BOOK I

EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY

EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS

FICTION

HUGO'S TOILERS OF THE SEA

NOW NEWLY COMPLETED FROM

W. MOY THOMAS'S TRANSLATION

INTRODUCTION BY ERNEST RHYS

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INTRODUCTION

Victor Hugo was thinking much of Æschylus and his Prometheus at the time

he conceived the figure of Gilliatt, heroic warrer with the elements.

But it is to a creature of the Gothic mind like Byron's Manfred, and not

to any earlier, or classic, type of the eternal rebellion against fate

or time or circumstance, that Hugo's readers will be tempted to turn for

the fellow to his Guernsey hero:

"My joy was in the wilderness--to breathe

The difficult air of the iced mountain's top,

Where the birds dare not build--nor insects wing

Flit o'er the herbless granite; or to plunge

Into the torrent, and to roll along

On the swift whirl of the new-breaking wave

Of river-stream, or ocean, in their flow."

The island of Guernsey was Gilliatt's Alp and sea-solitude, where he,

too, had his avalanches waiting to fall "like foam from the round ocean

of old Hell." And as Byron figured his own revolt against the bonds in

Manfred, so Hugo, being in exile, put himself with lyrical and

rhetorical impetuosity into the island marcou and child of destiny that

he concocted with "a little sand and a little blood and a deal of

fantasy" in the years 1864 and 1865. There is a familiar glimpse of the

Hugo household to be had in the first winter of its transference to the

Channel Islands, years before _Les Travailleurs_ was written, which

betrays the mood from which finally sprang this concrete fable of the

man-at-odds. It was the end of November 1852, and a father and his

younger son sat in a room of a house of Marine Terrace, Jersey--a plain,

unpicturesque house; square, hard in outline, and newly

whitewashed,--Methodism, said Hugo, in stones and mortar. Outside its

windows the rain fell and the wind blew: the house was like a thing

benumbed by the angry noise. The two inmates sat plunged in thought,

possibly thinking of the sad significance of these beginnings of winter

and of exile which had arrived together. At length the son (François

Hugo) asked the father what he meant to do during their exile, which he

had already predicted would be long? The father said, "I shall look at

the sea." Then came a silence, broken by a question as to what the son

would do? To which he replied that he would translate Shakespeare.

Victor Hugo's own study or eulogy of Shakespeare was written as a

preamble to his son's translation of the plays. It is not too much to

connect the new and ample creative work that followed, including his

great novel of Revolution, _Les Misérables_, and his poems in _La

Légende des Siècles_ (first series) with the double artistic stimulus

gained from this conditioned solitude and his closer acquaintance with

the dramatic mind of that "giant of the great art of the ages," as he

termed our English poet in the book already quoted from.

The Shakespeare book is dated from Hauteville House, 1864. _Les

Travailleurs_ from the same quarters, March 1866. The Hugos had perforce

suddenly left Jersey for Guernsey in 1855, owing to the gibes and flouts

of an unlucky revolutionary Jersey journal, _L'Homme_, at the two

governments: Victor Hugo being already a marked man for his pains. The

Guernsey house he inhabited for so many years had a spacious study in

its upper story, with a large window, free to the sun and to the sea.

Here he wrote, tirelessly, tremendously, as his custom was: beginning

betimes in the early morning, and writing on till the time for his

_déjeuner_: standing at a tall desk to write in his sea-tower. You must

turn to certain of his poems and to the pages of _Les Misérables_ and

_Les Travailleurs_ for the mental colours and phantasmagoria of those

days and years.

It would be easy to point out, resuming an immense amount of criticism

of his romances and of this story in particular, the defects on the side

of dramatic and true life-likeness to be found in Hugo's

prose-narrative. But it is more helpful in turning to a story-book to

know what has been said unreservedly in its favour. Hugo's greatest

appreciator was superlative in his praise, and it need hardly be

explained that it was Swinburne who brought his tribute to the romance

of Gilliatt also, after positing the parallel claims of Hugo's five

chief romances. Of the five, they were not, he said, to be comparatively

classified in order of merit. "But I may perhaps be permitted to say

without fear of deserved rebuke that none is to me personally a treasure

of greater price than _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_. The splendid energy

of the book makes the superhuman energy of the hero seem not only

possible but natural, and his triumph over all physical impossibilities

not only natural but inevitable." Swinburne's love for the Channel

Islands, and his poems inspired by them, were mainly due as we know to

Hugo's life and his books lived and written there.

E.R.

The following is a list of the chief publications of Victor Hugo:--

POETICAL WORKS:--Nouvelles Odes, 1824; Odes et Poésies Diverses,

1822; Odes et Ballades, 1826; Les Orientales, 1829; Feuilles

d'Automne, 1831; Les Chants du Crépuscule, 1835; Les Voix

Intérieures, 1837; Les Rayons et les Ombres, 1840; Odes sur

Napoléon, 1840; Les Châtiments, 1853; Les Contemplations, 1856; La

Légende des Siècles (1st part), 1859; Les Chansons des Rues et des

Bois, 1865; L'Année Terrible, 1872; La Légende des Siècles (2nd

part), 1877; L'Art d'être Grand-père, 1877; Le Pape, 1878; La Pitié

Suprême, 1879; L'Âne, 1880; Religion et Religions, 1880; Les Quatre

Vents de l'Esprit, 1881; La Légende des Siècles (3rd part), 1883.

DRAMATIC WORKS:--Cromwell, 1827; Amy Robsart, 1828; Hernani, 1830;

Marion Delorme, 1831; Le Roi s'amuse, 1832; Lucrèce Borgia, 1833;

Marie Tudor, 1833; Angelo, Tyran de Padoue, 1835; La Esmeralda

(libretto for Opera), 1836; Ruy Blas, 1838; Burgraves, 1843;

Torquemada, 1882.

NOVELS AND OTHER PROSE WORKS:--Hans d'Islande, 1823; Bug-Jargal

(enlarged for book form), 1826; Le Dernier Jour d'un Condamné, 1829;

Notre-Dame de Paris, 1831; Étude sur Mirabeau, 1834; Claude Gueux,

1834; Le Rhin, 1842; Napoléon le Petit, 1852; Les Misérables, 1862;

Littérature et Philosophie mélées, 1864; William Shakespeare, 1864;

Les Travailleurs de la Mer, 1866; L'Homme qui rit, 1869; Actes et

Paroles, 1872; Quatre-Vingt-Treize, 1873; Histoire d'un Crime, 1877;

Discours pour Voltaire, 1878; Le Domaine public payant, 1878;

L'Archipel de la Manche, 1883.

Hugo left a mass of manuscripts, of which some have been published

since his death:--Le Théatre en Liberté, La Fin de Satan, Dieu,

Choses Vues, Tonte la Lyre, Océan, En Voyage, Postscriptum de ma

Vie.

An Edition Définitive of his works in 48 volumes was published

1880-5.

TRANSLATIONS:--Of novels, 28 vols., 1895, 1899, etc.; of dramas, by

I.G. Burnham, 1895. Separate translations of prose and poetical

works.

LIFE:--Among the biographies and appreciations are:--Sainte-Beuve,

Biographie des Contemporains, vol. iv., 1831; Portraits

Contemporains, vol. i., 1846; Victor Hugo raconté par un témoin de

sa vie (Madame Hugo), 1863; A. Barbou, 1880 (trans. 1881); E. Biré,

Victor Hugo avant 1830, 1883; après 1830, 1891; après 1852, 1894;

F.W.H. Myers, Essays, 1883; Paul de Saint Victor, 1885, 1892; Alfred

Asseline, Victor Hugo intime, 1885; G.B. Smith, 1885; J. Cappon, A

Memoir and a Study, 1885; A.C. Swinburne, A Study of Victor Hugo,

1886; E. Dupuy, Victor Hugo, l'homme et le poète, 1886; F.T.

Marzials (Great Writers), 1888; Charles Renouvier, Victor Hugo le

Poète, 1892; L. Mabilleau, 1893; J.P. Nichol, 1893; C. Renouvier,

Victor Hugo le Philosophe, 1900; E. Rigal, 1900; G.V. Hugo, Mon

Grand-père, 1902; Juana Lesclide, Victor Hugo intime, 1902;

Theophile Gautier, 1902; F. Gregh, Étude sur Victor Hugo, 1905; P.

Stapfers, Victor Hugo à Guernsey, 1905.

PREFACE

Religion, Society, and Nature! these are the three struggles of man.

They constitute at the same time his three needs. He has need of a

faith; hence the temple. He must create; hence the city. He must live;

hence the plough and the ship. But these three solutions comprise three

perpetual conflicts. The mysterious difficulty of life results from all

three. Man strives with obstacles under the form of superstition, under

the form of prejudice, and under the form of the elements. A triple

[Greek: anagkê] weighs upon us. There is the fatality of dogmas, the

oppression of human laws, the inexorability of nature. In _Notre Dame de

Paris_ the author denounced the first; in the _Misérables_ he

exemplified the second; in this book he indicates the third. With these

three fatalities mingles that inward fatality--the supreme [Greek:

anagkê], the human heart.

HAUTEVILLE HOUSE,

_March, 1866_.

