“I accept your challenge, Mr Strout,” said Farmer Pendre, knocking over his neighbour’s toddy as he jumped up, “and will back my dog against yours for £50, even money; and if you’re willin’, we’ll meet in Sancreed Churchtown at ten o’clock on the morning you name.”

The diamond of Digory’s ring flashed as he waved his hand in assent, and immediately the buzz of conversation around the table became deafening. Thus was the match arranged, and a safety-valve provided for the pent-up animosity of two parishes which neither hurling nor wrestling had ever roused to so dangerous a pitch. Before ten o’clock that night it was known in every hamlet in the “West Country” that Pendre’s challenge—for so it was put—had been accepted. In the interval between the Thursday and Feasten Monday the subject of coursing was in everybody’s mouth, and people were surprised that neither Canon Roulson nor Parson Grose referred to it in their sermons on Sunday evening.

The line stops; the judge, slipper, and dogs come round, pass through the excited crowd, and join Matthey, who points out the hare, or rather the spot where she is lying, for he alone can see her. He is then directed to start her, and with him go the judge and the slipper. When they are within five yards of the form, out goes the little Jack, his head set in the direction of Bartinney. The greyhounds strain at the leash, dragging the slipper with them, but not until the hare has forty yards’ start does the judge give the word to loose them. Like arrows released from the bow, they are off, and every eye is on them. Seldom if ever has a more exciting course been witnessed.

At first the greyhounds gain on the hare, but the rising ground to which he is leading them is in his favour, for there at almost every bound his pursuers sink into the stunted furze skirting the narrow “run” he knows so well.

Near the top of the hill better foothold enables them to hold their own, but they do not regain an inch of the ground they have lost. At amazing speed the hare passes the crowd on Bartinney a good thirty yards ahead of the greyhounds, and takes to the eastern slope. So far not a point has been scored by either dog, but near the foot of the hill Fleetfoot turns the hare, and then it looks as though Beeswing must kill. Scarcely ten yards separate greyhound and hare as they sweep across the two furlongs of flat ground that runs up to the moorland farm over which the Jack has so often wandered. A sudden turn lets in Fleetfoot, and the greyhounds are dead level, with the hare just in front of them, when a hundred yards from the gate for which he is heading. Surely he will never reach it . . . yes, for the greyhounds are jumping the gate as he passes underneath, and even as they are in mid-air he doubles back under it and follows the cattle-track skirting the boundary-wall of the farm. When the dogs view him again, he is at least thirty yards to the good once more, and heading for Caer Bran. Gradually they reduce his lead, and beyond an open stretch of turf, where, to the surprise of the judge, Beeswing had given Fleetfoot the go-by, points are scored by both dogs; and then a wilderness of pits and mounds receives the hare just in time to save him from Beeswing’s jaws. At headlong speed he threads this maze just in front of the greyhounds, making the air hum as he dashes along the rough ways.

On issuing from it the hare turns suddenly to the left, and skirts some furze-bushes that screen him from the gaze of the dogs. See! they have lost him, but the high springs they are taking will enable them to sight him the instant he leaves the shelter of the last furze-bush. Yes, they view him at once; and the course is resumed under the eyes of the spectators on Caer Bran. To them, in spite of the twenty yards he has gained, it seems impossible for the Jack to reach the Beacon, for which he is now evidently making. Moreover, the steep lane he takes to, in full view of the greyhounds, is all in their favour and, rapid as is the pace of the hare, the leaps of the greyhounds are bringing them close to his scut. They are running neck and neck, and almost mouthing him.

At this critical moment he rushes through a bolt-hole in a single-stone wall, in clearing which the greyhounds show again in the air together. He keeps to the rough grass-field on the other side until they are nearly on him, and then, as suddenly as before, passes through another opening in the wall, crosses the lane, and threads some scattered furze-bushes on a narrow strip of common that lies at the foot of Sancreed Beacon. Whether the greyhounds were exhausted by the long course, or whether they lost sight of the hare, is not certain; at all events they were found in a very distressed condition, lying side by side on a patch of grass amongst the furze, and the little Jack got clear away.

“Bravo, puss!” were the judge’s words, as he followed the hare with his eyes as far as the little plantation of storm-bent pines half-way up the hill. Mr Heber was not the last to view him, for Uncle Johnnie Lairdner, the sexton, was on the Beacon when the hare passed over it, and has left it on record that though the Jack was black with sweat, no sign of arch in his back could he see, and he was goin’ like a ball.

The greyhounds were at once taken to Sancreed Churchtown; and thither the spectators hurried, across croft and field, every one anxious to know which dog was adjudged the victor. The excitement in the town-place baffles description. The St Just men would have it that their dog had won, and of these no one was more conspicuous than was he whose eyes yet showed traces of the fight. The Buryan men were not quite so confident, though they knew that their dog had never run better. Some noticed, after the rivals had exchanged a few words with the judge, that Digory looked disappointed and Pendre jubilant; but this was set down to difference of temperament, and not until at last the judge spoke, did the impatient crowd know the result of the course.

Standing in a wagonette between the owners, this—and here let me thank the Editor of the Land’s End Courier for a copy of the speech—is what Mr Heber said: —

“Gentlemen, I have judged at many meetings, but never at one where so great an interest has been taken in a single course. You may tell me that this is the result of parish rivalry, but I strongly suspect that at the bottom of it lies that love of sport which characterises no Englishman more than a Cornishman, and no Cornishman more than a native of St Just.” His voice was feeble for so big a man, but now it sank almost to a whisper.

“I can tell by your breathless attention that you are anxious to know which dog I judge the winner of the stakes. That my decision will be loyally accepted by loser as by winner I have not a shadow of a doubt.” In the pause which followed, the cock in the glebe farm crowed. “Gentleman, I have never had a more difficult course to adjudicate on; I have never seen two better dogs run side by side, I may say, neck to neck. One of the greyhounds is already famous, having won the blue ribbon of the Leash; the other, a dog of pure Cornish breed, is known as the Champion of Cornwall. There is little to choose between these two wonderful dogs; but there is a difference, if slight, on to-day’s form, and I declare Beeswing the winner by a single point.”

The applause, renewed again and again by nearly all except the St Just men, was deafening: it scared the jackdaws away from the church tower. It was a trying few minutes for the losers, who stared at the elated winners with angry eyes, their fists clenched, and their faces white. They might indeed have come to blows if Digory had not spoken; but if the St Just men were resolved to break the peace the following speech averted a collision.

“Fellow Cornishmen, I little thought when bidding farewell to the men of my claim that the next occasion on which I should address an assembly would be in Sancreed Churchtown. Silence is golden, they say; but to-day’s proceedings will, in my opinion, be all the better for being rounded off with a few words of conciliation. First, let me thank Mr Heber for coming all this way to act as judge. No more competent man could have been chosen; and though his verdict is against my dog, I accept it without demur, and frankly own that to-day Fleetfoot was beaten! Mr Pendre,” said he, turning to the farmer, whose white hat was tilted on the back of his head, “I congratulate you on your success. I own that I never thought your dog would be a match for the winner of the Cup; but believe me, though I confess to being disappointed, ‘nip and tuck’ race though it was, I find some consolation in the fact that it was by a dog of pure Cornish pedigree that Fleetfoot was beaten.

“One other thing, gentlemen, let us not forget the wonderful staying power of that little Jack, which practically ran both dogs to a standstill.” (Hear, hear, from the judge.)

“The only fault to be found with Cornish hares is, that there are too few of them. In furtherance of sport in general as well as for my own pleasure, I purpose, if the farmers do not object, releasing a hundred hares on the waste land between Mulfra and Kenidzhek. If I settle down at home, I should like to be able to calculate on our having a good day’s coursing together. Some people who have never been abroad wonder that I do not return to the Far West. My answer is, ‘a hare on our own downses means more to me than a bear on a furrin’ range.’ (Great applause.) I do not know that I have anything further to add than to ask Mr Pendre to shake hands with the loser.”

