The toilers of the sea. A novel

I. A Word Written On A White Page

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

On that Christmas morning, the road which skirts the seashore from St. Pierre Port au Valle was clothed in white. From midnight till the break of day the snow had^een 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 leggins — 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 Chateau de Lierre. When she had turned for the second time, the man had recognized her as Deruchette, 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 Deruchette ; 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.

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II. The Bu 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: all the window-frames are dusty and the glass 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 crescentshaped 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, Belzebub 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, Thamug in Spain, Martinet in Switzerland, and Mammon in England. Satan is an emperor just like any other : a sort of Satan Cassar. His establishment is well organized. Dagon is grand almoner, Succor Benoth is 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 Auvigny and Les 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. 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 hreself 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 unearthed 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 involuntary, 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 noc - turnis et de semine diabolorum. The practice was raging particularly at St. Heller’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 o%the cheat. The confessor replied, “In order to be sure tha; it is your

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husband by your tide, and not a demon, place your hand upon his head. If you find horns, you may be sure” — “Of what?” inquired the 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 Bit 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 the Chateau du Valle, or the Chateau de l’Archange ; so that, at St. Sampson, the Bu 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. One of them 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 their patients’ 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 ip solitary confinement. Amant alterna catena

The last instance of burning sorcerers in Guernsey took place in 1747. The city authorities devoted one of its squares, forming the Carre four du Bordage, to that ceremony. Between 1565 and 1700, eleven sorcerers have thus suffered at this spot. As a rule the criminals made confession of their guilt. 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 the 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 €clata.” The new-born infant rolled out of the fiery furnace. A man named House took it in his arms. Helier Eosselin 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 Shall Marr1

Let us 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 an Englishwoman ; at least she was not 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 ; 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 Sergentee, and another at La Roque Crespel, near Rocquame. The house of the Bu de la Rue was at this period haunted. 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 advan tageous 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 Bu 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-

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“ Sorcerer’s candle is as good as the 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 Saint 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 the ground-floor 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 aerolites, these famished and ruined people, these footballs of destiny, are known as refugees, emigres, 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 great French Revolution. •

The strange woman whom the Guernsey folks called “Gilliatt” was, possibly, one of these human waifs.

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 pourlechent , 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 Sergentee, the small property called La Roque Crespel, and the house known as La Bu de la Rue; with the addition, as the official inventory said, of “one hundred guineas in gold in the pid d'une cauclie ” — 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 metals, and it contained a lady’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 shall 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 dreary 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 his 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 riddles when they relate to strange sojourners among them. Then his clothes were the clothes of a

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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 Bu 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 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 w'ent out on fishing expeditions, and always returned with fish. He trimmed his garden on Sundays. He had bagpipes 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 sea-shore. 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 Herode, 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 title “Rosier Dictionary.” “ Candide,” by Voltaire. “ Advice to the People on Health,” by Tissot. A French noble, one Gringre, 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 Rhubarb aro.”

Injustice 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 Treaty 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 sea-shores, enveloped in smoke.

On one occasion he had aided the sorceress, De 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 sins. 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 — d 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 Crowing Rock takes a husband.”

This Crowing Rock is a great stone, standing in a field near Mons. Lemezurier 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 Sarregousels , 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 Sarregousels. A woman who lives at the Grand Mielles knows them well. One evening, when some Sarregousels happened to be assembled at a cross-road, 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 da}s 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 Sommeil - leuse , he was heard to ask —

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“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 Catian Iloque — a double row of rocks w here 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 Yesin Brorard ?” (This w'as a mason who had fallen from the roof of a house.)

“ He is getting better.”

“ Yer 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 at the shipwreck last week.”

“ Aye, finer than to-day.”

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

“ It blow's too hard.”

“They can’t lower their nets.”

“How is Catherine?”

“ She is charming.”

Catherine w r as evidently the name of a Sarrcgousel.

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 Saint 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.