The great mass of the limestone head bounding our estuary to the southward loomed black and sullen against the delicate pearl clouds, through which an unseen sun was endeavouring to diffuse some measure of day to our little valley. To seaward the tide had receded far, and the chill white lines of water tossed to the wind beyond a wide stretch of sand. To landward the dun mist of morning hung, blotting out the distant hills and the woodlands, leaving in view only a stretch of marshy pastures and the houses of a tiny village. Though we were early astir, yet others were in advance; the fishermen were going to take up the spoils which night had brought to the nets fixed on the sand-banks.

At eventide a great flock of wild-duck of various kinds settled after their long flight from the northward upon the moving waters of the bay. They were hungry, but much noise had been heard as they winged over the fishing-village. At nightfall it would be safe to venture closer, and, besides, there would be precious little food to be delved out of those adamant sands, from which the water had long been absent. The flock thus sat on the tossing waters awhile, resting. Then a few detached themselves from the main body, and floated shoreward with the wash of the tide. They were scouts, to spy out the safest ground for feeding. Out beyond the gray stump of the ruined Pile, once fort and port in one, a fiery strip of cloud was losing its glow, turning slowly to crimson and to violet, after which it lost all that distinguished it from its vapour neighbours. In the east perhaps the moon had risen, for, though the great light was withdrawn, a visibility still reigned. The scouts thrown out by the cloud of duck floated up with the incoming tide awhile, then turned from its current into the slack waters widening into a pool near the mouth of a creek. Here, after a cautious survey of their surroundings, they settled down to feed.

Meanwhile the main body had felt the rising pulsations of Mother Ocean, and, like an innumerable flotilla of tiny strange craft, they, too, had been approaching with the inflowing stream. In the soft sand were numerous worms and molluscs, and those tiny atoms of life which duck assimilate with avidity. In the faint luminosity prevailing, whether from a clouded moon or the natural light on the water, their movements were plainly visible. A duck floating on the surface would suddenly dip its head beneath the water; then deeper and deeper it went, till the main part of its body was submerged, and the tail and a pair of wildly-moving web-feet were all that remained in sight. Further seaward the duck dived down clean out of sight after the food they were in such need of, coming up to the surface for a moment, shaking their heads and necks clear of water, then disappearing in a flash again. Other birds, more fastidious, maybe, followed in the rising waters, and never dipped deeper than their neck-length. The duck feeding with peaceable cutterings to one another made a pretty sight; yet, unknown to the casual observer, a grim tragedy was occurring right in his sight. Bird after bird dived down and never rose to sight again. The deep-water feeders gave no sign as their numbers were diminished by the score; odd birds feeding in middle depths might have been seen to splash a little as their tails and web-feet were gradually covered by the rising water, while among the shore-haunters there was occasionally a little commotion. Birds were being suffocated on all sides, yet the survivors heedlessly went on gorging, till——For, pegged flat along the sand-banks, the fishermen had left their nets, ready for the ground-loving flocks which would come up with the tide. The duck, in diving and ‘grobbling’ about for their food, got their heads so firmly fixed among the meshes of the nets that they could not withdraw them again, and so were slowly done to death.