I DEDICATE THIS BOOK

TO THE

ROCK OF HOSPITALITY AND LIBERTY

TO THAT PORTION OF OLD NORMAN GROUND

INHABITED BY

THE NOBLE LITTLE NATION OF THE SEA

TO THE ISLAND OF GUERNSEY

SEVERE YET KIND, MY PRESENT ASYLUM

PERHAPS MY TOMB.

V.H.

CONTENTS

PART I

SIEUR CLUBIN

Book I.--THE HISTORY OF A BAD REPUTATION

CHAP. PAGE

I. A Word written on a White Page 1

II. The Bû de la Rue 3

III. For your Wife: when you Marry 7

IV. An Unpopular Man 9

V. More Suspicious Facts about Gilliatt 18

VI. The Dutch Sloop 20

VII. A Fit Tenant for a Haunted House 25

VIII. The Gild-Holm-'Ur Seat 27

Book II.--MESS LETHIERRY

I. A Troubled Life, but a Quiet Conscience 30

II. A Certain Predilection 32

III. The Old Sea Language 33

IV. One is Vulnerable where one Loves 35

Book III.--DURANDE AND DÉRUCHETTE

I. Prattle and Smoke 37

II. The Old Story of Utopia 39

III. Rantaine 41

IV. Continuation of the Story of Utopia 44

V. The Devil Boat 46

VI. Lethierry's Exaltation 50

VII. The same Godfather and the same Patron Saint 52

VIII. "Bonnie Dundee" 54

IX. The Man who discovered Rantaine's Character 57

X. Long Yarns 58

XI. Matrimonial Prospects 60

XII. An Anomaly in the Character of Lethierry 61

XIII. Thoughtlessness adds a Grace to Beauty 65

Book IV.--THE BAGPIPE

I. Streaks of Fire on the Horizon 67

II. The Unknown unfolds itself by Degrees 69

III. The Air "Bonnie Dundee" finds an Echo on the Hill 71

IV. "A serenade by night may please a lady fair, 72

But of uncle and of guardian let the troubadour

beware." _Unpublished Comedy_

V. A Deserved Success has always its Detractors 74

VI. The Sloop _Cashmere_ saves a Shipwrecked Crew 75

VII. How an Idler had the Good Fortune to be seen 77

by a Fisherman

Book V.--THE REVOLVER

I. Conversations at the Jean Auberge 80

II. Clubin observes Someone 86

III. Clubin carries away Something and brings back 88

Nothing

IV. Pleinmont 91

V. The Birds'-nesters 96

VI. The Jacressade 108

VII. Nocturnal Buyers and Mysterious Sellers 114

VIII. A "Cannon" off the Red Ball and the Black 117

IX. Useful Information for Persons who expect or 125

fear the Arrival of Letters from beyond Sea

Book VI.--THE DRUNKEN STEERSMAN AND THE SOBER CAPTAIN

I. The Douvres 130

II. An Unexpected Flask of Brandy 132

III. Conversations interrupted 135

IV. Captain Clubin displays all his great Qualities 142

V. Clubin reaches the Crowning-point of Glory 147

VI. The Interior of an Abyss suddenly revealed 151

VII. An Unexpected Dénouement 158

Book VII.--THE DANGER OF OPENING A BOOK AT RANDOM

I. The Pearl at the Foot of a Precipice 162

II. Much Astonishment on the Western Coast 169

III. A Quotation from the Bible 173

PART II

MALICIOUS GILLIATT

BOOK I.--THE ROCK

CHAP. PAGE

I. The Place which is difficult to reach, and 181

difficult to leave

II. A Catalogue of Disasters 186

III. Sound; but not Safe 188

IV. A Preliminary Survey 190

V. A Word upon the Secret Co-operations of 192

the Elements

VI. A Stable for the Horse 196

VII. A Chamber for the Voyager 198

VIII. Importunæque Volucres 205

IX. The Rock, and how Gilliatt used it 207

X. The Forge 210

XI. Discovery 214

XII. The Interior of an Edifice under the Sea 217

XIII. What was seen there; and what perceived dimly 219

BOOK II.--THE LABOUR

I. The Resources of one who has nothing 225

II. Wherein Shakespeare and Æschylus meet 227

III. Gilliatt's Masterpiece comes to the Rescue 229

of that of Lethierry

IV. Sub Re 232

V. Sub Umbra 237

VI. Gilliatt places the Sloop in readiness 242

VII. Sudden Danger 244

VIII. Movement rather than Progress 247

IX. A Slip between Cup and Lip 250

X. Sea-warnings 252

XI. A Word to the Wise is enough 255

BOOK III.--THE STRUGGLE

I. Extremes meet 258

II. The Ocean Winds 259

III. The Noises explained 262

IV. Turba Turma 265

V. Gilliatt's Alternatives 267

VI. The Combat 268

BOOK IV.--PITFALLS IN THE WAY

I. He who is Hungry is not Alone 280

II. The Monster 296

III. Another Kind of Sea-combat 297

IV. Nothing is hidden; Nothing lost 299

V. The Fatal Difference between Six Inches and 302

Two Feet

VI. De Profundis ad Altum 306

VII. The Appeal is heard 311

PART III

DÉRUCHETTE

Book I.--NIGHT AND THE MOON

CHAP. PAGE

I. The Harbour Bell 315

II. The Harbour Bell again 327

Book II.--GRATITUDE AND DESPOTISM

I. Joy surrounded by Tortures 335

II. The Leathern Trunk 343

Book III.--THE DEPARTURE OF THE "CASHMERE"

I. The Havelet near the Church 346

II. Despair confronts Despair 348

III. The Forethought of Self-sacrifice 355

IV. For your Wife: when you Marry 359

V. The Great Tomb 362

TOILERS OF THE SEA

PART I.--SIEUR CLUBIN

BOOK I

THE HISTORY OF A BAD REPUTATION

I

A WORD WRITTEN ON A WHITE PAGE

Christmas Day in the year 182- was somewhat remarkable in the island of

Guernsey. Snow fell on that day. In the Channel Islands a frosty winter

is uncommon, and a fall of snow is an event.

On that Christmas morning, the road which skirts the seashore from St.

Peter's Port to the Vale was clothed in white. From midnight till the

break of day the snow had been falling. Towards nine o'clock, a little

after the rising of the wintry sun, as it was too early yet for the

Church of England folks to go to St. Sampson's, or for the Wesleyans to

repair to Eldad Chapel, the road was almost deserted. Throughout that

portion of the highway which separates the first from the second tower,

only three foot-passengers could be seen. These were a child, a man, and

a woman. Walking at a distance from each other, these wayfarers had no

visible connection. The child, a boy of about eight years old, had

stopped, and was looking curiously at the wintry scene. The man walked

behind the woman, at a distance of about a hundred paces. Like her he

was coming from the direction of the church of St. Sampson. The

appearance of the man, who was still young, was something between that

of a workman and a sailor. He wore his working-day clothes--a kind of

Guernsey shirt of coarse brown stuff, and trousers partly concealed by

tarpaulin leggings--a costume which seemed to indicate that,

notwithstanding the holy day, he was going to no place of worship. His

heavy shoes of rough leather, with their soles covered with large

nails, left upon the snow, as he walked, a print more like that of a

prison lock than the foot of a man. The woman, on the contrary, was

evidently dressed for church. She wore a large mantle of black silk,

wadded, under which she had coquettishly adjusted a dress of Irish

poplin, trimmed alternately with white and pink; but for her red

stockings, she might have been taken for a Parisian. She walked on with

a light and free step, so little suggestive of the burden of life that

it might easily be seen that she was young. Her movements possessed that

subtle grace which indicates the most delicate of all transitions--that

soft intermingling, as it were, of two twilights--the passage from the

condition of a child to that of womanhood. The man seemed to take no

heed of her.

Suddenly, near a group of oaks at the corner of a field, and at the spot

called the Basses Maisons, she turned, and the movement seemed to

attract the attention of the man. She stopped, seemed to reflect a

moment, then stooped, and the man fancied that he could discern that she

was tracing with her finger some letters in the snow. Then she rose

again, went on her way at a quicker pace, turned once more, this time

smiling, and disappeared to the left of the roadway, by the footpath

under the hedges which leads to the Ivy Castle. When she had turned for

the second time, the man had recognised her as Déruchette, a charming

girl of that neighbourhood.

The man felt no need of quickening his pace; and some minutes later he

found himself near the group of oaks. Already he had ceased to think of

the vanished Déruchette; and if, at that moment, a porpoise had appeared

above the water, or a robin had caught his eye in the hedges, it is

probable that he would have passed on his way. But it happened that his

eyes were fixed upon the ground; his gaze fell mechanically upon the

spot where the girl had stopped. Two little footprints were there

plainly visible; and beside them he read this word, evidently written by

her in the snow--

"GILLIATT."

It was his own name.

He lingered for awhile motionless, looking at the letters, the little

footprints, and the snow; and then walked on, evidently in a thoughtful

mood.

II

THE BÛ DE LA RUE

Gilliatt lived in the parish of St. Sampson. He was not liked by his

neighbours; and there were reasons for that fact.

