pulled steadily on and paid no heed, and in due course was spat out on the other side of the Race into the smooth water under lee of Longue Pointe. Then he turned his boat's nose to the north, and pulled through the slack in the direction of Havre Gosselin.

He was edging slowly round Pierre au Norman, where a whip of the current caught him for a moment, when a merry shout carried his chin to his shoulder in time to see, out of the corner of his eye, a small white body flash from a black ledge above the surf into the coiling waters beyond. He stood up facing the bows and held the boat, till a brown head bobbed up among the writhing coils. Then a slim white arm with a little brown hand swept the long hair away from a pair of dancing eyes, and the swimmer came slipping through the water like a seal.

But suddenly, some stronger coil of the waters below caught the glancing white limbs. They sprawled awry from their stroke, a startled look dimmed the dancing eyes with a strain of fear.

"Phil!"

And in a moment the boy in the boat had drawn in his oars, and kicked off his shoes, and was ploughing st.u.r.dily through the belching coils.

"You're all right, Carette," he cried, as he drove up alongside, and the swimmer grasped hurriedly at his extended arm. "We've done stiffer bits than this. Now--rest a minute!--All right?--Come on then for the boat. Here you are!--Hang on till I get in!"

He drew himself up slowly, and hung for a moment while the water poured out of his clothes. Then, with a heave and a wild kick in the air, he was aboard, and turned to a.s.sist his companion. He grasped the little brown hands and braced his foot against the gunwale. "Now!" and she came up over the side like a lovely white elf, and sank panting among the golden-brown coils of vraic.

"It was silly of you to jump in there, you know," said the boy over his shoulder, as he sat down to his oars and headed for Pierre au Norman again.

"The Race is too strong for you. I've told you so before."

"You do it yourself," she panted.

"I'm a boy and I'm stronger than you."

"I can swim as fast as you."

"But I can last longer, and the Race is too strong for me sometimes."

"B'en! I knew you'd pick me up."

"Well, don't you ever do it when I'm not here, or some day the black snake will get you and you'll never come up again."

He was pulling steadily now through the backwater of Havre Gosselin;--past the iron clamps let into the face of the rock, up and down which the fishermen climbed like flies;--past the moored boats;--avoiding hidden rocks by the instinct of constant usage, till his boat slid up among the weed-cus.h.i.+oned boulders of the sh.o.r.e, and he drew in his oars and laid them methodically along the thwarts.

The small girl jumped out and wallowed in the warm lip of the tide, and finally squatted in it with her brown hands clasped round her pink-white knees,--unabashed, unashamed, absolutely innocent of any possible necessity for either,--as lovely a picture as all those coasts could show.

Her long hair, dark with the water, hung in wet rats' tails on her slim white shoulders, which were just flushed with the nip of the sea. The clear drops sparkled on her pretty brown face like pearls and diamonds, and seemed loth to fall. Her little pink toes curled up out of the creamy wash to look at her.

"Where are your things?" asked the boy.

"In the cave yonder."

"Go and get dressed," he said, looking down at her with as little thought of unseemliness as she herself.

"Not at all. I'm quite warm."

"Well, I'm going to dry my things," and he began to wriggle out of his knitted blue guernsey. "Also," he said, following up a previous train of thought, "let me tell you there are devil-fish about here. One came up with one of our pots yesterday."

"Pooh! I killed one with a stick this morning. They're only baby ones; comme ca," and she measured about two inches between her little pink palms.

"This one was so big," and he indicated a yard or so, between the flapping sleeves of the guernsey in which his head was still involved.

"I don't believe you, Phil Carre," she said with wide eyes. "You're just trying to frighten me."

"All right! Just you wait till one catches hold of your leg when you're out swimming all by yourself. If I'd known you'd be so silly I'd never have taught you."

"You didn't teach me. You only dared me in and showed me how."

"Well then! And if I hadn't you'd never have learnt."

"Maybe I would. Someone else would have taught me."

"Who then?"

And to that she had no answer. For if the good G.o.d intends a man to drown it is going against His will to try to thwart him by learning to swim,--such, at all events, was the very prevalent belief in those parts, and is to this day.

As soon as the boy was free of his clothes, he spread them neatly to the sun on a big boulder, and with a whoop went skipping over the stones into the water, till he fell full length with a splash and began swimming vigorously seawards. The small girl sat watching him for a minute and then skipped in after him, and the cormorants ceased their diving and the seagulls their wheelings and mewings, and all gathered agitatedly on a rock at the farther side of the bay, and wondered what such shouts and laughter might portend.

But suddenly the boy broke off short in his sporting, and paddled noiselessly, with his face straining seawards.

"What is it then, Phil? Has the big pieuvre got hold of your leg?" cried the girl, as she splashed up towards him.

He raised a dripping hand to silence her, and while the dark eyes were still widening with surprise, a dull boom came rolling along the wind over the cliffs of Brecqhou.

"A gun," said the boy, and turned and headed swiftly for the sh.o.r.e.

"Wait for me, Phil!" cried the girl, as she skipped over the stones like a sunbeam and disappeared into the black mouth of the cave.