Not every one of the village fishermen had got out to his nets. We could hear a ramshackle cart coming clattering down the stony lane behind us. Immediately the belt of shingle was passed, the solitary figure in the vehicle put the horse to its best trot over the swelling sands. It was old Jack, the man whose nets were planted furthest seaward, and it behoved him to move quickly, lest the tide should again cover them before he had taken his toll of their contents. As we rambled further and further out, the shore seemed to rise in altitude, and the great crag where a brave knight slew the last wolf in the countryside seemed to raise its bulk to a more commanding height. In front of us the fishermen’s carts were still far away, and across the channel daylight showed us the chimneys of a town, backed by a long sharp line of hills. In half an hour we reached the nearest cart. Looking into it, we saw a great mass of scales and feathers—the fish and the duck ensnared during the night. This man had completed clearing his net, and was busily pegging it down to the sand-bed, ready for another tide. We would dearly have liked to examine his load, but the man was too feverishly at work; therefore we looked around to see who had not yet completed their task, and, of course, first thought of the old man who in his cart had passed up a while ago. After a moment’s consideration, we decided to go as far as the point where his nets were, and to watch him empty them. A stiff breeze was blowing across the estuary, and helped us to run along to the old man’s netting-ground more easily. He looked up at our approach, and asked us to lend a hand, as the tide had turned and time was precious. My friend and I, therefore, got to work, jerking the fish and fowl clear of the meshes into baskets, which were emptied into the body of the cart in one confused mass. ‘There isn’t time to sort them,’ we agreed with reluctance. In maybe ten minutes we had half filled the cart, and stood watching the fisherman repegging down his nets. The breeze soughed coldly across the bleak sands, the sting of the frozen Northland in it, while the soft rush as the white rollers broke nearer and nearer on the sand-bank filled our ears. The old man directed us to assist in stretching the nets. ‘Be sharp!’ he said, without a glance at the fast-incoming tide. The last rope was stretched and the last peg driven, and the sea was roaring in a great stream not a hundred yards away. ‘Into t’ cart, and sharp!’ And on the instant we obeyed.

I had not looked landward for some time, and was surprised to find that our spit of sand was now cut off by a slowly-widening arm of the sea. If this was deep and we could not cross it in the cart, if it became furrowed with strong water and our cart was overwhelmed, then we would be in a dangerous strait; for swimming in the chill waters of a December tide is not to be contemplated without misgiving. But old Jack, with a word of encouragement to his horse, drove straight at the water. My feelings as I looked over the side of the cart were uneasy, and I watched the water rise upward from wheel-rim, by the thin spokes, to the axle, and higher and higher, till I heard it wash in the bottom of the cart around my feet. Our horse was plodding steadily away, though breast-deep in the tide. Deeper we sank, and deeper still, till our spoil of the nets was hidden in the flood, and the horse’s head and a strip of its back was all that was visible of it. Still on the game old animal steadily waded, and it became apparent that the perils of the passage were over. Immediately we came on to firm sand, old Jack leapt off the shaft on which he had stood, and called us to get out.

‘Now we must run for it The water’ll be pretty deep just outside the shingles.’

The old mare appreciated this remark as well, for it broke into its best lumbering trot, dragging the lightened cart, from which the sea-water oozed, at a fairish pace, to which we three kept up. A quarter of a mile in front was the shore, but a fast-running tongue of sea-water cut us off. Again we mounted the cart as the water was touched, and the blue-jerseyed fisherman drove straight ahead. I was not prepared for what now followed. A powerful undertow whirled us—cart, horse, and men—bodily seaward, while the swift stream striking the oaken sides of the vehicle threw spray right over us. But old Jack had been cautious in his selection of a point to pass the current, and the eddy of the fierce undertow brought the horse where it could take footing again, after which it speedily drew up into safety.

Of course, our first action, after changing our soaking clothes, was to examine the load of duck and flooks we had helped to bring to land. I had prepared myself for disappointment, but surely these damp, muddy, ruffled balls of feathers were not the same as the brightly-coloured, carefullypreened uniform of the ducks which had swum to the sand-banks when the moon was clouded o’er last night? The varieties we had looked to see—the scaup, the teal, the widgeon, etc.—were hardly distinguishable to our novice eyes, and ere long we gave up the attempt in despair. But one bird did interest us, and that was a neat-feathered northern diver, which is a rarity to the fishermen. As to the others, we did not feel it incongruous to their estate to hear them hawked about in the adjacent town that afternoon by old Jack to a sing-song of—

II. The Peril of the Sands

One incident in the life of George Moore of Cumberland has always struck my imagination, and that is his narrow escape from drowning when crossing Morecambe Bay by the oversands route.

