There are no remains of the convent at Holy Vale, and there is only tradition to tell us that it ever existed. Whitfeld, writing in 1852, does indeed speak of the top of a freestone arch which he saw there, covering the entrance of a pig-sty, and which he supposes to have been a relic of the ancient monastic buildings. It is a beautiful sheltered spot, the most sheltered in the island, hidden away in a hollow, and surrounded by tall trees. Two farm-houses lie close together in the valley, near to a pond of fresh water under the trees; and on every side there are the fields of flowers, now the chief produce of the farms. One of the pioneers of the flower industry, Mr. Mumford, used to live at Holy Vale. The other, Mr. William Trevellick, lived at Rocky Hill on St. Mary’s until his death, in 1910, and was always ready to show his beautiful gardens to any one who wished to see them. Rows of palm-trees grow along the hedges at Rocky Hill, and form the boundary lines. “Look well at this,” Mr. Trevellick used to say. “It is not often that you will see in the British Isles a field surrounded by palm-trees.” He dearly loved his garden, and spent most of his time there. The robins knew him so well that even in summer-time at his call of “Dick, Dick” they would come and eat from his hand the food he kept ready for them in his capacious pockets. Mr. Trevellick was also keenly interested in antiquities, and had collected at Rocky Hill a number of relics of the past of every description--ancient stone querns, quaint gaily-coloured figureheads from wrecks, Parliamentary cannon-balls, and a Druid trysting-stone, through the hole in which lovers used to clasp their hands when they plighted their troth. This last is in two halves, both of which had been built into a stone hedge; the second half was not discovered till many years after the first, and if you know anything of antiquarians, you can picture the joy with which its discovery was hailed! It was a day’s work to pull down the stone hedge, to secure the treasure, and then to build the wall up as before. It was always a matter of great interest to Mr. Trevellick that an old Roman road runs through the Rocky Hill gardens, the large, evenly laid paving-stones showing very few signs of their age. St. Mary’s Island is supposed to be nine miles round, but I would defy any one to restrict his first walk round it to nine miles. One is sure to be decoyed into many a By-path Meadow--but not of the kind in which there lurks a Giant Despair!