For the Le Marchants of Brecqhou were known and held in a somewhat wholesome respect of fear, by all grown-up dwellers in the Islands, from Alderney to Jersey.

It was not simply that they were bold and successful free-traders.  Free-trade—­or, as some would call it, smuggling—­was the natural commerce of the Islands, and there were not very many whose fingers were not in the golden pie.  My grandfather, Philip Carre, was one, however, and he would have starved sooner than live by any means which did not commend themselves to his own very clear views of right and wrong.  The Le Marchants had made themselves a name for reckless daring, and carelessness of other people’s well-being when it ran counter to their own, which gave them right of way among their fellows, but won comment harsh enough behind their backs.  Many a strange story was told of them, and as a rule the stories lost nothing in the telling.

But my boyish recollections of Carette,—­Carterette in full, but shortened by everyone to Carette, unless it was Aunt Jeanne Falla under very great provocation, which did not, indeed, happen often but was not absolutely unknown,—­my recollections of Carette, and of my mother, and my grandfather, and Krok, and George Hamon, and Jeanne Falla, are as bright and rosy as the dawns and sunsets of those earlier days.

All these seem to have been with me from the very beginning.  They made up my little world, and Carette was the sunlight,—­and occasionally the lightning,—­and the moonlight was my mother, and the bright stars were Jeanne Falla and George Hamon, while my grandfather was a benevolent power, always kind but rather far above me, and Krok was a mystery man, dearly loved, but held in something of awe by reason of his strange affliction.

For Krok could hear and understand all that was said to him, even in our Island tongue which was not native to him, but he had no speech.  The story ran that he had been picked off a piece of wreckage, somewhere off the North African coast, by the ship in which my grandfather made his last voyage, very many years ago.  He was very intelligent and quick of hearing, but dumb, and it was said that he had been captured by Algerine pirates when a boy and had his tongue cut out by them.  This, however, I was in a position to contradict, for I had once got a glimpse of Krok’s tongue and so knew that he had one, though his face was so covered with hair that one might have doubted almost if he even had a mouth.

He was said to be Spanish.  He was said to be Scotch.  Wherever he was born, he was by nature an honest man and faithful as a dog.  My grandfather had taken a liking to him, and when he quitted the sea Krok followed him, and became his man and served him faithfully.  He could neither read nor write at that time, and his only vocal expression was a hoarse croak like the cawing of a crow, and this, combined with ample play of head and hand and facial expression and hieroglyphic gesture, formed his only means of communication with his surroundings.