Now, after the hard things that had been said about Digory, this was considered very handsome on his part; so that even the Buryan men, whilst emotion swayed them, felt sorry that he had lost, and after the rivals had shaken hands amidst thundering applause the Buryan men kept crying, “Pendre, Pendre,” till the farmer, though unused to any meeting bigger than an Easter Vestry or Balleswidden “account,” felt that, all “mizy-mazy” as his brain was, he must say something.

“Gentlemen, I never felt so flambustered in all my born days. I’m no orator like Mr Strout, but I also should like to thank the judge for his day’s work. Gentlemen, what’s the use of saying to the contrary when you don’t feel it? I’m glad that Beeswing won, and it’s downright honest truth, though I say it (great laughter) . . . I couldn’t have lost and not showed it, like Mr Strout. Maybe that comes of travellin’ in furrin’ paarts, for I’ve never been out of sight of Buryan tower for a whole day in my life. Now let me tell ee somethin’. It is not the furst, it’s not the second time that Beeswing has coused that leel Jack; and I knawed un the minit he jumped up by a whitey mark on the niddick. In conclusion, let me tell ee to your face, Mr Strout, that you’re a sportsman; and if I’ve shawed ee any ill feelin’, and I fear I have, I ask ee to overlook it. I wish ee well, and every St Just man godspeed.” (Applause.)

Thus amicably ended that day’s coursing match, which is now a tradition, its minutest details accurately passed on by the farmers in the chimney-corners of the West Country.

Digory was as good as his word; and in the following June a consignment of a hundred and fifteen hares arrived at Penzance from Salisbury Plain. These were set free on Bartinney, Mulfra, the Galver, Kenidzhek and the Dry Cairn, and for some years afterwards the country was well stocked.

Unfortunately the conditions of existence have proved too hard for them, and little by little they have had to yield in the struggle against their many enemies, until to-day a hare is as scarce in the Land’s End district as when Digory returned home from the Rocky Mountains. Nevertheless, a few hardy survivors are still found on the hills; and when, as generally happens, the hare outruns the dogs—descendants perhaps of Beeswing and Fleetfoot—the disappointed sportsman attributes its escape, not to witchcraft, but to stamina derived from the strain of the little Jack of Bartinney.

After sending a wire that I should come without fail, I made arrangements with a boatman to take me across the bay. It was close on three o’clock the following afternoon when we rounded the pier head and set the bow of our little craft for Gwithian beach. A fair wind filled the brown sail and drove us at a merry pace over the waves of this loveliest of bays, where the Cornish sea displays its vividest hues in a setting of silver sand. Landing was practicable, and the boat was beached near where my friend was awaiting me on the shore.

“You’re rather late,” said he, as we shook hands.

“Well now, you had better go and have a good look at the cliffs whilst it’s light. You’ll see where I’ve been whitewashing the rocks. Get the twists and turns of the way down fixed in your mind: that will be helpful later on. In the meanwhile I’m going to overhaul the whole of the gear.”

I took the direction he indicated and, stepping out briskly across the intervening neck of rising ground between the two bays, soon reached the dizzy edge of the cliffs. A little on my left hand, zigzagging down the steep descent and almost to the edge of the foam, lay a white dotted line that was to guide us in the darkness. The mouths of the caves—there are four—frequented by the seals were some two or three hundred feet below me, but I could not see them.

Bleak and lone are these Gwithian cliffs, merciless the winds that sweep them. Not a tree or a bush is to be seen, and even the heather is stunted. No note of songbird meets the ear, nor scream of seafowl, only the sullen boom of the Atlantic groundswell in the caves so far below. Along the coast towards Newquay sunlit headlands stretched out into the ocean; and the low promontory of Trevose, dim and unsubstantial-looking, lay on the far horizon. The mellow rays of the sun now and again caught the snow-white plumage of some bird along the coast, and lit up the surf at the foot of the distant cliffs.

Not a gull floated over the bay below me; but a string of cormorants, with black flight, skimmed the heaving surface just beyond the dark shadow of the coastline, and disappeared round a jagged point.

I was following the last of these birds with my eyes, when my gaze was arrested by the appearance of a seal below me, and as far as I could judge, not twenty yards from the mouth of one of the caves. It carried its head, which looked as black as jet, clear of the surface, and betrayed not the least sign of alarm. After about a minute it sank—it did not dive—out of sight. I remained watching, in the hope that the quaint-looking creature would show itself again; but, as it gave no sign and the sun was nearing the horizon, I left the cliff and made my way across the heather and stubble to Reskageage.

I found my friend in the barn. The light of a candle stuck against the wall fell on the sun-browned faces of the farmhands, who watched him as he overhauled the equipment for our expedition. The various details were displayed on the lid of a big wooden chest that had once held the tin-ore between “ticketing” days at Wheal Margy. There lay some dozen torches, consisting of small branches of elm, about three feet in length, with pieces of white rag wound round one end and secured by bits of string; three small bottles containing oil, a rather heavy hammer with a new haft about three and a half feet long, a powerful gaff, a long-bladed knife, a revolver and cartridges. Near a big coil of rope was a sack of very bulky appearance, which somewhat excited my curiosity. Undoing the string round the neck of it, my friend drew out a rope-ladder ten inches in width and between fifty and sixty feet long. The rungs were of iron, about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and perhaps fourteen inches apart. The strength of the ladder had previously been tried by the tug-of-war test, but now my host carefully examined the rope where it passed through eyes in the rungs, to make sure that it had not been weakened by friction or by rust. No defects being found, the free ends of the ropes were tied together, forming a triangle with the top rung; and the ladder was again stowed away in the sack. The big coil of rope was next overhauled. It was knotted at intervals of about three feet.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“We keep that up in the adit, in case anything goes wrong with the ladder.”

“And the knots?”

“They make swarming up easier.”

A vague idea of the mode of approach and of egress from the cave began to dawn upon me. “There’s only one way out?” I inquired.

“By the adit is the only way, unless you swim for it before the tide covers the mouth of the cave.”

“There’s some ledge out of reach of the tide, where you can wait till it falls?”

“No, there’s scarcely foothold for a shag or a cliff-owl on the walls of the big cave.”

I confess to feeling slightly unnerved at the prospect, the perilous character of which was now evident. However, I meant going through with the business, which was of my own inviting; but though I had the utmost confidence in my friend, it seemed to me it would be safer, in the event of accidents, that three rather than two should descend into the “big cave,” as he had called it. It is trying enough to a novice to be let down over a cliff in broad daylight to reach a peregrine’s or raven’s nest, but I could see that was nothing in comparison with the night expedition before me. In the circumstances, it is natural that the idea of sending for the Earthstopper should have occurred to me. Not only was he accustomed to the cliffs at night, but he was of firm nerve and of ready resource. I lost no time in suggesting it; already I feared it was too late.

“Very well,” replied my friend, “in case of accident—not that I expect any, mind you—we couldn’t have a better man. Fill in a form—you will find some on my table—and Tom there shall take it at once. There isn’t a moment to lose.”

A few minutes later the lad was cantering down the lane between the sand-dunes with this message: “Be here by midnight. Ride or drive. Seal hunt between twelve and one. T——, Reskageage, Gwithian.”

My friend was extinguishing one of the torches as I re-entered the barn. Evidently he was not content until he had tested everything, even the oil. I could not but remark to him on the extreme care of his preparations.

“I like to see to every detail myself in a ticklish job of this sort,” he said, as he laid the torch down by the side of the gaff: “a weak spot in the rope, a flaw in the haft of the hammer, bad cartridges or wet matches, may mean more than spoiled sport.”

Leaving the barn, we made our way across the rickyard to the house.

A cold wind was rustling the leaves of the wind-clipt elm that had supplied handles for our torches; and, as the air was chilly, I was glad to get indoors. After supper we withdrew into my friend’s sanctum and pulled our chairs up to the furze fire which blazed on the wide hearth. Cases of rare birds and curious relics hung against the walls, and the floor was covered with sealskins.