To begin with, he lived in a queer kind of "haunted" dwelling. In the

islands of Jersey and Guernsey, sometimes in the country, but often in

streets with many inhabitants, you will come upon a house the entrance

to which is completely barricaded. Holly bushes obstruct the doorway,

hideous boards, with nails, conceal the windows below; while the

casements of the upper stories are neither closed nor open: for all the

window-frames are barred, but the glass is broken. If there is a little

yard, grass grows between its stones; and the parapet of its wall is

crumbling away. If there is a garden, it is choked with nettles,

brambles, and hemlock, and strange insects abound in it. The chimneys

are cracked, the roof is falling in; so much as can be seen from without

of the rooms presents a dismantled appearance. The woodwork is rotten;

the stone mildewed. The paper of the walls has dropped away and hangs

loose, until it presents a history of the bygone fashions of

paper-hangings--the scrawling patterns of the time of the Empire, the

crescent-shaped draperies of the Directory, the balustrades and pillars

of the days of Louis XVI. The thick draperies of cobwebs, filled with

flies, indicate the quiet reign long enjoyed by innumerable spiders.

Sometimes a broken jug may be noticed on a shelf. Such houses are

considered to be haunted. Satan is popularly believed to visit them by

night. Houses are like the human beings who inhabit them. They become to

their former selves what the corpse is to the living body. A

superstitious belief among the people is sufficient to reduce them to

this state of death. Then their aspect is terrible. These ghostly houses

are common in the Channel Islands.

The rural and maritime populations are easily moved with notions of the

active agency of the powers of evil. Among the Channel Isles, and on the

neighbouring coast of France, the ideas of the people on this subject

are deeply rooted. In their view, Beelzebub has his ministers in all

parts of the earth. It is certain that Belphegor is the ambassador from

the infernal regions in France, Hutgin in Italy, Belial in Turkey,

Thamuz in Spain, Martinet in Switzerland, and Mammon in England. Satan

is an Emperor just like any other: a sort of Satan Cæsar. His

establishment is well organised. Dagon is grand almoner, Succor Benoth

chief of the Eunuchs; Asmodeus, banker at the gaming-table; Kobal,

manager of the theatre, and Verdelet, grand-master of the ceremonies.

Nybbas is the court-fool; Wierus, a savant, a good strygologue, and a

man of much learning in demonology, calls Nybbas the great parodist.

The Norman fishermen, who frequent the Channel, have many precautions to

take at sea, by reason of the illusions with which Satan environs them.

It has long been an article of popular faith, that Saint Maclou

inhabited the great square rock called Ortach, in the sea between

Aurigny and the Casquets; and many old sailors used to declare that they

had often seen him there, seated and reading in a book. Accordingly the

sailors, as they passed, were in the habit of kneeling many times before

the Ortach rock, until the day when the fable was destroyed, and the

truth took its place. For it has been discovered, and is now well

established, that the lonely inhabitant of the rock is not a saint, but

a devil. This evil spirit, whose name is Jochmus, had the impudence to

pass himself off, for many centuries, as Saint Maclou. Even the Church

herself is not proof against snares of this kind. The demons Raguhel,

Oribel, and Tobiel, were regarded as saints until the year 745; when

Pope Zachary, having at length exposed them, turned them out of saintly

company. This sort of weeding of the saintly calendar is certainly very

useful; but it can only be practised by very accomplished judges of

devils and their ways.

The old inhabitants of these parts relate--though all this refers to

bygone times--that the Catholic population of the Norman Archipelago was

once, though quite involuntarily, even in more intimate correspondence

with the powers of darkness than the Huguenots themselves. How this

happened, however, we do not pretend to say; but it is certain that the

people suffered considerable annoyance from this cause. It appears that

Satan had taken a fancy to the Catholics, and sought their company a

good deal; a circumstance which has given rise to the belief that the

devil is more Catholic than Protestant. One of his most insufferable

familiarities consisted in paying nocturnal visits to married Catholics

in bed, just at the moment when the husband had fallen fast asleep, and

the wife had begun to doze; a fruitful source of domestic trouble.

Patouillet was of opinion that a faithful biography of Voltaire ought

not to be without some allusion to this practice of the evil one. The

truth of all this is perfectly well known, and described in the forms

of excommunication in the rubric _de erroribus nocturnis et de semine

diabolorum_. The practice was raging particularly at St. Helier's

towards the end of the last century, probably as a punishment for the

Revolution; for the evil consequences of revolutionary excesses are

incalculable. However this may have been, it is certain that this

possibility of a visit from the demon at night, when it is impossible to

see distinctly, or even in slumber, caused much embarrassment among

orthodox dames. The idea of giving to the world a Voltaire was by no

means a pleasant one. One of these, in some anxiety, consulted her

confessor on this extremely difficult subject, and the best mode for

timely discovery of the cheat. The confessor replied, "In order to be

sure that it is your husband by your side, and not a demon, place your

hand upon his head. If you find horns, you may be sure there is

something wrong." But this test was far from satisfactory to the worthy

dame.

Gilliatt's house had been haunted, but it was no longer in that

condition; it was for that reason, however, only regarded with more

suspicion. No one learned in demonology can be unaware of the fact that,

when a sorcerer has installed himself in a haunted dwelling, the devil

considers the house sufficiently occupied, and is polite enough to

abstain from visiting there, unless called in, like the doctor, on some

special occasion.

This house was known by the name of the Bû de la Rue. It was situated at

the extremity of a little promontory, rather of rock than of land,

forming a small harbourage apart in the creek of Houmet Paradis. The

water at this spot is deep. The house stood quite alone upon the point,

almost separated from the island, and with just sufficient ground about

it for a small garden, which was sometimes inundated by the high tides.

Between the port of St. Sampson and the creek of Houmet Paradis, rises a

steep hill, surmounted by the block of towers covered with ivy, and

known as Vale Castle, or the Château de l'Archange; so that, at St.

Sampson, the Bû de la Rue was shut out from sight.

Nothing is commoner than sorcerers in Guernsey. They exercise their

profession in certain parishes, in profound indifference to the

enlightenment of the nineteenth century. Some of their practices are

downright criminal. They set gold boiling, they gather herbs at

midnight, they cast sinister looks upon the people's cattle. When the

people consult them they send for bottles containing "water of the

sick," and they are heard to mutter mysteriously, "the water has a sad

look." In March, 1857, one of them discovered, in water of this kind,

seven demons. They are universally feared. Another only lately bewitched

a baker "as well as his oven." Another had the diabolical wickedness to

wafer and seal up envelopes "containing nothing inside." Another went so

far as to have on a shelf three bottles labelled "B." These monstrous

facts are well authenticated. Some of these sorcerers are obliging, and

for two or three guineas will take on themselves the complaint from

which you are suffering. Then they are seen to roll upon their beds, and

to groan with pain; and while they are in these agonies the believer

exclaims, "There! I am well again." Others cure all kinds of diseases,

by merely tying a handkerchief round the patient's loins, a remedy so

simple that it is astonishing that no one had yet thought of it. In the

last century, the Cour Royale of Guernsey bound such folks upon a heap

of fagots and burnt them alive. In these days it condemns them to eight

weeks' imprisonment; four weeks on bread and water, and the remainder of

the term in solitary confinement. _Amant alterna catenæ._

The last instance of burning sorcerers in Guernsey took place in 1747.

The city authorities devoted one of its squares, the Carrefour du

Bordage, to that ceremony. Between 1565 and 1700, eleven sorcerers thus

suffered at this spot. As a rule the criminals made confession of their

guilt. Torture was used to assist their confession. The Carrefour du

Bordage has indeed rendered many other services to society and religion.

It was here that heretics were brought to the stake. Under Queen Mary,

among other Huguenots burnt here, were a mother and two daughters. The

name of this mother was Perrotine Massy. One of the daughters was

_enceinte_, and was delivered of a child even in the midst of the

flames. As the old chronicle expresses it, "_Son ventre éclata_." The

new-born infant rolled out of the fiery furnace. A man named House took

it in his arms; but Helier Gosselin the bailli, like a good Catholic as

he was, sternly commanded the child to be cast again into the fire.

III

FOR YOUR WIFE: WHEN YOU MARRY

We must return to Gilliatt.

The country people told how, towards the close of the great Revolution,

a woman, bringing with her a little child, came to live in Guernsey. She

was English, or perhaps French. She had a name which the Guernsey

pronunciation and the country folks' bad spelling had finally converted

into "Gilliatt." She lived alone with the child, which, according to

some, was a nephew; according to others, a son or grandson; according to

others, again, a strange child whom she was protecting. She had some

means; enough to struggle on in a poor way. She had purchased a small

plot of ground at La Sergentée, and another at La Roque Crespel, near

Rocquaine. The house of the Bû de la Rue was haunted at this period. For

more than thirty years no one had inhabited it. It was falling into

ruins. The garden, so often invaded by the sea, could produce nothing.

Besides noises and lights seen there at night-time, the house had this

mysterious peculiarity: any one who should leave there in the evening,

upon the mantelpiece, a ball of worsted, a few needles, and a plate

filled with soup, would assuredly find, in the morning, the soup

consumed, the plate empty, and a pair of mittens ready knitted. The

house, demon included, was offered for sale for a few pounds sterling.

