CAST UP BY THE SEA.

CHAPTER I.

ON the rugged coast of Cornwall, where the waves of the

Atlantic break in their rudest force against the inhospitable cliffs, there stood in the year 1784 a small fishing village.

This hamlet was hardly worthy of the name, as it consisted of merely two or three clusters of huts, chiefly formed of decayed vessels which, no longer sea-worthy, had been sawn in halves and inverted; thus their well-tarred bottoms became the roofs to protect the occupants, who in former days had navigated their dwellings in the double capacity of fishermen and smugglers.

The spot was well chosen. In the rough wall of precipices which rose from the waters' edge to the height of several hundred feet there was a sudden break, and a narrow cleft in the face of the cliff of about fifty yards' width opened into an inclosed bay so completely land-locked as to form a natural harbor of exceedingly small dimensions, the entire diameter of the horse-shoe form being within two hundred yards in width.

This bay, surrounded by lofty, precipitous cliffs, formed an amphitheatre excluded from the rest of the world, as its very existence would be unknown to a stranger until he suddenly approached the verge, and observed the calm basin below, with the sea horizon beyond the narrow gap

that formed the entrance to the bay. At low tide the sand was exposed for a considerable extent, while at high water the waves rippled upon the shingly beach, upon which were arranged the boats belonging to the villagers, while fishingnets with crab and lobster pots were stretched upon the stones to dry.

Strewed upon the beach in all directions was an ominous amount of ship timber, the fragments of wrecks that had been washed into the bay; while staves of casks, wooden hoops, and remains of broken cases attested the loss of ship and cargo that had been driven on this fatal shore. Among the numerous casualties upon that portion of the Cornish coast few shipwrecked persons survived to tell their tale. There was no landing-place for many miles along the shore but Sandy Cove, except at low water during calm weather, when certain exposed points that had been worn away by the waves afforded a rough beach of broken crags that had fallen from the cliffs above. These slippery rocks, covered with long sea-weed, were often the hopeless refuge of the strong swimmer, who had struggled with the storm only to be dashed to pieces against the cruel shore that refused him shelter. It was reported vaguely that the inhabitants of this pitiless coast were equally inhospitable, and that the fishermen of Sandy Cove combined the professions of smugglers and wreckers with their more honorable occupation.

The huts or cabins that composed the village might have amounted to twenty. These were erected in various localities, without any regard to arrangement, in such positions as were most favorable-generally about fifty feet above high-water mark-upon the level plateaux that had been formed by the detachment of portions of the cliff. Upon these narrow terraces the boat cabins were built directly against the abrupt face of the wall-like rock that rose for several hundred feet above them, while the tiny gardens