e day rarely passed without
her flitting across to spend part of it at Beaumanoir or Belfontaine,
unless the weather bottled her up on Brecqhou.

One time, however, is very clear in my memory, when two whole days passed,
and fine days too, without any sign of her, and Aunt Jeanne Falla knew
nothing more of her than I did.

My grandfather was out fishing in our smaller boat, and Krok was bringing
home vraic in the larger, but it was not lack of a boat that could keep me
from news of Carette. I scrambled down the rocks by Saut de Juan, strapped
my guernsey and trousers on to my head with my belt, and swam across
through the slack of the tide without much difficulty.

As I drew in to the Gale de Jacob I saw the yellow cockleshell hanging from
its beam, and, between fear and wonder as to what could have taken Carette,
I scrambled in among the boulders and clambered quickly up the back stairs
into Brecqhou.

The Le Marchants discouraged visitors, and I had never been ashore there
except on the outer rocks after vraic. Carette never talked much about her
home affairs, and except that the house was built of wood I knew very
little about it. When I reached the top and stood on Beleme cliff, the
sight of Sercq as I had never seen it before filled me with a very great
delight. From Bec du Nez at one end to Moie de Bretagne at the other, every
cleft and chasm in the long line of cliffs was bared to my sight. Some
stood naked, shoulder high; and some were clothed with softest green to
their knees. Here were long green slides almost to the water's edge; and
here grim heaps of black rock flung together and awry in wildest confusion.

Up above was the work of man, the greenery of fields and trees, soft and
beautiful in the sunshine, but these reached only to the cliff edge.
Wherever the land had fallen away, the wind and the sea had worked their
will, and the scarred and bitten rocks bore witness to it. The black
tumbled masses of the Gouliot were right before me, and in the gloomy
channel between, the tide, through which I had come, writhed and rolled
like a wounded snake, even at the slack.

I had seen Sercq from the outside many times before, but only from water
level, which limits one's view, though the towering cliffs are always
wondrous fine, and more striking perhaps from below than from above. But
Brecqhou always cut the view on one side or the other, whereas now, for the
first time, I saw the whole western side of the Is