My grandfather, who had voyaged even more widely than myself, always said the same, and he was not a man given to windy talk, nor, indeed, as I have said, to overmuch talk of any kind.

And for the opening of my eyes to the rare delight and full enjoyment of the simple things of Nature, just as God has fashioned them with His wonderful tools, the wind, the wave, and the weather, I have to thank my mother, Rachel Carre, and my grandfather, Philip Carre,—­for that and very much more.

It has occurred to me at times, when I have been thinking over their lives as I knew them,—­the solitariness, the quietness, the seeming grayness and dead levelness of them,—­that possibly their enjoyment and apprehension of the beauty of all things about them, the small things as well as the great, were given to them to make up, as it were, for the loss of other things, which, however, they did not seem to miss, and I am quite sure would not have greatly valued.  If they had been richer, more in the world,—­busier they hardly could have been, for the farm was but a small one and not very profitable, and had to be helped by the fishing,—­perhaps they might not have found time to see and understand and enjoy those simpler, larger matters.  But some may look upon that as mere foolishness, and may quote against me M. La Fontaine’s fable about the fox and the grapes.  I do not mind.  Their grapes ripened and were gathered, and mine are in the ripening.

Sercq, in the distance, looks like a great whale basking on the surface of the sea and nuzzling its young.  That is a feature very common to our Islands; for time, and the weather, and the ever-restless sea wear through the softer veins, which run through all our Island rocks, just as unexpected streaks of tenderness may be found in the rough natures of our Island men.  And so, from every outstanding point, great pieces become detached and form separate islets, between which and the parent isles the currents run like mill-races and take toll of the unwary and the stranger.  So, Sercq nuzzles Le Tas, and Jethou Crevichon, and Guernsey Lihou and the Hanois, and even Brecqhou has its whelp in La Givaude.  Herm alone, with its long white spear of sand and shells, is like a sword-fish among the nursing whales.

In the distance the long ridge of Sercq looks as bare and uninteresting as would the actual back of a basking whale.  It is only when you come to a more intimate acquaintance that all her charms become visible.  Just as I have seen high-born women, in our great capital city of London, turn cold unmoved faces to the crowd but smile sweetly and graciously on their friends and acquaintances.