In reply to some questions about the seals, my host told me it was an old man that spent most of his time about the cliffs, egg-collecting, and looking for things cast up by the sea, who had first called his attention to them. This had led to his finding a way to the caves—for the secret had died with the smugglers who used them—and eventually to the animals themselves. The greatest number of seals he had killed at one time was seven, he said, and the heaviest carcase would weigh five or six hundredweight. His opinion was that at least some of the seals remain on the coast all the year round, and that they do not go far out to sea to fish. They fed chiefly on the herring, but he had seen one rise in Hell’s Bay with a big flat-fish of some sort, probably a turbot, writhing in its mouth. Then, suddenly jumping up in the middle of an explanation why the eye of the seal is big and the otter’s small—“He’s coming,” said he.

We went to the garden gate and looked down the road and, sure enough, a light was coming towards us.

“How on earth did you know he was close at hand?” I asked in surprise. “You didn’t hear anything, did you?”

“No, I did not hear the horse neigh nor the sound of its hoofs, for they fell and are still falling on sand; but the dog must have heard, for I noticed him prick his ears and listen. You see, Andrew’s time was all but up; and, putting the two together, I didn’t hesitate to say he was coming.”

More and more distinct grew the light; then we heard the thud of hoofs where the track is clear of sand; and at last Andrew, seated on a rough pony, and holding the lantern in his left hand, emerged from the darkness.

“Good evening, gentlemen. I was afeerd I was too late, though I’ve shogged on as fast as I could.”

The old shepherd having taken charge of the steaming pony, we soon had the Earthstopper before the furze fire.

“That looks cheerful after the black night, tho’ et do make ee blink like a cat at fust.”

“You’ve had a lonely ride, Andrew?”

“No, sir, I’m never lonely, unless maybe when stopping the Land’s End cliffs on a wild night. Why, Lelant flats was all alive with curleys and seabirds as I crossed the Caunsway. Niver heerd such whistlin’ in all my born days. Et must be gettin’ on for low water.”

“Well now, drink up that glass of toddy and we’ll be on the move. It’s half an hour to low water, and it’s time we were on our way.”

Whilst my friend was saying this, I looked at the hands of the clock in the corner. It was seven minutes past twelve. Our equipment having been divided among us, we set out across the fields for the cliffs.

“We’ve forgotten the sack,” I said, as we crossed the stubble.

“That’s all right,” replied my friend.

It was indeed a black night, as the Earthstopper had remarked. A great bank of cloud hung like a curtain before the western heaven, and shut out the light of half the stars. On our left Godrevy shot out its warning beams at regular intervals, and far away up channel Trevose light shone bravely in the gloom. The keen, salt wind blew straight in our faces as we breasted the high ground near the sea. By-and-by the sullen roar which reached our ears made us cautious, for we had neared the edge of the cliff; and, when we had roped ourselves together, our guide took the lead and we began the steep descent.

The otter excepted, there is no more wary animal than the seal; so we climbed down past the stones, ghost-like in their white shrouds, as noiselessly as possible, and at length arrived at the foot of the cliff. There was no beach, only huge wet boulders, between which the tide gurgled. We had scrambled—it was rough going—some distance over these rocks before I felt a pull on the rope, and then, peering through the darkness, I saw that our guide was standing at the entrance to a tunnel that proved to be the way into the seals’ cave, the mouth of which is unapproachable except by boat. Here we met with an unexpected impediment. The mast of a ship had got wedged into the passage, leaving only a narrow space between its splintered surface and the rocky walls.

“Hand over your lantern, Andrew,” said my friend, as he struck a match on his trousers.

“It’s all right,” said he, holding the light against the mouth of the tunnel; “I think we can get through. Now, undo the rope, and follow me as quiet as mice. You’ve got the hammer, Andrew?”

“Yes.”

This in whispers; and then we squeezed through the cramped space. The passage was some five feet in height and four in breadth. The floor was very irregular, and covered with water lying in pools of varying depths. At the further side of a deep pool our guide paused, and held a light over the water. This enabled me to avoid the holes between the loose rocks at the bottom, and I managed to get through by wading thigh-deep. The old Earthstopper in his fur cap and velveteen coat followed, trying the depth with the long, white haft of the hammer he carried. I noticed that he left the water as noiselessly as an otter would have done. The increasing noise of the waves warned us as we progressed along the tunnel, that we were getting near the seals’ retreat. In the great cave in which we soon stood, the roaring at its mouth and the reverberations within produced a noise that was deafening. Three torches were lit; and we advanced over some loose rocks and shingle to a shelving bed of white sand, on which the seals are generally found. Down this, when surprised, they shuffle to face their enemies and meet death. It was disappointing to find none at home.

We then proceeded to explore the inmost recesses, to reach which we had to scramble on all fours between the descending roof and the ascending floor of the cave. In one of these, that reminded me of a chapel in Westminster Abbey, was a baby seal, which, judging from its plaintive bleats, seemed to know the danger it was in. It was about a foot and a half long, of a creamy colour, with big, pleading eyes. Leaving the little creature we returned to the rocky part of the floor, and held the torches high above our heads to try to illuminate the cave. We could see the great walls of rock for perhaps twenty or thirty feet, but the light failed to scatter the gloom which ever shrouds the lofty roof. Here and there in these darker heights projections of rock were dimly visible, looking like spectral faces craned forward to peer at us. It was a weird scene that this great, resounding ocean-hall presented, and one that haunts the memory. There is little wonder that legends and superstitions cluster round these caves.

“Come,” said our guide, “there’s no time to be lost,” and in a few minutes we were again scrambling between the mast and the rock. I was glad to get a glimpse of the stars again. Out at sea, I could discern the light of some vessel going up towards the Bristol Channel. As I climbed the dusky cliff-side on the heels of our guide, and with Andrew behind me, I tried to brace my nerves for the ordeal that lay before us. The approach to the cave for which we were making is fraught with peril. Few attempt it, and of those few scarce one makes the descent a second time. This cave is the securest stronghold of the seals along the wild coast of Cornwall.

We might have made our way up some seventy feet when the guide struck a rude track on the cliff-side, and this we followed until the light of the lantern fell on the old shepherd sitting with the sack containing the rope-ladder. We had arrived at the entrance to the adit for which we were making, and along this we all proceeded in single file. It was a strange way of reaching a cave the mouth of which lay sixty feet below. We had not advanced thirty yards before we could hear the hollow roar of the waves.

“Be careful here,” said the guide, as he held his torch over a chasm. For some reason, a piece of the partition-wall between the adit and the cave has been destroyed, and with it half the narrow footway. It was a dangerous spot to pass in the lurid, unsteady light; but the shepherd made nothing of it, and as the projecting part of the sack on his back lay over the chasm when he skirted it, he was able to hug the wall on his right. Some thirty yards farther in, the tunnel pierced the wall of the cave, and again the hollow roar of the sea reached our ears. Whether the adit was driven on a vein of copper is uncertain, but there is no doubt that at one time it was used by smugglers. Kegs of brandy, lace and silk goods were probably taken to the mouth of the cave in boats, and afterwards hauled up to the tunnel and, as opportunity offered, distributed thence over the countryside amongst the smugglers’ clients, to wit, the magistrates, landlords, and tenant farmers.

Projecting from the wall of the cave, about a foot above the level of the adit, is a stout iron bar, over which our guide, by leaning forward, placed the end of the ladder so that the ropes which had been knotted together lay on each side of it, in the acute angle between the bar and the wall. The ladder was then dropped in the chasm. Clink, clink, clink—clink—clink. The seals must surely have been startled by the unusual noise made by the iron rungs striking against the rocky wall of their wild retreat. Vain warning! for some of the big boulders which cover part of the floor of the cave are dry at low water, and effectually prevent their escape. Our guide was the first to descend. I followed him into the dark abyss. The descent down the wooden ladders of a tin-mine is child’s play to going down a rope-ladder which lies against a sheer wall. Twice my feet lost grip of the slender staves, and the second time, failing to recover the rung, I had to go down hand over hand to the point where the ladder hung clear of the rock. Here it twisted and turned, adding a little variety to the difficulties of the descent. The Earthstopper, with the hammer slung across his back, followed, coming down hand over hand nearly the whole way.

