sneers. When their carts were sent to fetch the
necessaries of life, lynch-pins were loosened; in more than one case the
draught oxen were houghed; the provisions, when received, were mouldy
and unwholesome. At last sickness broke out, with stories of poison;
then the tension became insupportable. The Voizin chief, too proud to go
to his neighbours, summoned them to him; the messenger was murdered.
This assassination, of which the natives denied all knowledge, was met
by prompt reprisals; three Perelle fishermen were hung on the spot where
the body was found. From this date the outbreak of hostilities was but a
question of time. A sternness of purpose ruled in the councils of the
Voizins which frustrated all attempts at conciliation. A little before
Christmas a trivial incident kindled the smouldering flames, and the
hordes, pouring from the Torteval valleys, swept over the districts now
known as the parishes of St. Saviour's and the Catel; the resistance was
tame and ineffectual, sufficient only to give occasion for considerable
slaughter and plunder. The invaders, seeing no reason for returning to
their famine-stricken fastnesses, settled themselves in the enjoyment of
the abundance of the vanquished, who, in their turn, with their
accustomed versatility, submitted patiently, and even cheerfully, to a
yoke which, after the first onslaught was over, pressed lightly; the
Voizins, to whom fighting was a pastime, bearing no malice, and passing
imperceptibly into a genial mood.

Judith now prepared to develop the next move, the object of which was to
undermine the authority of the monks, and make them vulnerable by
isolation. Derisive hints were dropped respecting the failure of the new
religion to help its votaries in the hour of peril; the victory of the
Voizins was attributed to the superiority of their Gods rather than to
deficiency in courage on the part of their foes: this theory, which was
not unpalatable to those who had been half-hearted in defence of their
homes, was also utilized by the more sober spirits as an argument
wherewith to restrain the more ardent from attempting to renew the
struggle under similar conditions. The observances of the religion of
Thor and Odin, or rather of that debased form of it which prevailed
among this singular people, were celebrated under their more alluring
aspects: frequent feasts and dances captivated the laughter-loving
islanders, who had been tried somewhat severely by the sev