a camp at
Jerbourg, the nearly obliterated tessellated pavement and fragments of
wall belonging to the sybarite's villa, which occupied the site in the
King's Mills Valley where the Moulin de Haut now stands, the pond in
the Grand Mare in which the voluptuary had reared the carp over which,
dressed with sauces the secret of which died with him, he dwelt lovingly
when stretched on his triclinium, and the basins at Port Grat in which
he stored his treasured mullet and succulent oysters. The islanders were
of one mind in speeding the parting guests, but the generation which saw
them go were better men than their fathers who had trembled at the
landing of the iron-thewed demi-gods. Compelled to work as slaves, they
had learnt much from their masters; a knowledge of agriculture and of
the cultivation of the grape, the substitution of good weapons and
implements of husbandry for those of their Celtic ancestors, improved
dwellings, and some insight into military discipline,--these were
substantial benefits which raised them in some respects above their
Continental and British neighbours, among whom patriotism had, on the
disappearance of the civilization of the Romans, revived the more
congenial barbarism. Arrivals among them of Christian monks, scanty at
first, more frequent since the landing of S. Augustine in Britain, had
also had a certain effect. The progress of conversion was, however,
slow; the people were bigoted, and the good fathers were compelled, as
in Brittany, to content themselves with a few genuine converts, wisely
endeavouring rather to leaven the mass by grafting Christian truths on
the old superstitions than to court certain defeat, possible expulsion
or massacre, by striving to overthrow at once all the symbols of
heathenism.

The island was larger in extent than it is at present, as, in addition
to the Vale district, the islet of Lihou, Vazon Bay, and the rock group
known as the Hanois formed part of it. It is with the events that
altered this configuration that the following legend deals.

CHAPTER II.

SUPERSTITION.

"Awestruck, the much-admiring crowd
Before the virgin vision bowed,
Gaz'd with an ever-new delight,
And caught fresh virtues at the sight."

EDWARD MOORE'S _Fables_.

On the 24th of June, in the year 708, merry crowds were thronging to
Vazon Forest. It was a lovely spot. The other portions of the island
were bare and somewhat rugged; here the humidity of t