THE WEST COAST OF SARK AND BRECQHOU.The standing rocks are the AUTELETS.The first bay on the left is SAIGNIE; the next, PORT DU MOULIN; then behind the great rock TINTAGEU is PORT A LA JUMENT.The GOULIOT PASS seperates SARK from BRECQHOU;the house on BRECQHOU was in the dip just above where the white waves are breaking.The GALÉ de JACOB is close to the first cave.

CARETTE OF SARK

BY JOHN OXENHAM

AUTHOR OF
"WHITE FIRE" "HEARTS IN EXILE" "BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU"
"JOHN OF GERISAU" ETC.

WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS, FROM PHOTOGRAPHS
OF SARK, SPECIALLY TAKEN FOR THIS BOOK

HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON MCMVII

WORKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR

GOD'S PRISONER
RISING FORTUNES
A PRINCESS OF VASCOVY
BONDMAN FREE
OUR LADY OF DELIVERANCE
JOHN OF GERISAU
UNDER THE IRON FLAIL
BARBE OF GRAND BAYOU
HEARTS IN EXILE
JOSEPH SCORER
A WEAVER OF WEBS
WHITE FIRE
THE GATE OF THE DESERT
GIANT CIRCUMSTANCE
PROFIT AND LOSS
THE LONG ROAD

TO
WILLIAM FREDERICK COLLINGS, ESQ.
Seigneur of Sark

AND

JOHN LINWOOD PITTS, ESQ., F.S.A. (Normandy)
Managing Director
of the Guille-Allès Library, Guernsey

AND ALL THOSE GOOD FRIENDS IN THE ISLANDS
WHO HAVE SHOWN SO GREAT AN INTEREST IN THIS BOOK
I INSCRIBE THE SAME
IN HEARTY RECOGNITION OF MANY KINDNESSES

FOREWORD

Sercq is a small exclusive land where the forty farm holdings to-day arealmost identical with those fixed by Helier de Carteret in the time ofQueen Elizabeth; where feudal observances which date back to the time ofRollo, Duke of Normandy, are still the law of the land; and where familynames and records in some cases run back unbroken for very manygenerations.

To obviate any personal feeling, I desire to state that, to the best of mybelief, no present inhabitant of Sercq is in any way connected with any ofthe principal characters named in this book.

The name Carré is still an honoured one in the Island. It is pronouncedCaury.

The numbers on the map refer to the farms and tenants in the year1800—the approximate date of the story. As this map has been speciallycompiled, and is, I believe, the only one of its kind in existence, it maybe of interest to some to find at the end of this volume a list of theholdings and holders in Sercq about one hundred years ago.

The photographs from which this book is illustrated were specially takenfor me at considerable expenditure of time and trouble by various goodfriends in Sark and elsewhere. If, in one or two cases, we have permittedourselves some little license in the adaptation of the present to the past,it is only for the purpose of presenting to the reader as nearly aspossible what was in the writer's mind when working on the story.

The map and list of the Forty Men of Sark and their properties in the year1800 were compiled for me from the old Island records, by my friend Mr.W.A. Toplis, over twenty years resident in Sark, and for all the time andlabour he expended upon them I here make most grateful acknowledgment.