The stranger woman became the purchaser, evidently tempted by the devil,

or by the advantageous bargain.

She did more than purchase the house; she took up her abode there with

the child; and from that moment peace reigned within its walls. The Bû

de la Rue has found a fit tenant, said the country people. The haunting

ceased. There was no longer any light seen there, save that of the

tallow candle of the new comer. "Witch's candle is as good as devil's

torch." The proverb satisfied the gossips of the neighbourhood.

The woman cultivated some acres of land which belonged to her. She had a

good cow, of the sort which produces yellow butter. She gathered her

white beans, cauliflowers, and "Golden drop" potatoes. She sold, like

other people, her parsnips by the tonneau, her onions by the hundred,

and her beans by the denerel. She did not go herself to market, but

disposed of her crops through the agency of Guilbert Falliot, at the

sign of the Abreveurs of St. Sampson. The register of Falliot bears

evidence that Falliot sold for her, on one occasion, as much as twelve

bushels of rare early potatoes.

The house had been meanly repaired; but sufficiently to make it

habitable. It was only in very bad weather that the rain-drops found

their way through the ceilings of the rooms. The interior consisted of a

ground-floor suite of rooms, and a granary overhead. The ground-floor

was divided into three rooms; two for sleeping, and one for meals. A

ladder connected it with the granary above. The woman attended to the

kitchen and taught the child to read. She did not go to church or

chapel, which, all things considered, led to the conclusion that she

must be French not to go to a place of worship. The circumstance was

grave. In short, the new comers were a puzzle to the neighbourhood.

That the woman was French seemed probable. Volcanoes cast forth stones,

and revolutions men, so families are removed to distant places; human

beings come to pass their lives far from their native homes; groups of

relatives and friends disperse and decay; strange people fall, as it

were, from the clouds--some in Germany, some in England, some in

America. The people of the country view them with surprise and

curiosity. Whence come these strange faces? Yonder mountain, smoking

with revolutionary fires, casts them out. These barren aërolites, these

famished and ruined people, these footballs of destiny, are known as

refugees, émigrés, adventurers. If they sojourn among strangers, they

are tolerated; if they depart, there is a feeling of relief. Sometimes

these wanderers are harmless, inoffensive people, strangers--at least,

as regards the women--to the events which have led to their exile,

objects of persecution, helpless and astonished at their fate. They take

root again somewhere as they can. They have done no harm to any one, and

scarcely comprehend the destiny that has befallen them. So thus I have

seen a poor tuft of grass uprooted and carried away by the explosion of

a mine. No great explosion was ever followed by more of such strays than

the first French Revolution.

The strange woman whom the Guernsey folks called "Gilliatt" was,

possibly, one of these human strays.

The woman grew older; the child became a youth. They lived alone and

avoided by all; but they were sufficient for each other. _Louve et

louveteau se pourlèchent._ This was another of the generous proverbs

which the neighbourhood applied to them. Meanwhile, the youth grew to

manhood; and then, as the old and withered bark falls from the tree,

the mother died. She left to her son the little field of Sergentée, the

small property called La Roque Crespel, and the house known as the Bû de

la Rue; with the addition, as the official inventory said, of "one

hundred guineas in gold in the _pid d'une cauche_," that is to say, in

the foot of a stocking. The house was already sufficiently furnished

with two oaken chests, two beds, six chairs and a table, besides

necessary household utensils. Upon a shelf were some books, and in the

corner a trunk, by no means of a mysterious character, which had to be

opened for the inventory. This trunk was of drab leather, ornamented

with brass nails and little stars of white metal, and it contained a

bride's outfit, new and complete, of beautiful Dunkirk linen--chemises

and petticoats, and some silk dresses--with a paper on which was

written, in the handwriting of the deceased,--

"For your wife: when you marry."

The loss of his mother was a terrible blow for the young man. His

disposition had always been unsociable; he became now moody and sullen.

The solitude around him was complete. Hitherto it had been mere

isolation; now his life was a blank. While we have only one companion,

life is endurable; left alone, it seems as if it is impossible to

struggle on, and we fall back in the race, which is the first sign of

despair. As time rolls on, however, we discover that duty is a series of

compromises; we contemplate life, regard its end, and submit; but it is

a submission which makes the heart bleed.

Gilliatt was young; and his wound healed with time. At that age sorrows

cannot be lasting. His sadness, disappearing by slow degrees, seemed to

mingle itself with the scenes around him, to draw him more and more

towards the face of nature, and further and further from the need of

social converse; and, finally, to assimilate his spirit more completely

to the solitude in which he lived.

IV

AN UNPOPULAR MAN

Gilliatt, as we have said, was not popular in the parish. Nothing could

be more natural than that antipathy among his neighbours. The reasons

for it were abundant. To begin with, as we have already explained, there

was the strange house he lived in; then there was his mysterious origin.

Who could that woman have been? and what was the meaning of this child?

Country people do not like mysteries, when they relate to strange

sojourners among them. Then his clothes were the clothes of a workman,

while he had, although certainly not rich, sufficient to live without

labour. Then there was his garden, which he succeeded in cultivating,

and from which he produced crops of potatoes, in spite of the stormy

equinoxes; and then there were the big books which he kept upon a shelf,

and read from time to time.

More reasons: why did he live that solitary life? The Bû de la Rue was a

kind of lazaretto, in which Gilliatt was kept in a sort of moral

quarantine. This, in the popular judgment, made it quite simple that

people should be astonished at his isolation, and should hold him

responsible for the solitude which society had made around his home.

He never went to chapel. He often went out at night-time. He held

converse with sorcerers. He had been seen, on one occasion, sitting on

the grass with an expression of astonishment on his features. He haunted

the druidical stones of the Ancresse, and the fairy caverns which are

scattered about in that part. It was generally believed that he had been

seen politely saluting the Roque qui Chante, or Crowing Rock. He bought

all birds which people brought to him, and having bought them, set them

at liberty. He was civil to the worthy folks in the streets of St.

Sampson, but willingly turned out of his way to avoid them if he could.

He often went out on fishing expeditions, and always returned with fish.

He trimmed his garden on Sundays. He had a bagpipe which he had bought

from one of the Highland soldiers who are sometimes in Guernsey, and on

which he played occasionally at twilight, on the rocks by the seashore.

He had been seen to make strange gestures, like those of one sowing

seeds. What kind of treatment could be expected for a man like that?

As regards the books left by the deceased woman, which he was in the

habit of reading, the neighbours were particularly suspicious. The

Reverend Jaquemin Hérode, rector of St. Sampson, when he visited the

house at the time of the woman's funeral, had read on the backs of these

books the titles _Rosier's Dictionary_, _Candide_, by Voltaire, _Advice

to the People on Health_, by Tissot. A French noble, an émigré, who had

retired to St. Sampson, remarked that this Tissot, "must have been the

Tissot who carried the head of the Princess de Lamballe upon a pike."

The Reverend gentleman had also remarked upon one of these books, the

highly fantastic and terribly significant title, _De Rhubarbaro_.

In justice to Gilliatt, however, it must be added that this volume being

in Latin--a language which it is doubtful if he understood--the young

man had possibly never read it.

But it is just those books which a man possesses, but does not read,

which constitute the most suspicious evidence against him. The Spanish

Inquisition have deliberated on that point, and have come to a

conclusion which places the matter beyond further doubt.

The book in question, however, was no other than the treatise of Doctor

Tilingius upon the rhubarb plant, published in Germany in 1679.

It was by no means certain that Gilliatt did not prepare philters and

unholy decoctions. He was undoubtedly in possession of certain phials.

Why did he walk abroad at evening, and sometimes even at midnight, on

the cliffs? Evidently to hold converse with the evil spirits who, by

night, frequent the seashores, enveloped in smoke.

On one occasion he had aided a witch at Torteval to clean her chaise:

this was an old woman named Moutonne Gahy.

When a census was taken in the island, in answer to a question about his

calling, he replied, "Fisherman; when there are fish to catch." Imagine

yourself in the place of Gilliatt's neighbours, and admit that there is

something unpleasant in answers like this.

Poverty and wealth are comparative terms. Gilliatt had some fields and a

house, his own property; compared with those who had nothing, he was not

poor. One day, to test this, and perhaps, also as a step towards a

correspondence--for there are base women who would marry a demon for the

sake of riches--a young girl of the neighbourhood said to Gilliatt,

"When are you going to take a wife, neighbour?" He answered, "I will

take a wife when the Roque qui Chante takes a husband."

This Roque qui Chante is a great stone, standing in a field near Mons.

Lemézurier de Fry's. It is a stone of a highly suspicious character. No

one knows what deeds are done around it. At times you may hear there a

cock crowing, when no cock is near--an extremely disagreeable

circumstance. Then it is commonly asserted that this stone was

originally placed in the field by the elfin people known as

_Sarregousets_, who are the same as the _Sins_.

