. At this point the channel is so broad that
the Welsh mountains can scarcely be distinguished. The shore is flat
and black and oozy, flecked over with white patches of sea-birds, but
further to the east there rises a line of hills, very wild and rugged,
rising in places into steep precipices. These cliffs run out into the
sea, and numerous little harbours and bays are formed in their broken
surface, which are dry half the day, but can float a good-sized boat at
half-tide. The road wound over these bleak and rocky hills, which are
sparsely inhabited by a wild race of fishermen, or shepherds, who came
to their cabin doors on hearing the clatter of my horse's hoofs, and
shot some rough West-country jest at me as I passed. As the night drew
in the country became bleaker and more deserted. An occasional light
twinkling in the distance from some lonely hillside cottage was the only
sign of the presence of man. The rough track still skirted the sea, and
high as it was, the spray from the breakers drifted across it. The salt
prinkled on my lips, and the air was filled with the hoarse roar of the
surge and the thin piping of curlews, who flitted past in the darkness
like white, shadowy, sad-voiced creatures from some other world. The
wind blew in short, quick, angry puffs from the westward, and far out on
the black waters a single glimmer of light rising and falling, tossing
up, and then sinking out of sight, showed how fierce a sea had risen in
the channel.

Riding through the gloaming in this strange wild scenery my mind
naturally turned towards the past. I thought of my father and my mother,
of the old carpenter and of Solomon Sprent. Then I pondered over Decimus
Saxon, his many-faced character having in it so much to be admired and
so much to be abhorred. Did I like him or no? It was more than I could
say. From him I wandered off to my faithful Reuben, and to his love
passage with the pretty Puritan, which in turn brought me to Sir Gervas
and the wreck of his fortunes. My mind then wandered to the state of the
army and the prospects of the rising, which led me to my present mission
with its perils and its difficulties. Having turned over all these
things in my mind I began to doze upon my horse's back, overcome by the
fatigue of the journey and the drowsy lullaby of the waves. I had just
fallen into a dream in which I saw Reuben Lockarby crowned King of
England by Mistress Ruth Timewell, while Decimus Saxon endeavoured to
s