Outside the estuaries of the rivers Kent, Leven and Winster, sand-banks stretch almost level seaward for miles, and as the tides recede these soon become clear of water, and in the course of an hour have settled so firmly in most parts that heavy traffic may readily pass. And from the days of Roman legions marching across till the era of railways this was the crossing preferred by all traffic to and from Furness and West Cumberland. The way was fraught with dangers: sometimes a strong wind from the south-west held back the ebbing of the waters for an hour or more, and forced up the succeeding ‘flow’ long before the normal time. On many a stormy day the rush of a single comber blotted out, with a depth of blue water, acres of bare sand. Any conveyance midway on its journey would be simply washed away with such an eight-foot wave; horses and men encountered would be borne over without chance of escape. The channels of the rivers, being below the general sand-level, also constituted a peril. The banks were constantly crumbling under the action of salt water and fresh, and the direction and depth of the current at any given point varied much from tide to tide. At a point where last ebb the eau or river of the sea was fordable, now there might be a deep cavity filled with water, in which, should the driver venture, horse and man and conveyance might be easily lost. That such a thing has happened over and over again is the story told by hundreds of epitaphs in the burying-places of the surrounding countrysides. The third danger was that of quicksand—a terribly remorseless enemy to the traveller; while in misty weather and during the hours of darkness it was possible to lose all sense of direction over the bewildering level waste, and to guide your horse, perhaps, straight out to sea. Case after case could be cited of men going several miles out of their courses from such an accident: the number of mysterious drownings on the sands never to be properly traced gives the impression that those who escape after such mistakes are in a terrible minority.

George Moore reached Cartmel towards evening. He did not take time to inquire as to the state of the tide, but drove off at once towards the sands. It was a reckless undertaking, as he soon found out, for he was scarcely halfway across before he saw the tide was turning. The man who was with him in the carriage jumped out and went back. But George, believing that he was on the right track, drove on. The water was now approaching like a mill-race. He flogged his horses as he never flogged them before. The sand shifted beneath their feet, so he turned aside and drove where foothold still held. A mirage rose before him, and he seemed to see the land. But it disappeared and reappeared again and again. The situation became terrible.

At length he heard a loud shout from some person to the left. One of the mounted guides had seen his peril. The man spurred his horse into the water, suddenly turned round, and waved him to come onward in that direction. Moore understood his position at once, and pulled his horses round by sheer force towards land. By dint of flogging and struggling the horses at length touched the ground, dragged the carriage up the sands, and Moore’s life was saved.

Other equally exciting incidents occur to me as I write. Once the mail-coach when far out on the sands was struck by a powerful gust of wind, and blown bodily some hundred yards out of its course, where it capsized. The horses and passengers made for the shore as quickly as possible. Some days later the great vehicle was found near the tideway, and, after re-upholstering, was again put in use.

The dangers of the sands were so well known from the earliest times that the abbeys, and after their dissolution the Crown, were charged to maintain men whose duty it was to vigilantly study the tideway and conduct passengers safely across. The post of guide on the Kent sands was held by one family for over five hundred years.

During my wanderings in the districts near the sands, I have come across many who had stories to tell of perils braved or witnessed. What more perilous than to have, when your cart is far from shore, a wheel break under a sudden strain put upon it. Yet this happened when a family, some quite young children, was crossing the Leven sands. Two men set out for the nearest village to have the breakage repaired, leaving the women and children to make the best of it during the chilly night. It was several hours before the repair was completed, the tide had long turned, and the wheel was fixed against time. The delayed cart was saved with difficulty, for so high had the water risen that the horses were almost swept off their feet by the force of waves which again and again broke against the carts.

The story is told of a funeral crossing the sands being caught up by the tide; the coffin had to be temporarily left to the mercy of the seas. Another cortÈge, when halfway across, had to hasten to the shelter of Holme Island—not then, as now, connected with the mainland by a causeway—and from the rocky shores of this they watched the raging sea close over their tracks. More than once the mail-coach has struggled to this refuge when, after passing one of the river channels, the other was, through a sudden rise of the tide, found unfordable, and advance or retreat by the direct route was equally impossible.