At night, when it thunders, if you should happen to see men flying in

the lurid light of the clouds, or on the rolling waves of the air, these

are no other than the Sarregousets. A woman who lives at the Grand

Mielles knows them well. One evening, when some Sarregousets happened to

be assembled at a crossroad, this woman cried out to a man with a cart,

who did not know which route to take, "Ask them your way. They are civil

folks, and always ready to direct a stranger." There can be little doubt

that this woman was a sorceress.

The learned and judicious King James I. had women of this kind boiled,

and then tasting the water of the cauldron, was able to say from its

flavour, "That was a sorceress;" or "That was not one."

It is to be regretted that the kings of these latter days no longer

possess a talent which placed in so strong a light the utility of

monarchical institutions.

It was not without substantial grounds that Gilliatt lived in this odour

of sorcery. One midnight, during a storm, Gilliatt being at sea alone in

a bark, on the coast by La Sommeilleuse, he was heard to ask--

"Is there a passage sufficient for me?"

And a voice cried from the heights above:

"Passage enough: steer boldly."

To whom could he have been speaking, if not to those who replied to him?

This seems something like evidence.

Another time, one stormy evening, when it was so dark that nothing could

be distinguished, Gilliatt was near the Catiau Roque--a double row of

rocks where witches, goats, and other diabolical creatures assemble and

dance on Fridays--and here, it is firmly believed, that the voice of

Gilliatt was heard mingling in the following terrible conversation:--

"How is Vesin Brovard?" (This was a mason who had fallen from the roof

of a house.)

"He is getting better."

"Ver dia! he fell from a greater height than that of yonder peak. It is

delightful to think that he was not dashed to pieces."

"Our folks had a fine time for the seaweed gathering last week."

"Ay, finer than to-day."

"I believe you. There will be little fish at the market to-day."

"It blows too hard."

"They can't lower their nets."

"How is Catherine?"

"She is charming."

Catherine was evidently the name of a Sarregouset.

According to all appearance, Gilliatt had business on hand at night: at

least none doubted it.

Sometimes he was seen with a pitcher in his hand, pouring water on the

ground. Now water, cast upon the ground, is known to make a shape like

that of devils.

On the road to St. Sampson, opposite the Martello tower, number 1, stand

three stones, arranged in the form of steps. Upon the platform of those

stones, now empty, stood anciently a cross, or perhaps a gallows. These

stones are full of evil influences.

Staid and worthy people, and perfectly credible witnesses, testified to

having seen Gilliatt at this spot conversing with a toad. Now there are

no toads at Guernsey. The share of Guernsey in the reptiles of the

Channel Isles consisting exclusively of the snakes. It is Jersey that

has all the toads. This toad, then, must have swum from the neighbouring

island, in order to hold converse with Gilliatt. The converse was of a

friendly kind.

These facts were clearly established; and the proof is that the three

stones are there to this day. Those who doubt it may go and see them;

and at a little distance, there is also a house on which the passer-by

may read this inscription:--

"DEALER IN CATTLE, ALIVE AND DEAD, OLD CORDAGE, IRON, BONES, AND TOBACCO

FOR CHEWING, PROMPT PAYMENT FOR GOODS, AND EVERY ATTENTION GIVEN TO

ORDERS."

A man must be sceptical indeed to contest the existence of those stones,

and of the house in question. Now both these circumstances were

injurious to the reputation of Gilliatt.

Only the most ignorant are unaware of the fact that the greatest danger

of the coasts of the Channel Islands is the King of the Auxcriniers. No

inhabitant of the seas is more redoubtable. Whoever has seen him is

certain to be wrecked between one St. Michel and the other. He is

little, being in fact a dwarf; and is deaf, in his quality of king. He

knows the names of all those who have been drowned in the seas, and the

spots where they lie. He has a profound knowledge of that great

graveyard which stretches far and wide beneath the waters of the ocean.

A head, massive in the lower part and narrow in the forehead; a squat

and corpulent figure; a skull, covered with warty excrescences; long

legs, long arms, fins for feet, claws for hands, and a sea-green

countenance; such are the chief characteristics of this king of the

waves. His claws have palms like hands; his fins human nails. Imagine a

spectral fish with the face of a human being. No power could check his

career unless he could be exorcised, or mayhap, fished up from the sea.

Meanwhile he continues his sinister operations. Nothing is more

unpleasant than an interview with this monster: amid the rolling waves

and breakers, or in the thick of the mist, the sailor perceives,

sometimes, a strange creature with a beetle brow, wide nostrils,

flattened ears, an enormous mouth, gap-toothed jaws, peaked eyebrows,

and great grinning eyes. When the lightning is livid, he appears red;

when it is purple, he looks wan. He has a stiff spreading beard, running

with water, and overlapping a sort of pelerine, ornamented with fourteen

shells, seven before and seven behind. These shells are curious to those

who are learned in conchology. The King of the Auxcriniers is only seen

in stormy seas. He is the terrible harbinger of the tempest. His hideous

form traces itself in the fog, in the squall, in the tempest of rain.

His breast is hideous. A coat of scales covers his sides like a vest. He

rises above the waves which fly before the wind, twisting and curling

like thin shavings of wood beneath the carpenter's plane. Then his

entire form issues out of the foam, and if there should happen to be in

the horizon any vessels in distress, pale in the twilight, or his face

lighted up with a sinister smile, he dances terrible and uncouth to

behold. It is an evil omen indeed to meet him on a voyage.

At the period when the people of St. Sampson were particularly excited

on the subject of Gilliatt, the last persons who had seen the King of

the Auxcriniers declared that his pelerine was now ornamented with only

thirteen shells. Thirteen! He was only the more dangerous. But what had

become of the fourteenth? Had he given it to some one? No one would say

positively; and folks confined themselves to conjecture. But it was an

undoubted fact that a certain Mons. Lupin Mabier, of Godaines, a man of

property, paying a good sum to the land tax, was ready to depose on

oath, that he had once seen in the hands of Gilliatt a very remarkable

kind of shell.

It was not uncommon to hear dialogues like the following among the

country people:--

"I have a fine bull here, neighbour, what do you say?"

"Very fine, neighbour?"

"It is a fact, tho' 'tis I who say it; he is better though for tallow

than for meat."

"Ver dia!"

"Are you sure that Gilliatt hasn't cast his eye upon it?"

Gilliatt would stop sometimes beside a field where some labourers were

assembled, or near gardens in which gardeners were engaged, and would

perhaps hear these mysterious words:

"When the _mors du diable_ flourishes, reap the winter rye."

(The _mors du diable_ is the scabwort plant.)

"The ash tree is coming out in leaf. There will be no more frost."

"Summer solstice, thistle in flower."

"If it rain not in June, the wheat will turn white. Look out for

mildew."

"When the wild cherry appears, beware of the full moon."

"If the weather on the sixth day of the new moon is like that of the

fourth, or like that of the fifth day, it will be the same nine times

out of twelve, in the first case, and eleven times out of twelve in the

second, during the whole month."

"Keep your eye on neighbours who go to law with you. Beware of malicious

influences. A pig which has had warm milk given to it will die. A cow

which has had its teeth rubbed with leeks will eat no more."

"Spawning time with the smelts; beware of fevers."

"When frogs begin to appear, sow your melons."

"When the liverwort flowers, sow your barley."

"When the limes are in bloom, mow the meadows."

"When the elm-tree flowers, open the hot-bed frames."

"When tobacco fields are in blossom, close your greenhouses."

And, fearful to relate, these occult precepts were not without truth.

Those who put faith in them could vouch for the fact.

One night, in the month of June, when Gilliatt was playing upon his

bagpipe, upon the sand-hills on the shore of the Demie de Fontenelle, it

had happened that the mackerel fishing had failed.

One evening, at low water, it came to pass that a cart filled with

seaweed for manure overturned on the beach, in front of Gilliatt's

house. It is most probable that he was afraid of being brought before

the magistrates, for he took considerable trouble in helping to raise

the cart, and he filled it again himself.

A little neglected child of the neighbourhood being troubled with

vermin, he had gone himself to St. Peter's Port, and had returned with

an ointment, with which he rubbed the child's head. Thus Gilliatt had

removed the pest from the poor child, which was an evidence that

Gilliatt himself had originally given it; for everybody knows that there

is a certain charm for giving vermin to people.

Gilliatt was suspected of looking into wells--a dangerous practice with

those who have an evil eye; and, in fact, at Arculons, near St. Peter's

Port, the water of a well became unwholesome. The good woman to whom

this well belonged said to Gilliatt:

"Look here, at this water;" and she showed him a glassful. Gilliatt

acknowledged it.

"The water is thick," he said; "that is true."

The good woman, who dreaded him in her heart, said, "Make it sweet again

for me."

Gilliatt asked her some questions: whether she had a stable? whether the

stable had a drain? whether the gutter of the drain did not pass near

the well? The good woman replied "Yes." Gilliatt went into the stable;

worked at the drain; turned the gutter in another direction; and the

water became pure again. People in the country round might think what

they pleased. A well does not become foul one moment and sweet the next

without good cause; the bottom of the affair was involved in obscurity;

and, in short, it was difficult to escape the conclusion that Gilliatt

himself had bewitched the water.