“That ladder’s a rum un!” he shouted in my ear, as we stood on the rock near the foot of it.

Two lighted torches were then fixed in crannies in the walls; and after lighting three others, we moved forward, each holding one in his left hand. Beyond the slippery boulders over which we were creeping, the flare of the torches fell on the heaving surface of a deep, rocky pool.

“Look out!” shouted my friend, “they’re in.”

We drew a little nearer to the water, now lashed into foam as a seal rushed up and down. Two shots were fired as its glistening head showed above the water, but the only effect as far as I could see was to enrage the creature, and make it more aggressive than at first. For, when it reached our end of the pool again, it threw itself out of the water on to a rock, where it rested momentarily, looking more like some antediluvian creature sculptured in black marble than a living seal. Then with a hoarse roar it slid down the face of the rock and shuffled towards us in a most menacing manner.

“Stand clear, and don’t fire again!” shouted Andrew as he swung the hammer preparatory to delivering a blow. My friend jumped aside; and, as the huge brute came within striking distance, the hammer caught it full on the head and felled it to the ground. A tremor passed over the body; the seal was dead.

Whilst the battle lasted, angry bellowings came from the shelving beach beyond, where other seals—blurred, restless forms—awaited our attack. But wholesale slaughter was not our object; not another shot was fired. I would have liked to get nearer to the herd, but the danger of crossing the pool was too great.

“For God’s sake, don’t think of it!” shouted my friend; “we’ll light more torches.” This done, Andrew picked up the one he had laid on the rocks, and we advanced to the edge of the water with a torch in each hand, holding them well up, and forward at full arm’s-length. It was the sight of a lifetime. Five huge beasts, two grey, the rest a dirty yellow, mottled with black spots, lay swaying on the sand, prepared to make a rush—they can shuffle down a slope at a great pace—if we entered the pool; and these were not all, for in dark recesses beyond I saw indistinct forms move, and once I thought I caught the gleam of liquid eyes. For several minutes we stood fascinated by the wild scene, but it behoved us not to linger. Once or twice I noticed my friend turn his face towards the mouth of the cave. In the excitement he had not forgotten that the tide had turned. There was not time to skin the dead seal and remove the blubber; so my friend, who meant coming for this purpose at next low water, went to the foot of the ladder and shouted to the shepherd to throw down the rope. With some difficulty he made himself understood, for the roar of the waves was now greater than ever; and a few moments after the shepherd had shouted “Stand clear!” down came the coil on to the boulders. One end of the rope was tied securely to one of the flippers of the dead seal—a huge beast—and the other round a rock on which a bigger one rested. Andrew and I were taking a last look at the seals when our guide called out that there was no time to lose; and, indeed, the tide was washing the boulders at the foot of the ladder when we got there.

“Take your time, sir,” said Andrew as he held the bottom of it, “and higher up, press your knee against the wall, thet’ll clear the staave above.”

When a third of the way up, I looked towards the inner part of the cave. Profound gloom shrouded it, though the lights still flickered on the walls; and the seals, as far as I could hear, had ceased their angry challenges. Having reached the adit, I held a torch over the chasm to light the Earthstopper in his ascent. When he was near the top of the ladder, I saw that his face was spattered with blood. My friend having also reached the adit, the ladder was hauled up and put into the sack, and we made our way again into the open air. Scarcely a word was said as we climbed the cliff and crossed the heather and stubble to the farmhouse. After a wash and a hurried supper, the Earthstopper attached his lantern to the saddle and rode down the track towards Gwithian Churchtown. I could hear him jogging along until he reached the place where the road lies under feet of driven sand. The black clouds had lifted a little, and Crobben Hill was dimly discernible against the stars.

“Pity we can’t have spoart without killin’,” were the Earthstopper’s words as we had stood near the dead seal, and I thought of them as I turned to go indoors.

The room had one window only; but it was a spacious bay which faced south, and through it you could see and hear the waves breaking on the beach below. More than once that afternoon, before he lit the lamp, my friend turned the spyglass on some companies of wildfowl that dotted the rough water between the “Battery” and Lareggan rocks.

A double-barrelled muzzle-loader—a Joe Manton—was George Bevan’s favourite gun; and this, with powder-flasks, shot-pouches, caps and wads, were placed ready for the next morning. Only a boy who has been entered to sport and knows how the anticipation of it fevers the blood, can understand how impatiently I looked forward to the morrow. That night I thought sleep would never come; and at what hour I fell off I do not know, for the frost had got into the workings of our eight-day clock, and as for the town clock, that could generally be heard the town over, it might have stopped for all the sound it made in striking. But I must have slept, for I was half awakened by some noise against my window. My first impression was that the snow had changed to hail, but as the rattle grew louder I sat up in bed. Then it was I heard, “Jack, get up!” faint and far away, like the doctor’s voice when you’re coming to after chloroform; and almost immediately the memory of everything came back to me—my friend’s last assurance that he would call for me, the white world outside and, most stirring of all, the woodcock awaiting us in the furze-brakes. I was up in a jiffy, struck a light, and dressed as hurriedly as a fourth-form boy whom the first stroke of the call-over bell finds in bed. The cold had not relented, for a film of ice lay on the water in the jug, and by the candlelight I saw that the window-panes were frosted over. This was joy to me, for in my troubled sleep I had dreamt that the commonplace world was back again, and that every woodcock had flown away in the train of the retreating frost. Moreover, when we set out, the snow crunched under our feet, and a long icicle was hanging from the stone lip of the Alverton chute. Day was breaking when we reached the hilly field at Rosehill and followed the path under the beech-trees; and it is there, for some reason I cannot explain, that I best recall my old friend on that day. He was well above the middle height, and strongly built. The gun was slung across his back by means of a leather strap. The coat of heather-mixture he wore had, besides big side-pockets, several subsidiary ones, and there were leather pieces on the shoulders. Two spaniels followed at his heels, and his henchman, an old man who had been in the employ of the family all his life, closed the procession. My friend’s hair was silvering, as you could see between the upturned collar and the brim of the dove-coloured hat; and for that reason he seemed, to my boyish eyes, an old man. Nevertheless I had some difficulty in keeping up with him, especially when, not having mittens on as he had, I put my hands in my pockets to protect them from the biting cold. Yet how slight must have been my discomfort compared to the distress of the birds—fieldfares, thrushes, whinnards, blackbirds, starlings and missel-thrushes—which were flying hither and thither in the vain search for food. Though no doubt I thought how easily they might be trapped, I was sorry for the smaller birds, wrens and tomtits, that threaded the hedgerow near the farmhouse, and for the robin, puffed out with cold, perched on one leg on the sill of the dairy window. A little farther on, where the footpath crosses the brook near its junction with the Lezingey stream, a snipe rose from some rushes; and farther on again, near some furze-bushes, were tracks of at least one rabbit. But we left them all behind us. The shooting-ground we were making for lay on the southern edge of the “High Country,” and though our shortest way would have been along the “Watery Lane,” as it used to be called, and up Hendra Bottoms, we rose the steep hill leading to Boswednan. By this more roundabout course, we should avoid the drifts through which a farmhand, who had brought tidings of the woodcock, had been obliged to force his way.

