Then, away to the castle as fast as they can win -the King rejoices- the Queen, pale and sore afraid, knows that her power must yield to Childy Wynd, who speaks

"Woe be to thee, thou wicked witch,

An ill death may'st thou dee;
As thou my sister hast likened,

So liken'd shalt thou be.

I will turn thee into a toad,

That on the ground doth wend;
And won, won thou shalt never be,
Till this world hath an end.'

Now on the sand, near Ida's tower,
She crawls a loathsome toad,
And venom spits on every maid
She meets upon the road.

The virgins all of Bambrough town,
Will swear that they have seen
This spiteful toad, of monstrous size,
Whilst walking they have been.

All folks believe within the shire
This story to be true,

And they all run to Spindleston
The cave and trough to view.

This fact now Duncan Frazier,
Of Cheviot, sings in rhyme,
Lest Bambrougshiremen should forget
Some part of it in time."

A FRIEND AT BREAKFAST.

253

CHAPTER XVIII.

A Friend at Breakfast-Something disgraceful-The School-girls-A Glorious Morning-Myriads of Muscles-Sentiments in Shells-A Poet's Thought-A Lounge-Budle Crags-Spindleston Heugh-Commentators on the Worm-Egypt and England-Monkshouse again-I knowed you was a Antiquary-Who stole the Trousers ?-The Herring Paper -The Artist's Specimens-The Fisherman's Rubbish-Twilight by the Sea-Elianus and Æliana.

I HAD a companion at breakfast the next morning, a benevolent, communicative, elderly Quaker, who had trotted all the way from a town on the Wear, on his pony, to change air and scene for his health's sake. We were soon deep in talk, and before breakfast was over, using the privilege of gray hairs, he was calling me by my baptismal name as familiarly as if we had been acquainted for years instead of minutes. He told me some particulars concerning the failure of that Newcastle Bank, showing the consequences of the stupendous crash to be far more cruel and fatal than had yet been made known. If the story of the suffering produced by the disgraceful frauds of 1857 could be written, perhaps it would make the world resolve to be honest, or at least to leave rogues to their deserts. I have since heard that the archoffender still sits in the high place of the synagogue, as if nought amiss had happened.

The school-girls from the Castle went by on their way to church, some six or eight wearing green frocks

to signify that they were in the the last year of their term. The Quaker-I beg pardon, he could not bring himself to accept that title; his wife could-she liked it; but for his part, he preferred Friend: nor was he willing to agree with me, that Quaker now-a-days implies no more of reproach than Methodist or Baptist. Well, the Friend thought it desirable to shut himsel up for a couple of hours; and I thought it desirable go forth and enjoy the sunshine.

What a glorious morning! Every thing seemed glad, as the poet says, from grass to sun. I strolled away to the Point, and had a delightful bath under the edge of the rocks: then scrambling across the black weedy ridges and broad stony masses, I bent over pools and gullies, and saw in the motionless or gently heaving water, the weeds and creeping things that filled me with wonder and admiration. In some places the rock was coated with young muscles in number incredible, hundreds of thousands. In the larger pools, filled with pale emerald water too deep to wade, the plants and animals seemed yet more wonderful than those in the shallow basins: strange lights fell upon them from the rippling surface. Strange creatures are they moving about; here and there a shell travels slowly; and many a shell lies tenantless. For such a moment as this the Laureate finds us an expression :

"What is it? a learned man
Could give it a clumsy name.
Let him name it who can,

The beauty would be the same.

The tiny cell is forlorn,

Void of the little living will

That made it stir on the shore.

Did he stand at the diamond door

SPINDLESTON HEUGH.

Of his house in a rainbow frill?

Did he push, when he was uncurl'd,
A golden foot, or a fairy horn

Thro' his dim water-world?"

255

Then reclining on the grassy slope of the Point, I watched the play of the foam on the green water, and across the broad dark shadowy patches created by forests of weeds growing on the bottom; and the succession of light-streaks that went streaming away and away, till they broke on Holy Island. And the sea shared in the universal gladness, and paid homage to Britannia with a multitudinous chorus.

Then inland for a mile, and up a low rocky hill— Budle Crags, whence the prospect opens wide over the level country: the village and castle, and cultivated fields spreading down to the edge of the sand hills; miles of coast, headlands, and gleaming sand to the southward; the deep inlet of Waren Bay on the North, where the famous Budle cockles are taken, where Warnmouth once stood; a port long ago devoured by the sea; and miles of sand beyond, up to the Old Law, and a flickering white speck on the outermost point of Holy Island; and the Farnes, all sharp and distinct, against blue sea and bluer sky.

Then farther inland for about half-an-hour, across fields to a second craggy hill-Spindleston Heugh, the scene of our last night's legend. Some commentators see in the Laidley Worm a personification of the paganism that once prevailed in Northumbria, and in Childy Wynd the purer faith by which it was overcome: or the Worm represents the Danes, and the Childe the Saxons. There is a Worm Hill near Lambton, in the adjoining county of Durham; and a tradition that the loathsome creature was destroyed by

one of the Lambton family, who having put on a suit of armour covered all over with sharp blades of steel, sat on a rock in the middle of a river, and waited the serpent's approach. Hitherto, no sooner was it cut in two or wounded than it immediately reunited; but now it wound around the knight, and was cut into many pieces, and these falling into the river were carried away so quickly by the current that the Worm could never more come together as before.

In Egypt, as travellers tell us, time and climate deal tenderly with things of the Past; and as they were a thousand years ago, so may you see them now. Not so in a land where man, aiding the wind and weather, works ceaseless change. We grow wheat in Roman camps, and turnips on glorious battle-fields, and break up Druidical monuments to mend roads. And here at Spindleston, the stone round which the Worm used to coil and the trough from which it drank the milk, have been displaced by a stone-quarry; but the relics are yet to be seen, as is said, somewhere about the foot of the hill.

The afternoon was far advanced when I left Bamborough for Monkshouse: the Friend accompanying me, leading his pony by the bridle and talking of many things on the way. Turning round from time to time, I could now see how striking and conspicuous an object the castle is in the view from the links. The Friend having taken an observation of St. Cuthbert's Inn, mounted his pony: we shook hands, said farewell, and he soon trotted out of sight. The inn was very quiet, as an inn ought to be on Sunday: mine host, who sat reading, was ready with a friendly greeting, and a promise of a fine day on the morrow for the trip to the Islands. It appeared that I had won