harvester and the fisherman, the boat-builder and the stocking-knitter,
was heard on a summer afternoon, or from the veille of a winter night
when the dim crasset hung from the roof and the seaweed burned in the
chimney. Then the gathering of the vraic was a fete, and the lads and
lasses footed it on the green or on the hard sand, to the chance
flageolets of sportive seamen home from the war. This simple gaiety was
heartiest at Christmastide, when the yearly reunion of families took
place; and because nearly everybody in Jersey was "couzain" to his
neighbour these gatherings were as patriarchal as they were festive.

..........................

The new year of seventeen hundred and eighty-one had been ushered in by
the last impulse of such festivities. The English cruisers lately in
port had vanished up the Channel; and at Elizabeth Castle, Mont Orgueil,
the Blue Barracks and the Hospital, three British regiments had taken up
the dull round of duty again; so that by the fourth day a general
lethargy, akin to content, had settled on the whole island.

On the morning of the fifth day a little snow was lying upon the ground,
but the sun rose strong and unclouded, the whiteness vanished, and there
remained only a pleasant dampness which made sod and sand firm yet
springy to the foot. As the day wore on, the air became more amiable
still, and a delicate haze settled over the water and over the land,
making softer to the eye house and hill and rock and sea.

There was little life in the town of St. Heliers, there were few people
upon the beach; though now and then some one who had been praying beside
a grave in the parish churchyard came to the railings and looked out upon
the calm sea almost washing its foundations, and over the dark range of