From the high ground above the hamlet, where we halted a moment to take breath, we overlooked a scene which resembled a rude cast in white of the familiar countryside. Many landmarks were disguised beyond recognition, and the waters of Mount’s Bay, generally like a liquid gem of the deepest blue, looked dull as lead. The newly-risen sun loomed big through the frost-fog which its rays could not penetrate, and a man with weak eyes might have stared at the dull crimson orb without blinking. In the hollow immediately below us, an old labourer, with a big faggot of furze on his back, was staggering across a yard, his feet sinking at every step deeper and deeper into the snow, as he made for the closed door of the farmhouse against which it had drifted. It must be admitted that the snowfall, heavy as it was, could not be compared to the great blizzard of later years, which blocked the railway, isolated the dwellers in the country, and but for his knowledge of the position of a starveling tree on the edge of a quarry, would probably have cost the Earthstopper his life. Nevertheless, wildfowl were quite as abundant; and as the Looe Pool, Marazion Marsh, and other resorts became frozen over, they had to shift their quarters, and ultimately to settle on the sea.

More than one skein of duck had passed high overhead since daybreak, flying westward, but none so big as the great flock of widgeon which we saw, some four gunshots above us, as we were turning into the marshy moor near Tremayne plantation, where our sport was to begin. This piece of undrained ground was, may be is, shaped like a triangle. Tussocks of rushes just showed above the snow, and a runnel, winding in and out among them, ran chattering between a double frill of ice. We had not advanced many steps before a snipe rose, to fall to the first barrel, and soon after a wisp got up out of range, and flew away in the direction of the Big Downs. Following the running water, we approached the corner, where rushes gave place to a brambly thicket, between which and the stone walls behind grew a few gnarled holly-bushes. The spaniels were hardly in this cover before they flushed a woodcock. Bang! bang! and the bird fell on our side of the wall. The smoke had not cleared when another rose from the other side, where a few withes skirted the runnel. It afforded the easiest of shots; but, alas! both barrels were empty, and the reloading of a muzzle-loader takes time. We crouched, hoping the bird might settle in an adjoining marsh, but it kept on in the direction of Trannack Hill till it became a mere speck in the leaden sky, and at last was lost to view.

Separated from the three-cornered moor by two or three rough fields is a stennack—an excavation made by the “old men” in mining for tin—in length a good stone’s throw, and some thirty yards across. The bed of it lies from twelve to twenty feet below the level of the field that circles it, so that the biting wind swept over the white coverlet that concealed the close thicket of furze, blackthorn, and bramble that grew there. Standing on the edge of the bank, we could follow the movements of the dogs by the snow which fell here and there from the bushes. Presently a woodcock rose silently a few yards in front of them on the far side, and fell to the shot, dropping behind a thorn-bush on the opposite bank. Shortly after, another got up but was missed, and then for a time there was a lull in the sport. Not that the excitement flagged, for the spaniels were giving tongue, and as they drew near the zigzagging bank on which we stood a rabbit bolted on our right; then, strange to say, a fox made off, stealing away with that lissom movement that only a wild creature is endowed with, his ruddy coat showing finely against the white background. Near the farther end of the stennack three teal were flushed. They were up and away in no time, affording a pretty right and left. Two dropped in the thicket, and it was some time before we succeeded in finding them. It may seem hard to understand that the stennack was a haunt for wildfowl, but so it was. There was no pool of water there, no spring, as far as I could see; and a small cave at the foot of the high bank was dry, for, boylike, I peeped in over the drift that half-filled its mouth.

Leaving the field, we made for Trevean farmhouse. The snow in the unfrequented lane that we followed was unmarked by any footprint except the track of a hare. Soon we could smell the reek of burning furze, and as we came in sight of the high stone chimney, we heard the mooing of the cattle that had been driven in from the wild moors around. Two colts, with rugged coats and steaming nostrils, whose heads projected over the half-door of the stable, welcomed us with a neigh, as we crossed the rickyard and entered the house. A fire blazed on the hearth; but of the interior I can recall clearly but one object, an old woman wearing a small red shawl, seated in a high-backed chair at the end of the table, with a big book open before her. It was the indescribable calm on her face that I shall never forget. That is what I see first as the scene passes before my eyes, then the muslin cap she wore, and last, though its hue was so bright, her red turnover. A sheep-dog was stretched at full length on the stone floor, his nose, that lay between his tan-coloured paws, nearly touching the little wooden footstool on which the aged woman’s feet rested; but this part of the picture is faded. My friend chatted with her so long about some great frost of years before that I thought he must have forgotten all about the woodcock. At length we left the farm kitchen and set out for the wild waste-land, the farmer going with us. The good sport we subsequently met with in Billy Hal’s moor tempts me to tell the reader at once what happened there, but I will first touch briefly on the most striking incidents in the wide round we took over the country on the hither side of it.

Scarcely a croft but held its woodcock: hardly a runnel from which a snipe did not rise. In the bottom under Penhale fox-brake, a woodcock rose out of some brambles growing inside the ruined walls of a roofless cottage, and a little further down, where a leat runs into the New Bridge stream—that looked amid the snow like a black ribbon lying on a bed of goose-down—a mallard was shot, and a startled heron was allowed to flap itself away unmolested. Shortly after this, the sun for a brief space broke through the clouds and turned the dull white scene into a glittering fairyland. Near Boswortha Cairn—oh, how piercing was the icy wind there—both barrels were discharged at a passing flock of golden plover, and on the far side of the rocks the farmer, humouring my curiosity, led me to see a set of badgers’ earths. Three of the holes were blocked, and not a track was to be seen in front of the one that remained open. As we hurried to rejoin our little party, the farmer dropped up to his ears in a pit, his black beard lying flat on the snow. His hearty laugh rang out; but my friend, who was some thirty yards below us, did not turn his head—in fact, did not, as he afterwards said, hear any sound. I mention this to show how strong the wind was, though another fact probably contributed to the result—my friend and his old henchman were approaching Billy Hal’s moor.

Waste land it is, as its name indicates, but in luxuriance of growth it is an oasis amidst the barren hills that screen it from unkind winds. In the spring, its bushes are the first of that wild and unprofitable countryside to spread a wealth of golden blossom; in the autumn, the blackberry-picker crowns her basket with big purple berries from the bushes beside the rushy brook there. Later, when the sloes have shrivelled on the blackthorns and the coralline hips of the dog-rose adorn the leafless briers, the farm-boy, seeking strayed cattle, flushes the first woodcock of the season and forthwith sets a springe or two on the boggy margin of the runnel under the thicket of black withes. From then until February this moor holds more than its share of the longbills, and when woodcock are plentiful in other coverts, in Billy Hal’s moor, to use the country folks’ term, they are “daggin.” In the middle rises a knoll, whence the eye may descry the rude boundaries that enclose its, perhaps, four customary acres.

My friend was pushing aside the snow-laden furze towards this vantage-ground, and I followed in his wake. When he had gained it, he raised the hammers of the gun, and then lifted his hand as a signal to the farmer to let loose the dogs. We knew there were at least three woodcock in the moor, for we had seen them drop there. Before you could count ten, a woodcock rose with a great flapping noise. Bang! went the gun as the bird twisted above the withes. Bang!—down it dropped on the snow a good forty yards away, between the moor and a clump of gloomy pines for which it seemed to be making. As I ran round to fetch it I heard “mark cock” twice in succession, but no report followed, and shortly after, “mark cock” from the farmer, with the discharge of both barrels. The going was very rough, but at length I reached the brown bird lying in the snow beside the brook. What a beauty it was! To this day I cannot handle a woodcock without admiring its rich plumage, nor for that matter, though I have taken hundreds, take a trout off a hook without wondering at its lovely colouring.

It need scarcely be said that the rest of the moor was carefully beaten, but how many woodcock were flushed I cannot remember, nor do I regret it, for I fear the number might savour of exaggeration. Only five were added to the bag. One shot was a very long one, and the bird fell in the upper corner of the moor, near the ruins of Billy Hal’s cottage.

