There is also a legend told by Mr. Métivier of a country girl stealing out one summer night in the year 1798, to meet her lover near the well, flying home terrified, having seen a troop of bare skeletons grouped round the well, and gazing into the troubled waters.
Connected with the Chapel of St. George was a cemetery, which boasted of many relics, famous for their miracles.
At one time this cemetery was said to be haunted by a beautiful young girl. Every night wailing and crying was heard, and a figure was seen, much mangled, walking about. The cries were supposed to proceed from the tomb of a girl who had disappeared from her home one night in a most mysterious manner, and whose mangled corpse was picked up a few days later near the Hanois rocks, so battered and bruised that it was evidently not a case of suicide. However, in course of time, a grave being opened near hers, some bones were thrown up, and, being handled by an old man who in days gone by had been the murdered girl’s lover, a stream of blood oozed out of the dry bone! and with awful shrieks he owned to having been her murderer, and was executed soon afterwards at the “Champ du Gibet” at St. Andrew’s.
[95] From Miss Lane, afterwards Mrs. Lane Clarke.
Editor’s Notes.
With reference to the statement on page 181 that Torteval Church is under the invocation of Our Lady. In “A Survey of the Estate of Guernzey and Jarzey by Peter Heylyn,—1656,” p. 320, he says:—“that (church) which is here called Tortevall (is dedicated) as some suppose unto St. Philip, others will have it to St. Martha.”
On page 187 it is said that a chapel probably existed on the site of St. Martin’s Parish School. In Elie Brevint’s MSS. written in the early part of the 17th Century he says:—“Les Havillands de St. Martin ont donné la chappelle pour servir d’eschole, et de la terre auprès deux fois autant que la verd de Serk, comme dit Thomas Robert.”
