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 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 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 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 titles _Rosier's Dictionary_, _Candide_, by Voltaire, _Advice
to the People o