On one occasion, when he went to Jersey, it was remarked that he had

taken a lodging in the street called the Rue des Alleurs. Now the word

_alleurs_ signifies spirits from the other world.

In villages it is the custom to gather together all these little hints

and indications of a man's career; and when they are gathered together,

the total constitutes his reputation among the inhabitants.

It happened that Gilliatt was once caught with blood issuing from his

nose. The circumstances appeared grave. The master of a barque who had

sailed almost entirely round the world, affirmed that among the

Tongusians all sorcerers were subject to bleeding at the nose. In fact,

when you see a man in those parts bleeding at the nose, you know at once

what is in the wind. Moderate reasoners, however, remarked that the

characteristics of sorcerers among the Tongusians may possibly not apply

in the same degree to the sorcerers of Guernsey.

In the environs of one of the St. Michels, he had been seen to stop in a

close belonging to the Huriaux, skirting the highway from the Videclins.

He whistled in the field, and a moment afterwards a crow alighted there;

a moment later, a magpie. The fact was attested by a worthy man who has

since been appointed to the office of Douzenier of the Douzaine, as

those are called who are authorised to make a new survey and register of

the fief of the king.

At Hamel, in the Vingtaine of L'Epine, there lived some old women who

were positive of having heard one morning a number of swallows

distinctly calling "Gilliatt."

Add to all this that he was of a malicious temper.

One day, a poor man was beating an ass. The ass was obstinate. The poor

man gave him a few kicks in the belly with his wooden shoe, and the ass

fell. Gilliatt ran to raise the unlucky beast, but he was dead. Upon

this Gilliatt administered to the poor man a sound thrashing.

Another day, Gilliatt seeing a boy come down from a tree with a brood of

little birds, newly hatched and unfledged, he took the brood away from

the boy, and carried his malevolence so far as even to take them back

and replace them in the tree.

Some passers-by took up the boy's complaint; but Gilliatt made no reply,

except to point to the old birds, who were hovering and crying

plaintively over the tree, as they looked for their nest. He had a

weakness for birds--another sign by which the people recognise a

magician.

Children take a pleasure in robbing the nests of birds along the cliff.

They bring home quantities of yellow, blue, and green eggs, with which

they make rosaries for mantelpiece ornaments. As the cliffs are peaked,

they sometimes slip and are killed. Nothing is prettier than shutters

decorated with sea-birds' eggs. Gilliatt's mischievous ingenuity had no

end. He would climb, at the peril of his own life, into the steep places

of the sea rocks, and hang up bundles of hay, old hats, and all kinds of

scarecrows, to deter the birds from building there, and, as a

consequence, to prevent the children from visiting those spots.

These are some of the reasons why Gilliatt was disliked throughout the

country. Perhaps nothing less could have been expected.

V

MORE SUSPICIOUS FACTS ABOUT GILLIATT

Public opinion was not yet quite settled with regard to Gilliatt.

In general he was regarded as a _Marcou_: some went so far as to believe

him to be a _Cambion_. A cambion is the child of a woman begotten by a

devil.

When a woman bears to her husband seven male children consecutively, the

seventh is a marcou. But the series must not be broken by the birth of

any female child.

The marcou has a natural fleur-de-lys imprinted upon some part of his

body; for which reason he has the power of curing scrofula, exactly the

same as the King of France. Marcous are found in all parts of France,

but particularly in the Orléanais. Every village of Gâtinais has its

marcou. It is sufficient for the cure of the sick that the marcou should

breathe upon their wounds, or let them touch his fleur-de-lys. The night

of Good Friday is particularly favourable to these ceremonies. Ten years

ago there lived, at Ormes in Gâtinais, one of these creatures who was

nicknamed the Beau Marcou, and consulted by all the country of Beauce.

He was a cooper, named Foulon, who kept a horse and vehicle. To put a

stop to his miracles, it was found necessary to call in the assistance

of the gendarmes. His fleur-de-lys was on the left breast; other marcous

have it in different parts.

There are marcous at Jersey, Auvigny, and at Guernsey. This fact is

doubtless in some way connected with the rights possessed by France over

Normandy: or why the fleur-de-lys?

There are also, in the Channel Islands, people afflicted with scrofula;

which of course necessitates a due supply of these marcous.

Some people, who happened to be present one day when Gilliatt was

bathing in the sea, had fancied that they could perceive upon him a

fleur-de-lys. Interrogated on that subject he made no reply, but merely

burst into laughter. For he laughed sometimes like other men. From that

time, however, no one ever saw him bathe: he bathed thenceforth only in

perilous and solitary places; probably by moonlight: a thing in itself

somewhat suspicious.

Those who obstinately regarded him as a cambion, or son of the devil,

were evidently in error. They ought to have known that cambions

scarcely exist out of Germany. But The Vale and St. Sampson were, fifty

years ago, places remarkable for the ignorance of their inhabitants.

To fancy that a resident of the island of Guernsey could be the son of a

devil was evidently absurd.

Gilliatt, for the very reason that he caused disquietude among the

people, was sought for and consulted. The peasants came in fear, to talk

to him of their diseases. That fear itself had in it something of faith

in his powers; for in the country, the more the doctor is suspected of

magic, the more certain is the cure. Gilliatt had certain remedies of

his own, which he had inherited from the deceased woman. He communicated

them to all who had need of them, and would never receive money for

them. He cured whitlows with applications of herbs. A liquor in one of

his phials allayed fever. The chemist of St. Sampson, or _pharmacien_,

as they would call him in France, thought that this was probably a

decoction of Jesuits' bark. The more generous among his censors admitted

that Gilliatt was not so bad a demon in his dealings with the sick, so

far as regarded his ordinary remedies. But in his character of a marcou,

he would do nothing. If persons afflicted with scrofula came to him to

ask to touch the fleur-de-lys on his skin, he made no other answer than

that of shutting the door in their faces. He persistently refused to

perform any miracles--a ridiculous position for a sorcerer. No one is

bound to be a sorcerer; but when a man is one, he ought not to shirk the

duties of his position.

One or two exceptions might be found to this almost universal antipathy.

Sieur Landoys, of the Clos-Landés, was clerk and registrar of St.

Peter's Port, custodian of the documents, and keeper of the register of

births, marriages, and deaths. This Landoys was vain of his descent from

Peter Landoys, treasurer of the province of Brittany, who was hanged in

1485. One day, when Sieur Landoys was bathing in the sea, he ventured to

swim out too far, and was on the point of drowning: Gilliatt plunged

into the water, narrowly escaping drowning himself, and succeeded in

saving him. From that day Landoys never spoke an evil word of Gilliatt.

To those who expressed surprise at this change, he replied, "Why should

I detest a man who never did me any harm, and who has rendered me a

service?" The parish clerk and registrar even came at last to feel a

sort of friendship for Gilliatt. This public functionary was a man

without prejudices. He had no faith in sorcerers. He laughed at people

who went in fear of ghostly visitors. As for him, he had a boat in

which he amused himself by making fishing excursions in his leisure

hours; but he had never seen anything extraordinary, unless it was on

one occasion--a woman clothed in white, who rose about the waters in

the light of the moon--and even of this circumstance he was not quite

sure. Moutonne Gahy, the old witch of Torteval, had given him a little

bag to be worn under the cravat, as a protection against evil spirits:

he ridiculed the bag, and knew not what it contained, though, to be

sure, he carried it about him, feeling more security with this charm

hanging on his neck.

Some courageous persons, emboldened by the example of Landoys, ventured

to cite, in Gilliatt's favour, certain extenuating circumstances; a few

signs of good qualities, as his sobriety, his abstinence from spirits

and tobacco; and sometimes they went so far as to pass this elegant

eulogium upon him: "He neither smokes, drinks, chews tobacco, or takes

snuff."

Sobriety, however, can only count as a virtue when there are other

virtues to support it.

The ban of public opinion lay heavily upon Gilliatt.

In any case, as a marcou, Gilliatt had it in his power to render great

services. On a certain Good Friday, at midnight, a day and an hour

propitious to this kind of cure, all the scrofulous people of the

island, either by sudden inspiration, or by concerted action, presented

themselves in a crowd at the Bû de la Rue, and with pitiable sores and

imploring gestures, called on Gilliatt to make them clean. But he

refused; and herein the people found another proof of his malevolence.

VI

THE DUTCH SLOOP

Such was the character of Gilliatt.

The young women considered him ugly.

Ugly he was not. He might, perhaps, have been called handsome. There was

something in his profile of rude but antique grace. In repose it had

some resemblance to that of a sculptured Dacian on the Trajan column.

His ears were small, delicate, without lobes, and of an admirable form

for hearing. Between his eyes he had that proud vertical line which

indicates in a man boldness and perseverance. The corners of his mouth

were depressed, giving a slight expression of bitterness. His forehead

had a calm and noble roundness. The clear pupils of his eyes possessed a

steadfast look, although troubled a little with that involuntary

movement of the eyelids which fishermen contract from the glitter of the

waves. His laugh was boyish and pleasing. No ivory could be of a finer

white than his teeth; but exposure to the sun had made him swarthy as a

moor. The ocean, the tempest, and the darkness cannot be braved with

impunity. At thirty he looked already like a man of forty-five. He wore

the sombre mask of the wind and the sea.

