Produced by Steven Gibbs, Melissa Er-Raqabi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net. 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-Alles 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 are almost identical with those fixed by Helier de Carteret in the time of Queen Elizabeth; where feudal observances which date back to the time of Rollo, Duke of Normandy, are still the law of the land; and where family names and records in some cases run back unbroken for very many generations._ _To obviate any personal feeling, I desire to state that, to the best of my belief, no present inhabitant of Sercq is in any way connected with any of the principal characters named in this book._ _The name Carre is still an honoured one in the Island. It is pronounced Caury._ _The numbers on the map refer to the farms and tenants in the year 1800--the approximate date of the story. As this map has been specially compiled, and is, I believe, the only one of its kind in existence, it may be of interest to some to find at the end of this volume a list of the holdings and holders in Sercq about one hundred years ago._ * * * * * _The photographs from which this book is illustrated were specially taken for me at considerable expenditure of time and trouble by various good friends in Sark and elsewhere. If, in one or two cases, we have permitted ourselves 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 as possible 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 year 1800 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 and labour he expended upon them I here make most grateful acknowledgment._ * * * * *