[Illustration: HERM AND JETHOU FROM GUERNSEY. These two little islands add greatly to the picturesqueness of the scenery of the eastern shores of Guernsey.] Another dark picture, and unhappily more authentic, is the burning, with attendant circumstances of extraordinary brutality, of three poor heretic women, by order of Dean Amy and Bailiff Helier Gosselin, on July 18, 1556. The mother, Katherine Cauches, was tied to a stake in the middle, with a married daughter on either hand--Guillemine Gilbert and Perotine Massey. An attempt was made to strangle them before the faggots were lighted--a merciful privilege that was also extended to women in executions for "petty treason"--but one of them, at least, fell alive into the fire. This poor wretch, Perotine Massey, the wife of a Protestant pastor, was delivered of a baby in the middle of the flames. The child was rescued from the burning by a man called House, but cast back again by order of the Bailiff. This repulsive incident is preserved by Foxe, and is interwoven by Tennyson in _Queen Mary_: Sir, in Guernsey, I watch'd a woman burn; and in her agony, The mother came upon her--a child was born-- And, sir, they hurl'd it back into the fire. St. Peter Port is an admirable centre from which to visit every quarter of the compact little island; but, indeed, as already adumbrated, there is but little in Guernsey (except for the antiquarian) that is really worth seeing outside its capital, except the south coast. St. Sampson's may be visited for its picturesque church, which is one of the oldest and most interesting on the island. The road by which we gain it is so ugly--one continued line of houses--that no one need hesitate to use the electric tram, which was one of the earliest of its kind in the British dominions. It is hardly worth while to get out on the way to visit the poor remains of Ivy Castle: the situation of the ruins is unusually unpicturesque, and the ruins themselves are uninteresting. Opposite St. Sampson's itself, across the busy little harbour, is the rather better ruin of Vale Castle. This would be exceedingly pleasant to look on, were it not for the mammoth granite-quarries that pave the streets of Westminster, but effectually disfigure what were once the charms of Guernsey. The Castle itself, like Ivy Castle, is little more than a shell; in fact, the latter has the additional credit of what is possibly a chapel, with a rudely vaulted stone roof. Ivy Castle, moreover, boasts at least authentic pedigree, having first been built--if the date be really right--by Robert, Duke of Normandy, before the Norman Conquest; whereas of the origin of Vale Castle practically nothing is known. Its ancient title, Le Château de St. Michel l'Archange, is perhaps responsible for the tradition that it was built by monks from Mont St. Michel as a place of protection for the neighbouring priory in case of a sudden invasion. From Vale