The people had nicknamed him "Malicious Gilliatt."

There is an Indian fable to the effect that one day the god Brahma

inquired of the Spirit of Power, "Who is stronger than thee?" and the

spirit replied "Cunning." A Chinese proverb says, "What could not the

lion do, if he was the monkey also?" Gilliatt was neither the lion nor

the monkey; but his actions gave some evidence of the truth of the

Chinese proverb, and of the Hindoo fable. Although only of ordinary

height and strength, he was enabled, so inventive and powerful was his

dexterity, to lift burdens that might have taxed a giant, and to

accomplish feats which would have done credit to an athlete.

He had in him something of the power of the gymnast. He used, with equal

address, his left hand and his right.

He never carried a gun; but was often seen with his net. He spared the

birds, but not the fish. Ill-luck to these dumb creatures! He was an

excellent swimmer.

Solitude either develops the mental powers, or renders men dull and

vicious. Gilliatt sometimes presented himself under both these aspects.

At times, when his features wore that air of strange surprise already

mentioned, he might have been taken for a man of mental powers scarcely

superior to the savage. At other moments an indescribable air of

penetration lighted up his face. Ancient Chaldea possessed some men of

this stamp. At certain times the dullness of the shepherd mind became

transparent, and revealed the inspired sage.

After all, he was but a poor man; uninstructed, save to the extent of

reading and writing. It is probable that the condition of his mind was

at that limit which separates the dreamer from the thinker. The thinker

wills, the dreamer is a passive instrument. Solitude sinks deeply into

pure natures, and modifies them in a certain degree. They become,

unconsciously, penetrated with a kind of sacred awe. The shadow in which

the mind of Gilliatt constantly dwelt was composed in almost equal

degrees of two elements, both obscure, but very different. Within

himself all was ignorance and weakness; without, infinity and mysterious

power.

By dint of frequent climbing on the rocks, of escalading the rugged

cliffs, of going to and fro among the islands in all weathers, of

navigating any sort of craft which came to hand, of venturing night and

day in difficult channels, he had become, without taking count of his

other advantages, and merely in following his fancy and pleasure, a

seaman of extraordinary skill.

He was a born pilot. The true pilot is the man who navigates the bed of

the ocean even more than its surface. The waves of the sea are an

external problem, continually modified by the submarine conditions of

the waters in which the vessel is making her way. To see Gilliatt

guiding his craft among the reefs and shallows of the Norman

Archipelago, one might have fancied that he carried in his head a plan

of the bottom of the sea. He was familiar with it all, and feared

nothing.

He was better acquainted with the buoys in the channels than the

cormorants who make them their resting-places. The almost imperceptible

differences which distinguish the four upright buoys of the Creux,

Alligande, the Trémies, and the Sardrette, were perfectly visible and

clear to him, even in misty weather. He hesitated neither at the oval,

apple-headed buoy of Anfré, nor at the triple iron point of the Rousse,

nor at the white ball of the Corbette, nor at the black ball of Longue

Pierre; and there was no fear of his confounding the cross of Goubeau

with the sword planted in earth at La Platte, nor the hammer-shaped buoy

of the Barbées with the curled-tail buoy of the Moulinet.

His rare skill in seamanship showed itself in a striking manner one day

at Guernsey, on the occasion of one of those sea tournaments which are

called regattas. The feat to be performed was to navigate alone a boat

with four sails from St. Sampson to the Isle of Herm, at one league

distance, and to bring the boat back from Herm to St. Sampson. To

manage, without assistance, a boat with four sails, is a feat which

every fisherman is equal to, and the difficulty seemed little; but there

was a condition which rendered it far from simple. The boat, to begin

with, was one of those large and heavy sloops of bygone times which the

sailors of the last century knew by the name of "Dutch Belly Boats."

This ancient style of flat, pot-bellied craft, carrying on the larboard

and starboard sides, in compensation for the want of a keel, two wings,

which lowered themselves, sometimes the one, sometimes the other,

according to the wind, may occasionally be met with still at sea. In the

second place, there was the return from Herm, a journey which was

rendered more difficult by a heavy ballasting of stones. The conditions

were to go empty, but to return loaded. The sloop was the prize of the

contest. It was dedicated beforehand to the winner. This "Dutch Belly

Boat" had been employed as a pilot-boat. The pilot who had rigged and

worked it for twenty years was the most robust of all the sailors of the

channel. When he died no one had been found capable of managing the

sloop; and it was, in consequence, determined to make it the prize of

the regatta. The sloop, though not decked, had some sea qualities, and

was a tempting prize for a skilful sailor. Her mast was somewhat

forward, which increased the motive-power of her sails; besides having

the advantage of not being in the way of her pilot. It was a

strong-built vessel, heavy, but roomy, and taking the open sea well; in

fact, a good, serviceable craft. There was eager anxiety for the prize;

the task was a rough one, but the reward of success was worth having.

Seven or eight fishermen, among the most vigorous of the island,

presented themselves. One by one they essayed; but not one could succeed

in reaching Herm. The last one who tried his skill was known for having

crossed, in a rowing-boat, the terrible narrow sea between Sark and

Brecq-Hou. Sweating with his exertions, he brought back the sloop, and

said, "It is impossible." Gilliatt then entered the bark, seized first

of all the oar, then the mainsail, and pushed out to sea. Then, without

either making fast the boom, which would have been imprudent, or letting

it go, which kept the sail under his direction, and leaving the boom to

move with the wind without drifting, he held the tiller with his left

hand. In three quarters of an hour he was at Herm. Three hours later,

although a strong breeze had sprung up and was blowing across the roads,

the sloop, guided by Gilliatt, returned to St. Sampson with its load of

stones. He had, with an extravagant display of his resources, even added

to the cargo the little bronze cannon at Herm, which the people were in

the habit of firing off on the 5th of November, by way of rejoicing over

the death of Guy Fawkes.

Guy Fawkes, by the way, has been dead two hundred and sixty years; a

remarkably long period of rejoicing.

Gilliatt, thus burdened and encumbered, although he had the Guy

Fawkes'-day cannon in the boat and the south wind in his sails,

steered, or rather brought back, the heavy craft to St. Sampson.

Seeing which, Mess Lethierry exclaimed, "There's a bold sailor for you!"

And he held out his hand to Gilliatt.

We shall have occasion to speak again of Mess Lethierry.

The sloop was awarded to Gilliatt.

This adventure detracted nothing from his evil reputation.

Several persons declared that the feat was not at all astonishing, for

that Gilliatt had concealed in the boat a branch of wild medlar. But

this could not be proved.

From that day forward, Gilliatt navigated no boat except the old sloop.

In this heavy craft he went on his fishing avocation. He kept it at

anchor in the excellent little shelter which he had all to himself,

under the very wall of his house of the Bû de la Rue. At nightfall, he

cast his nets over his shoulder, traversed his little garden, climbed

over the parapet of dry stones, stepped lightly from rock to rock, and

jumping into the sloop, pushed out to sea.

He brought home heavy takes of fish; but people said that his medlar

branch was always hanging up in the boat. No one had ever seen this

branch, but every one believed in its existence.

When he had more fish than he wanted, he did not sell it, but gave it

away.

The poor people took his gift, but were little grateful, for they knew

the secret of his medlar branch. Such devices cannot be permitted. It is

unlawful to trick the sea out of its treasures.

He was a fisherman; but he was something more. He had, by instinct, or

for amusement, acquired a knowledge of three or four trades. He was a

carpenter, worker in iron, wheelwright, boat-caulker, and, to some

extent, an engineer. No one could mend a broken wheel better than he

could. He manufactured, in a fashion of his own, all the things which

fishermen use. In a corner of the Bû de la Rue he had a small forge and

an anvil; and the sloop having but one anchor, he had succeeded, without

help, in making another. The anchor was excellent. The ring had the

necessary strength; and Gilliatt, though entirely uninstructed in this

branch of the smith's art, had found the exact dimensions of the stock

for preventing the over-balancing of the fluke ends.

He had patiently replaced all the nails in the planks by rivets; which

rendered rust in the holes impossible.

In this way he had much improved the sea-going qualities of the sloop.

He employed it sometimes when he took a fancy to spend a month or two in

some solitary islet, like Chousey or the Casquets. People said, "Ay! ay!

Gilliatt is away;" but this was a circumstance which nobody regretted.

VII

A FIT TENANT FOR A HAUNTED HOUSE

Gilliatt was a man of dreams, hence his daring, hence also his timidity.

He had ideas on many things which were peculiarly his own.

There was in his character, perhaps, something of the visionary and the

transcendentalist. Hallucinations may haunt the poor peasant like

Martin, no less than the king like Henry IV. There are times when the

unknown reveals itself in a mysterious way to the spirit of man. A

sudden rent in the veil of darkness will make manifest things hitherto

unseen, and then close again upon the mysteries within. Such visions

have occasionally the power to effect a transfiguration in those whom

they visit. They convert a poor camel-driver into a Mahomet; a peasant

girl tending her goats into a Joan of Arc. Solitude generates a certain

amount of sublime exaltation. It is like the smoke arising from the

burning bush. A mysterious lucidity of mind results, which converts the

student into a seer, and the poet into a prophet: herein we find a key

to the mysteries of Horeb, Kedron, Ombos; to the intoxication of

Castilian laurels, the revelations of the month Busion. Hence, too, we

have Peleia at Dodona, Phemonoe at Delphos, Trophonius in Lebadea,

Ezekiel on the Chebar, and Jerome in the Thetais.

