Of Gilderoy sae 'fraid they were,
They bound him mickle strong,
Tull Edenburrow they led him thair,
And on a gallows hung.
They hung him high aboon the rest,
He was sae trim a boy;
Thair dyed the youth whom I lued best,
My handsome Gilderoy."

On the flat, bare, sandy coast, near to Southport, now a modern
bathing-place of great resort, described in the first series of this
work, might be seen, some few years ago, a ruined barn, cottage, and
other farmyard appurtenances, around which the loose and drifting sand
was accumulated, covering, at the same time, some acres of scanty
pasture, once held under lease and occupation by an honest fisherman,
who earned a comfortable, if not an easy subsistence, from his
amphibious pursuits. The thatched roofs were broken through--the walls
rent and disfigured--all wore the aspect of desolation and decay. Long
grass had taken root, flourishing luxuriantly on the summit, though
surrounded by a barren wilderness, a wide and almost boundless ocean
of sand. The ruin was the only fertile spot in this dreary waste.
Though painful and melancholy the aspect, still, as the sea-breeze
came softly over, sighing gently on its time-worn furrows, and on the
nodding plumes that decorated the crest of this aged and hoary relic
of the past, the sensation, though pleasing, became mournful; the
heart seemed linked with the unknown, the mysterious events of ages
that are for ever gone--feelings that make even a luxury of grief,
prompted by that within us, "the joy of sorrow;" something more
hallowed, more cherished in the heart's holiest shrine, than all the
glare and glitter of enjoyment--the present bliss--which we prize only
when it departs.

[Illustration: THE LOST FARM, NEAR SOUTHPORT.
_Drawn by G. Pickering._
_Engraved by Edw^d Finden._]

Many years ago, this humble tenement was the abode of George Grimes,
the fisherman to whom we have just alluded. It was a dwelling one
story only from the ground, as the general use was in these regions,
ere modern edifices, staring forth in red, white, and green--their
bold and upstart pretensions outfacing and supplanting the lowly but
picturesque abodes of the aboriginal inhabitants--had overtopped and
overshadowed these meek, rural, and primitive displays of
architectural simplicity.

Grimes, we repeat, was of that amphibious class, common upon every
coast, combining the occupations incident to land