How long it was since Hal squatted on the land and hatched a title, I have not been able to trace, nor the manner of his death, nor even where he lies buried. The country-people venerate his memory, partly because of his great skill in hiding smuggled goods and outwitting the king’s officers, partly because of his markmanship with his blunderbuss. Some crofters aver they have heard from their fathers that there was a mystery about his end, and that Hal was buried at dead of night in his own land. However that may be, there he has at times been seen on clear nights in winter, moving noiselessly about amongst the furze with a short heavy gun, or sitting on the stones of his ruined hearth. It is a great pity that the mantle of the famous ghost-layer, Parson Polkinghorne, has not descended to any of his successors. We have it on the best authority that his exorcising formula, which began with the words “Nommy, Dommy” (in nomine Domini), never failed to lay the poor troubled spirits of those less sceptical days.

The moor having been shot over, we made our way to the house. It was now nearly three o’clock, and I felt tired, though not too tired to eat. The farmer’s daughter had laid our luncheon in the seldom-used parlour. There were sandwiches, mince-pies, a basin of clotted cream, some whortleberry jam, and a plate of sturmer pippins. These last were grown in my friend’s garden on espaliers, and he could generally produce one or two even when the next year’s fruit reddened the quarrenden-tree in the corner by the bee-skip. We stayed but a short time, as I thought, over our lunch, for we needed daylight to find our way down the bottoms, and snow had begun to fall again. From between the half-drawn curtains, where an ostrich egg hung, I had seen the big flakes. So bidding adieu to the dear old lady, we made our way down the hill, and at length reached the clump of firs in the bottoms, where my friend stayed to light his pipe. I should not have mentioned so trifling an incident, had it not been that he used the tinder-box for the purpose. This was his almost invariable custom, except in summer: then he preferred a burning-glass, especially when deep-sea fishing. With a twinkle in his grey eyes the farmer remarked, “Like Mr George, edna?” and shortly after, at a spot where, as the curve of the drift showed, was a gap, he left us and was soon lost to sight in the blinding snow. We had rather less than a mile to go before striking a road, but our progress was poor, owing partly to the drifts, partly to the rough ground that lay under the even surface of the snow. A candle was burning in a window of Hendra farmhouse as we passed the lower pond, and when we came in sight of Boswednan lane we saw the lights—the welcome lights—of a carriage that was awaiting us at the foot of the hill. Of the drive home I know nothing, as I slept soundly the whole way.

Thus ended a day’s sport which lives in my memory when days since enjoyed on grouse-moors and by woodland coverts have been well-nigh forgotten, big bags notwithstanding.

Since penning these lines, I have turned to my friend’s diary. These are his brief entries for the two days:—

“25th December.—Heavy fall of snow. Sharp frost. Bunches of duck and geese in the bay. Seine shot at Mullion. Bonfire on Poldhu Cliff. Eleven loads of fish up by five o’clock next morning, when I left Newlyn cellar.”

“26th December.—At Trewern, Trevean, Penhale, Boswortha Cairn, Billy Hal’s moor, with Jack. 9 woodcock; 3 brace snipe, 2½ golden plover, 1 of teal; 1 big snipe, 1 mallard, 1 bittern. Wind keen as a razor on Boswortha Cairn, very lew in Billy Hal’s moor, which was full of ‘cock.’ ”

The old “Joe Manton,” which I have taken out of its case, is standing against my study-table, and a beautiful weapon it is, albeit the barrels are a trifle thin. Many days’ use have worn them so; but as far as I have been able to look back through the interesting diary there is only one entry with a bigger bag, and that was in the very winter when the scream of the iron horse silenced the coach-horn, and gave such a shock to Penwith’s customs. If you ask of what year I have been writing, I will tell you in our West-country way—by naming an unusual event—that it was the year when a pilchard seine was shot on Christmas Day, and tucked in a snowstorm under the cliffs, on which a beacon, to spread the glad tidings, was lighted on a spot whence wireless messages are now transmitted across the seas.

As scarcely a breath of wind was blowing, and the sky looked like brass, the prospect of rough weather and clouded water seemed very remote. Yet it turned out not to be so. Well may the fishermen of Sennen Cove, who no longer have the guardian spirit their forefathers had, to warn them, watch the sky for premonitory token of storm.

About sundown, on Tuesday the 14th August, a fortnight or so after the tantalising experience related above, a weather-dog was seen near the horizon, which made the older fishermen shake their heads and caused them to be abroad before dawn. Seeing that the glass had fallen to storm-level and that the seabirds with wild cries were making for the southern cliffs, the thirteen boats were brought in from their moorings and everything made snug just in time before the sea became too rough for any craft in the cove to venture out, except the life-boat. At daybreak on the Thursday the sands were littered with seaweed; in places the foam lay in drifts like snow, and for miles inland the farmers must have heard, in the lulls of the storm, the waves thundering against the cliffs. It was not until the morning of Saturday that fishing was possible, even from the shore, and then only at some risk, because of that treacherous run in the water which from time to time costs the life of a rock-fisher. I had little hope of success, for the sea was now as thick as barm, yet I caught a grey mullet of five pounds, and lost another owing to the hook tearing its hold. After this, being wet through with the spray, I made tracks for my cottage on the brow of the cliff.

By Monday the sea had moderated enough to allow us to get Matthey’s boat afloat, and we ventured out to our old fishing-ground near the Longships and dropped the killick overboard. The water was in perfect order, and one might compare it to a river clearing after a spate. What sport! I kept catching pollack and bream until I was tired of pulling them in; but, alas! the bass had shifted their quarters, and although we visited their usual haunts we failed to meet with them. The glass continuing to rise, we ventured further along the coast, and spent the rest of the week fishing the three miles of water between the Land’s End and Porthgwarra. Excellent whiffing-ground this is well known to be, and so it proved; but unfortunately the week’s sport was marred by a disaster for which I was entirely to blame. It was on the morning of Thursday, just after the steamer the Lady of the Isles had passed on her way to Scilly. Up till then we had had good sport with pollack, five of these beautiful bronze-coloured fish lying in the basket on the bottom-boards. Shortly after, when near the Rundle Stone, I lost a heavy fish, and with it the spinning-flight, through its boring down and getting entangled in the weeds, as big pollack are wont to do. Of course, I should have held on at any cost and not given an inch of line; and this I determined to do with the next fish that should lay hold of the new eel-tail that was soon trailing in the wake of the boat. I was exchanging a few words with old Matthey, who was holding the sheet—we were sailing to and fro the great tidal stream—when I got into a very heavy fish, to which I held on like grim death. In less time than it takes to tell, the line snapped and a bass which had leapt clear of the water twenty yards astern fell back like a bar of silver into the trough of a wave and disappeared. What word or words escaped me on witnessing the fish—it was uncommonly like a salmon—with the broken trace hanging from its open jaws, I do not remember. At such mortifying moments the tongue is very apt to prove an unruly member, yet old Matthey never opened his mouth. He was like one struck dumb, but his face was as long as a fiddle, and the gaff dropped from his fingers as though it burned them.

With the loss of that fish I really began to despair, and it would have been almost pardonable if I had taken a trip to Camborne to consult the wise man there about removing the spell which, all joking apart, I began to fear hung over me. The following week my chances of success were reduced to a minimum, for the wind veered round, the water close in shore became as smooth as it ever is at the Land’s End, and in a few days was as clear as crystal. The resourceful Matthey recommended me, under these almost hopeless conditions, to fish from the small rocky headland that separates the Sennen from the Gwenvor sands.

“The hotter et es the closer in they comes, and et’s the biggest baas as hugs the shore.”

I suggested, quoting the Cornish proverb.

He smiled, and replied, “Well, et’s meant for pelchurs, but et’s true enuf for salmin baas.”

Somewhat cheered by the old fellow’s words, I set out after an early lunch for Roarer Point, as it is called, taking my fishing-tackle with me. The going was heavy, for the sand, beloved of the launce, is loose; moreover the sun beat down mercilessly; but there was some compensation in the scene.