More frequently this visionary state overwhelms and stupefies its

victim. There is such a thing as a divine besottedness. The Hindoo fakir

bears about with him the burden of his vision, as the Cretin his goître.

Luther holding converse with devils in his garret at Wittenburg; Pascal

shutting out the view of the infernal regions with the screen of his

cabinet; the African Obi conversing with the white-faced god Bossum; are

each and all the same phenomenon, diversely interpreted by the minds in

which they manifest themselves, according to their capacity and power.

Luther and Pascal were grand, and are grand still; the Obi is simply a

poor half-witted creature.

Gilliatt was neither so exalted nor so low. He was a dreamer: nothing

more.

Nature presented itself to him under a somewhat strange aspect.

Just as he had often found in the perfectly limpid water of the sea

strange creatures of considerable size and of various shapes, of the

Medusa genus, which out of the water bore a resemblance to soft crystal,

and which, cast again into the sea, became lost to sight in that medium

by reason of their identity in transparency and colour, so he imagined

that other transparencies, similar to these almost invisible denizens of

the ocean, might probably inhabit the air around us. The birds are

scarcely inhabitants of the air, but rather amphibious creatures passing

much of their lives upon the earth. Gilliatt could not believe the air a

mere desert. He used to say, "Since the water is filled with life, why

not the atmosphere?" Creatures colourless and transparent like the air

would escape from our observation. What proof have we that there are no

such creatures? Analogy indicates that the liquid fields of air must

have their swimming habitants, even as the waters of the deep. These

aerial fish would, of course, be diaphanous; a provision of their wise

Creator for our sakes as well as their own. Allowing the light to pass

through their forms, casting no shadow, having no defined outline, they

would necessarily remain unknown to us, and beyond the grasp of human

sense. Gilliatt indulged the wild fancy that if it were possible to

exhaust the earth of its atmosphere, or if we could fish the air as we

fish the depths of the sea, we should discover the existence of a

multitude of strange animals. And then, he would add in his reverie,

many things would be made clear.

Reverie, which is thought in its nebulous state, borders closely upon

the land of sleep, by which it is bounded as by a natural frontier. The

discovery of a new world, in the form of an atmosphere filled with

transparent creatures, would be the beginning of a knowledge of the vast

unknown. But beyond opens up the illimitable domain of the possible,

teeming with yet other beings, and characterised by other phenomena. All

this would be nothing supernatural, but merely the occult continuation

of the infinite variety of creation. In the midst of that laborious

idleness, which was the chief feature in his existence, Gilliatt was

singularly observant. He even carried his observations into the domain

of sleep. Sleep has a close relation with the possible, which we call

also the _invraisemblable_. The world of sleep has an existence of its

own. Night-time, regarded as a separate sphere of creation, is a

universe in itself. The material nature of man, upon which philosophers

tell us that a column of air forty-five miles in height continually

presses, is wearied out at night, sinks into lassitude, lies down, and

finds repose. The eyes of the flesh are closed; but in that drooping

head, less inactive than is supposed, other eyes are opened. The unknown

reveals itself. The shadowy existences of the invisible world become

more akin to man; whether it be that there is a real communication, or

whether things far off in the unfathomable abyss are mysteriously

brought nearer, it seems as if the impalpable creatures inhabiting space

come then to contemplate our natures, curious to comprehend the denizens

of the earth. Some phantom creation ascends or descends to walk beside

us in the dim twilight: some existence altogether different from our

own, composed partly of human consciousness, partly of something else,

quits his fellows and returns again, after presenting himself for a

moment to our inward sight; and the sleeper, not wholly slumbering, nor

yet entirely conscious, beholds around him strange manifestations of

life--pale spectres, terrible or smiling, dismal phantoms, uncouth

masks, unknown faces, hydra-headed monsters, undefined shapes,

reflections of moonlight where there is no moon, vague fragments of

monstrous forms. All these things which come and go in the troubled

atmosphere of sleep, and to which men give the name of dreams, are, in

truth, only realities invisible to those who walk about the daylight

world. The dream-world is the Aquarium of Night.

So, at least, thought Gilliatt.

VIII

THE GILD-HOLM-'UR SEAT

The curious visitor, in these days, would seek in vain in the little bay

of Houmet for the house in which Gilliatt lived, or for his garden, or

the creek in which he sheltered the Dutch sloop. The Bû de la Rue no

longer exists. Even the little peninsula on which his house stood has

vanished, levelled by the pickaxe of the quarryman, and carried away,

cart-load by cart-load, by dealers in rock and granite. It must be

sought now in the churches, the palaces, and the quays of a great city.

All that ridge of rocks has been long ago conveyed to London.

These long lines of broken cliffs in the sea, with their frequent gaps

and crevices, are like miniature chains of mountains. They strike the

eye with the impression which a giant may be supposed to have in

contemplating the Cordilleras. In the language of the country they are

called "Banques." These banques vary considerably in form. Some resemble

a long spine, of which each rock forms one of the vertebræ; others are

like the backbone of a fish; while some bear an odd resemblance to a

crocodile in the act of drinking.

At the extremity of the ridge on which the Bû de la Rue was situate, was

a large rock, which the fishing people of Houmet called the "Beast's

Horn." This rock, a sort of pyramid, resembled, though less in height,

the "Pinnacle" of Jersey. At high water the sea divided it from the

ridge, and the Horn stood alone; at low water it was approached by an

isthmus of rocks. The remarkable feature of this "Beast's Horn" was a

sort of natural seat on the side next the sea, hollowed out by the

water, and polished by the rains. The seat, however, was a treacherous

one. The stranger was insensibly attracted to it by "the beauty of the

prospect," as the Guernsey folks said. Something detained him there in

spite of himself, for there is a charm in a wide view. The seat seemed

to offer itself for his convenience; it formed a sort of niche in the

peaked _façade_ of the rock. To climb up to it was easy, for the sea,

which had fashioned it out of its rocky base, had also cast beneath it,

at convenient distances, a kind of natural stairs composed of flat

stones. The perilous abyss is full of these snares; beware, therefore,

of its proffered aids. The spot was tempting: the stranger mounted and

sat down. There he found himself at his ease; for his seat he had the

granite rounded and hollowed out by the foam; for supports, two rocky

elbows which seemed made expressly for him; against his back, the high

vertical wall of rock which he looked up to and admired, without

thinking of the impossibility of scaling it. Nothing could be more

simple than to fall into reverie in that convenient resting-place. All

around spread the wide sea; far off the ships were seen passing to and

fro. It was possible to follow a sail with the eye, till it sank in the

horizon beyond the Casquets. The stranger was entranced: he looked

around, enjoying the beauty of the scene, and the light touch of wind

and wave. There is a sort of bat found at Cayenne, which has the power

of fanning people to sleep in the shade with a gentle beating of its

dusky wings. Like this strange creature the wind wanders about,

alternately ravaging or lulling into security. So the stranger would

continue contemplating the sea, listening for a movement in the air, and

yielding himself up to dreamy indolence. When the eyes are satiated with

light and beauty, it is a luxury to close them for awhile. Suddenly the

loiterer would arouse; but it was too late. The sea had crept up step by

step; the waters surrounded the rock; the stranger had been lured on to

his death.

A terrible rock was this in a rising sea.

The tide gathers at first insensibly, then with violence; when it

touches the rocks a sudden wrath seems to possess it, and it foams.

Swimming is difficult in the breakers: excellent swimmers have been lost

at the Horn of the Bû de la Rue.

In certain places, and at certain periods, the aspect of the sea is

dangerous--fatal; as at times is the glance of a woman.

Very old inhabitants of Guernsey used to call this niche, fashioned

in the rock by the waves, "Gild-Holm-'Ur" seat, or Kidormur; a

Celtic word, say some authorities, which those who understand

Celtic cannot interpret, and which all who understand French

can--"_Qui-dort-meurt:_"[1] such is the country folks' translation.

The reader may choose between the translation, _Qui-dort-meurt_, and

that given in 1819, I believe in _The Armorican_, by M. Athenas.

According to this learned Celtic scholar, Gild-Holm-'Ur signifies "The

resting-place of birds."

There is, at Aurigny, another seat of this kind, called the Monk's

Chair, so well sculptured by the waves, and with steps of rock so

conveniently placed, that it might be said that the sea politely sets a

footstool for those who rest there.

In the open sea, at high water, the Gild-Holm-'Ur was no longer visible;

the water covered it entirely.

The Gild-Holm-'Ur was a neighbour of the Bû de la Rue. Gilliatt knew it

well, and often seated himself there. Was it his meditating place? No.

We have already said he did not meditate, but dream. The sea, however,

never entrapped him there.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] He who sleeps must die.