But the narrative of one who crossed the sands in his early years—the old man has been dead some years now—is, even among such episodes as already mentioned, worth placing on record:

‘It was mid-afternoon when the gentleman for whom I was working as groom decided to pass from Lancaster to Ulverston. The month was February, and a faint griming of snow covered the land. The day had been hazy, and the weather-wise said a storm was brewing in a villainous-looking patch of clouds hanging out to sea. Of course I had to go, though I urged the undesirability of driving the horses through the cold waters of the channel. At half-past four we were at Hest Bank, having driven quickly over the frozen roads.

‘The folks at the inn advised us to stop there for the night, as it was growing dusk and the wind was rising. But on we went. The guide accompanied us to the Keer, and saw us safely across, then told us that by following a line of bushes planted in the sand we would in about a mile fall in with the Kent guide, who was mounted. We had scarce left this man, whose repeated warnings made me more uneasy, when from the sea there crept up a thick gray cloud, which so enveloped us that I had to dismount and lead the horses, for from our seats we could not see from one small tuft to another. I was thus puzzling out the route, when we came to a pool of water, at which the gray mare shied and then bolted. The loose rein was wrested from my hand, but as the carriage swept past I leapt and clutched the back. The horses ran for fully a minute—the distance was impossible to guess in the dusk of the cloud—before they could be stopped. And when at last they came to a standstill, imagine our plight! We were far out on those bleak sands without any knowledge as to where sound land lay; turn as we might, the open sea was a perilous thing to risk. The tide had turned, and would now be running in at a tremendous rate. Even should running waters be met with, these would give no clue as to direction, for they might be a river-current or a mere eddy of the waves. Then, too, the wind was rising higher, and from afar we heard the growling roar of the sea. “What shall we do?” said the master. I would not reply. The moment of indecision in his mind passed, and he continued: “John, this is one way to die. Let us drive onward somewhere. If so be that we take a wrong turning, it will be but a quicker ending.” I said now: “Let the horses try; they will turn for the land surer than we.” Well, the horses had by this time in some manner realized the danger; they stood shivering and pawing the sands, looking first to seaward, whence the subdued thunder was proceeding, then at one another in silence askance, and to us. At the word they walked steadily forward, bearing, as it seemed to me, somewhat to the left. “If this direction is correct, God help us!” I thought. I spoke to them again, and they quickened to a trot. The sound of their rapid hoofs for a while drowned in my ears that dull, insistent roar, to which, as my senses indicated, we were gradually coming nearer and nearer. Pool after pool of water was run into, but the horses were steady now.

‘All this time the cloud had been blowing along the sands, never lifting a fathom, but allowing some three lengths’ clear view ahead, and the wind blew still harder. Dusk it had been when we lost our way; it was almost pitch-dark now. Time and again I thought voices came through our enveloping shroud, but though I called often there was no reply. Sound did not carry far, and our loudest shouts seemed to be stifled on our lips. As I looked steadily ahead into the flurry of snowflakes, which accompanied a stiffer squall than usual, I thought the chestnut’s ear twitched as though sensitive to something occurring not far away. Then the gray cheered up—it had been doggedly pressing against the collar for some time, as though the previous terror had sapped its strength—and I turned to the master at my elbow. His face was lit with expectation, tempered with doubt. He forestalled my question. “Do you see that? I have been watching for a few seconds, though I didn’t speak, for fear it might be a delusion.” But our animals broke into a canter, and shortly the air around us was filled with the sounds of cracking whips and shouting men; and it didn’t take more than a second for us to realize that we had fallen in with a band of carriers laden with goods for the Ulverston market. Where we had been in our perilous wandering will never be known, but we returned to safety quite close to where the Kent was to be crossed. The carriers had planned to stay the night at Cartmel, and to cross the Leven sands after the morning tide, so we stayed in their company. During the night, however, the threatening storm burst; and at daybreak the sea in the channel raged so wildly that not one would venture, and all made the dÉtour over hilly roads to Newby Bridge, and so to our journey’s end.’