I do not believe the man lives who could have been blind to the beauty of that sea. In an old Eastern poem a Persian is represented as beholding from the desert’s edge a boundless plain of turquoise. The Atlantic on which I looked might have been such a plain, except for the way it heaved; but it was on the breaking wave that the eye dwelt, and found relief from the glare of the beach. How deliciously cool the ever-rising, ever-breaking walls of translucent water looked in contrast with the glowing sands over which the air shimmered and quivered. Overhead a gull floated lazily, its snowy plumage showing finely against the blue vault; and just after I crossed the little stream that trickles down from Vellandreath, a butterfly—I believe it was a red admiral—greatly daring, flitted seaward, and passed out of my sight.

At last I reached the little headland, scrambled over the burning rocks, and gained its extreme point. The water below me was some ten or twelve feet deep, and being outside the line of the breakers, its surface, except when a breath of wind caught it, was without a ripple, and the eye could search every foot of the bottom near the rocks, and for some distance beyond. When I had baited the hook, I threw the line into the water towards the Gwenvor sands, where I could see the approach of any bass that might be coasting towards Sennen Cove, and it might be, watch it swallow the lure, for —

Besides the hand-line I had a rod with me, and on this I had rigged a spinning-flight and launce, intending, when the tide rose about a foot higher, to make a few casts from the point.

A seaweed, favourite food of the shy mullet, grew on two big boulders that lay half-buried in the white sand in the water below me. Though semi-transparent it was clearly visible when the rippled surface smoothed. Presently a small crab, as if fearful of being seen, scuttled across the sandy strait between the rocks where rested my tempting bait of ray’s liver.

My attention was chiefly occupied watching the bait and the water between it and the shore on which white-crested waves were breaking; but now and then I looked into a pool at my side. Bright-coloured anemones starred its sides, delicatest seaweeds spread their fronds in the limpid water, and a small fish called a pulcronack rested motionless between two rosy lichen-like patches, apparently intent on something, or as if it were listening for the steps of the incoming tide.

A buzzing noise drew my eyes for a moment to a green-backed fly that had discovered and settled on the silvery eel, and when I looked at the sea again two dark objects were coming towards me slowly, as they followed the line of the broken water in which they were now and again lost to sight. Owing to the glare I could not at first make the fish out distinctly, though they were swimming over the whitest of sands; but when they came within a rod’s length of the bait, I saw what monsters they were, and instinctively uncoiled some slack line from the wooden frame on which it was wound. The bass, for such they were, were swimming about midway between the surface and the bait, and when a few yards from the luscious morsel, their heads went down, and the next instant only inches separated them from the liver. What exactly happened at this critical moment is uncertain, owing to a slight ripple that disturbed the surface. I could see their blurred dark forms near the rocks, and a slight twitching shook the line, which I held loosely between my nervous fingers for fear of alarming them. Tout vient, etc., I thought, expecting to have the line wrenched through my hands, both of which were ready to grip it as the fish should rush seawards. However, it was not destined that I should land a bass that afternoon, for presently the stately fish moved off in the direction of the point, the bigger one in front; and a more dignified procession of two a chagrined spectator never beheld. I suppose their suspicion had been aroused, though there was nothing to suggest it, so deliberate were their movements. This gave me time to grasp my rod and swing the sand-eel for a cast before the leading fish showed beyond a conical rock that momentarily hid him. Crouching, lest he should catch sight of me, I managed to drop the bait in front of and a little beyond him, and, allowing it to sink, drew it rapidly through the water so that it passed within a foot of his nose. It would be difficult to imagine anything more irresistible for a fish than that silvery bait, the spin of which, though I ought not to say so, might have satisfied a Thames trout! Did the bass make a rush at it? No, it simply swerved a little, and swam away in the most leisurely fashion, the smaller fish following majestically in its wake. They kept their distance as truly as two torpedo boats, and moved as if directed by a single mind.

Let those who think that all sea-fish are easily caught, try their skill and their patience at the Land’s End. I venture to say that, the grey mullet and the Thames trout excepted, no fish is more difficult to capture in clear water than the bass, and that the salmon is a fool to it. To recapitulate my attempts: I had failed in the strong tidal current near the Longships and the Cowloe rocks; I had hooked and lost a monster in the Vrose off Tol-Pedn-Penwith; and my experience when fishing from Roarer Point would have tried the patience of that famous rock fisherman, St Levan himself.

I was not, however, at the end of my resources, for I could improve on the fineness of my tackle. Hitherto I had used single salmon-gut. I now resolved, though not without serious misgiving, to substitute a sea-trout cast, and, as the next best time to the grey of early dawn—an hour which has no great charm for me—to fish under cover of night.

The spot I chose was near where the small stream from Vellandreath runs over the beach, in which, except after heavy rains, it loses itself just before reaching high-water mark. I was there an hour before sundown. My hook baited with cuttle-fish lay a yard or two beyond the broken water. As the tide rose, I moved up the beach and pulled the bait a little nearer in. There was no sign of any fish, but I was hopeful of success when the golden track across the ocean should disappear and the light become sombre. At length the sun dipped below the horizon, the fires it had awakened in the windows of the cottages died away, and the curve of sand lost its warm colouring. With the paling in the west, first the evening star and then the others appeared, the fishing-village twinkled with glow-worm lights, and the Longships and the Seven Stones’ lightship exchanged their nightly greetings across the submerged land of Lyonnesse. When the bells of Sennen ceased ringing, there was scarcely any sound save the murmur of the waves, which broke in lines of phosphorescence on the long strand. Now and then I pulled in my line to see that the bait was free from seaweed; at times I followed a light out at sea, where some steamer moved in the darkness. Thus the hours passed; and at eleven o’clock, despairing of success, I was on the point of going to my lodging. It wanted yet half an hour to high water, however, and I resolved to stay on.

At irksome times like this one’s thoughts are apt to stray, and a straw may give them direction. What may have suggested the train of thought, unless it was the tinkle of the rivulet beside me, I cannot say, but my mind reverted to the part the sands of Whitsand Bay have played in history. Here, three centuries ago, the Spaniard landed and burnt the mill at Vellandreath; here landed Perkin Warbeck, on his ill-starred expedition; here Stephen; here John, on his return from Ireland; here Athelstan; here, if tradition be true, those heathen hordes whom King Arthur and his knights overthrew on Vellandrucher moor; here were drawn up the galleys. . . .

My historical reverie was interrupted by a slight tug at the line held loosely in my hand, a tug followed by the drawing of the slack through my fingers. A bass—it is his way—was running out to sea with the bait in his mouth. At last! I had jumped to my feet on feeling the fish, and when the loose line was used up, I suddenly raised the point of the rod—a sixteen-foot salmon-rod—and drove the hook home. What a rush the fish made! I put on every ounce of strain I dared, considering the fineness of the cast, but it seemed to have little or no effect on the fish, which kept going seawards. I could tell its whereabouts during the first part of the rush by the jet of phosphorescent water that spurted from the line, but now I could see nothing except the dark expanse with its silvery fringe. If the tackle held, I knew the bass could count on nothing in its favour; for the moorings of the boat and of the storepots were far outside the limit of my hundred yards of line, and there was no wreckage now, the fishermen having cleared it away for the sake of the mullet and pilchard seines. To husband the line left on the reel, I advanced as far as I dared into the water, my feet sinking deep in the loose sand. I was rather at a loss to know how to act for the best; whether to continue the steady strain to the last, or give the fish the butt before the line was run out. To stand there and be smashed would be ignominious; so, come what might, I determined to take the offensive. Grasping the greenheart and the line in both hands, I brought the point of the rod back over my shoulder slowly, to avoid a jerk, putting on all the strain I could. Either the fish must yield or the tackle break. There was a violent struggle, in which the top joint played an important part, and then suddenly the tension relaxed, and I feared—in fact, had little doubt—that the gut had snapped, or possibly the hook torn away. Winding up as quickly as possible, I had recovered some twenty yards when, to my joy, the reel screamed again. A second time I applied the butt, and then kept working the fish in. Now he would swim to my left, now to the right, but I could not see the wave which I feel sure he was raising. With much difficulty, for he fought all the way, I brought him to within a few yards of the breakers. How he struggled to maintain his ground there! evidently regarding the broken water as a zone of the greatest danger. After a time I thought I might venture to haul him in. But no, he would not consent to that. Of his own free will he had for many summers sought the shallows, even foraged amongst the breakers; but there was a good reason why he should shun them now. Once I had him just beyond the faintly gleaming arch of a wave, though I could not distinguish the fish, but only the place where he was struggling inside rings of incandescent silver. At last his strength was spent, and I succeeded in dragging him into the grip of a wave which tumbled him half-way up the shelving beach. With a great effort I extricated my legs from the quicksand, and throwing my rod aside, rushed at the fish as the backwash carried him down. I got a hold of him, but lost it, the prickly dorsal fin wounding my hand badly; then the next wave, which nearly swept me off my feet—in my desperation I had followed the fish—washed him in, and though half-blinded by the spray, I succeeded in rolling him on to the dry sand.

