he more he has inside himself--the less he cares
for the smaller things outside." And I believe he was right.

He taught me all he knew concerning the farm and the land and the crops,
and taught me not by rule of thumb, but showed me the why and wherefore of
things, and opened the eyes of my understanding to notice the little things
of nature as well as the great, which many people, I have found, pass all
through their lives without ever seeing at all.

The same with the fishing. He and Krok gave me all they had to give; and,
without vainglory, but simply as grateful testimony to their goodness, I
think that at two-and-twenty I knew as much as any of my age in Sercq, and
more than most. I knew too that there were things I did not know, and did
not care to know, and for that, and all the higher things, I have to thank
my dear mother and my grandfather.

But growth in its very nature requires a widening sphere. Contentment comes
of experience and satisfaction, and youth, to arrive at that, must needs
have the experience, but craves it as a rule for itself alone.

Sercq is but a dot on the map, and not indeed that on most, and outside it
lay all the great world, teeming with wonders which could only be seen by
seeking them.

Up to the time I was sixteen, and Carette fourteen, we were comrades of the
sea and shore and cliffs, and very great friends. Then Aunt Jeanne Falla
insisted on her being sent to school in Peter Port--a grievous blow to us
both, for which we lived to thank her. For Carette, clever as she was by
nature, and wonderfully sharp at picking things up, had no inducements at
home towards anything beyond bodily growth, except, indeed, when she was at
Beaumanoir with Aunt Jeanne, and those times were spasmodic and were
countered by her returns to the free and easy life on Brecqhou. And Aunt
Jeanne loved her dearly and knew what was best for her, and so she
insisted, and Carette went weeping to Peter Port to the Miss Maugers'
school in George Road.

Her going made a great gap in my life, and the outer things began to call
on me. My ideas respecting them were dim and distorted enough, as I
afterwards found, but their call was all the more insistent for that. Lying
flat on Tintageu, chin on fist, I would watch the white-sailed ships
pushing eagerly to that wonderful outer world and long to be on them. There
were great ships carrying wine and brandy to the West Indies, where the
people were all black, and the m