I have killed many bass since, but none so heavy—he weighed fifteen pounds four ounces—none which made such a gallant fight. It is true that they were landed under more cheerful conditions, for it must be owned that that night’s fishing on the edge of the Atlantic was weird and lonely.

The Home of the Cormorant.               [Face page 226.

There’s more tragedy than comedy however about bird-life. Many young birds are stolen from the nests, to say nothing of finches, warblers, linnets, and chats killed by hawks. Of course, all this is part of the plan of nature, though to my thinking there’s a deal of cruelty in it. What crueller thing can you imagine than a falcon cutting down a hern winging home, say to Trevethoe Park, where they breed, with food for its young? I never saw this; but one day, when lying up in Bosigran Cliffs watching for seals, I saw a fight between a peregrine and a raven, in which the raven got the worst of it. The falcon wanted the whole cliff to itself, and in the end he had his way, for the ravens forsook their nest.

A bird with a royal mien is a peregrine falcon, an ornament to the wild cliffs where he breeds. I have seen him soar till he looked like a speck in the blue, but I have never seen him stoop.

Now and again I’ve had glimpses of what is most beautiful in our bird-life—say of a kingfisher flying low over pools left by the ebb, when the sun catches its breast and back feathers; or what I once saw, and only once, a hern in full breeding plumage standing still as a statue in the shallows of a sparkling pool. I remember how lovely he looked. It was on the moor above Lanyon Quoit, when the early furze was in bloom; and both the hern and myself were after the trout.

For gulls, you won’t find a better place than Newlyn harbour. I have shot the great black-back there, and the little gull, a bird no bigger than a turtle-dove; and from the pier-head I shot a “Bonaparte” gull, a bird that breeds in the Great Salt Lakes of America. You may ask if it came from there. I do not know, but I believe it did. Governor Augustus Smith of Scilly once brought my father an Esquimaux curlew. Where did that little stranger come from, what frozen seas lit by “Northern lights” had he flown over?

I say, there are wonderful things in bird-life, especially in their migratory movements. Take the red-breasted flycatcher that once reached here from the far East, or the snow-bunting whose home is within the Arctic circle, and probably at the Pole itself. But no, you will realise better if I take a bird you are familiar with. Consider the willow-wren or the golden-crest. One would say that either of them is incapable of long flights. Yet these little creatures, whose weight you can hardly feel in your hand, cross hundreds of miles of sea without putting their foot down, except, it may be, on a passing ship’s rigging. It’s not only the distance covered that’s so astonishing; what guides them in their long journey under the stars? Man navigates the ocean with the help of a compass, but how do the myriads of migrating birds find their way? I’ve puzzled my head many times to solve the problem, but I admit I’m beaten; unless they possess a sense of direction such as cats and dogs undoubtedly have, and which even the savage in the pathless forest is said to have developed.

The 8th of May and the 11th of October or thereabouts are the times of arrival in West Cornwall, and many’s the time I’ve watched the sun rise over Mount’s Bay on those days. What pictures I’ve seen there! The east afire, the west aglow with rosy light, beyond the belt of furrowy sand the blushing sea, and on the edge of it the little strangers wading and feeding. The dates of their departure are just as definite; and as the time for leaving our shores draws near, the birds gather at certain rendezvous and display great uneasiness. I have heard my father say, “The warblers will be off soon, Ned.” He used to feed the birds in our aviary over the porch as regular as clockwork every morning, and he would notice how restless they were, even throwing themselves against the bars of the cage whilst instinct stirred them.

I don’t believe any man ever understood birds better than my father; he was that observant, and could imitate their cries so exactly, all but talk with them, in fact. Mr Gould, when he visited Cornwall, always came to see him, and used to hang on his words, so to speak; and that was no mean compliment. But there, sir, you’ll think me prejudiced.

Talking of my father brings to mind an incident I will tell you. My father was very fond of wandering about Morvah and Zennor, when he could spare the time. You know what a lot of waste land there is in those parishes. Scattered over the downs there are some lonely pools frequented by birds, and in one of them I shot the only phalarope I ever saw alive. Well, my father was stealthily approaching rather a big pool when, to his annoyance, he saw a boy driving away some cattle that had been drinking there. Luckily he did not pass it by, for there on the bank, away from where the bullocks had been drinking, was a little bird that until then had never been observed in England. It was a buff-breasted sandpiper, and I could tell by his face when he returned home that he had shot something very rare. Whilst I was examining the bird by the lamp-light, my father took up the Western Morning News; and when I asked him where I should put the bird for the night, he made no answer. Tired as I knew he was, I thought this strange, because he was such a genial man. The bad news he had seen in the paper had upset him; that was it. The French had lost a great battle, I think it was called Sedan. My father was very fond of the French. After Colenso, and in the same week too with Magersfontein and Stromberg, I thought of this incident, and I understood what my father had felt. Around our fires the men were so quiet that the camp might have been asleep. It would seem that such times are for thinking, not for question and answer. Forgive me, sir, for getting so down in the dumps.

My happiest days after birds were spent on the Eastern Green and around Marazion Marsh. I have always been fond of small wading birds, such as sanderlings, dunlins, stint, and turnstones. Shy and wild they are, and elegant they look, running about on the edge of the tide, following the ebb or advancing before the flow. Days and days I’ve watched them and returned home without firing a shot, but I’ve killed yellow-shank, dotterel, Kentish plover, and pygmy curlew there; and once I found, after a heavy gale, a stormy petrel washed up on the beach.

And now, perhaps I have said enough for you to understand why this little tongue of land, whose tip is the Land’s End, has got such a hold upon me. On the greyest day the moors are not dismal to me, nor the shores melancholy. There’s hardly a square mile out of the hundred that isn’t full of associations. The cliffs, the wastes of furze and heather, the tangled bottoms, the open beaches and the little coves, are all rich in pleasant memories; and the whistle of the curlew, the croak of raven or hern, the scream of sea-fowl, the piping of small wading birds and the song of the sedge-warbler are to me the music of familiar voices. Rolling veldt, mountain range and river don’t appeal to me like the downs, hills, and streams that I’ve got to know by heart.

“A treeless, barren waste” a man once called the Land’s End district to my poor father, who preferred the scent of its furze to the perfume of roses and the bell-heather before hothouse flowers. Everything wild he liked, ay, loved; the sea-pinks, the golden samphire, the sea-holly, the ferns in the zawns, the seaweed in the pools, the shells on the beach. And when he was unable to move out of the house—he lived to eighty-two—he used to sit up in the little bay-window, where he could see the sun set, and watch for my return, and then he’d ask what birds I’d seen, and about the flowers. The speedwell, the scarlet pimpernel, and the forget-me-not were especial favourites of his, and I’d always bring home one or the other in my fishing-basket. Touching it was to see him look at them.

If ever a man loved nature with his whole soul, my father did, but above everything he loved the birds.

But come! we must be moving. I see the gulls are winging home.