From Blackwood's Magazine. THE MAID OF SKER. CHAPTER I. FISHERMAN DAVY A FISH OUT OF WATER. I AM but an ancient fisherman upon the coast of Glamorganshire, with work enough of my own to do, and trouble enough of my own to heed, in getting my poor living. Yet no peace there is for me among my friends and neighbours, unless I will set to and try - — as they bid me twice a-day, perhaps - whether I cannot tell the rights of a curious adventure which it pleased Providence should happen off and on, amidst us, now for a good many years, and with many ins and outs to it. They assure me, also, that all good people who can read and write, for ten, or it may be twenty miles around the place I live in, will buy my book if I can make it at a higher price, perhaps, per lb., than they would give me even for sewin, which are the very best fish I catch: and hence provision may be found for the old age, and infirmities, now gaining upon me, every time I try to go out fishing. In this encouragement and prospect I have little faith, knowing how much more people care about what they eat than what they read. Nevertheless I will hope for the best, especially as my evenings now are very long and wearisome; and I was counted a hopeful scholar, fifty years agone perhaps, in our village school here - not to mention the Royal Navy; and most of all, because a very wealthy gentleman, whose name will appear in this story, has promised to pay all expenses, and £50 down (if I do it well), and to leave me the profit if any. Notwithstanding this, the work of writing must be very dull to me, after all the change of scene, and the open air and sea, and the many sprees ashore, and the noble fights with Frenchmen, and the power of oaths that made me jump so in his Majesty's navy. God save the King, and Queen, and members of the Royal Family, be they as many as they will and they seem, in faith, to be manifold. But His power is equal to it all, if they will but try to meet Him. However, not to enter upon any view of politics all of which are far beyond the cleverest hand at a bait among us-I am inditing of a thing very plain and simple, when you come to understand it; yet containing a little strangeness, and some wonder here and there, and apt to ¡move good people's grief at the wrongs we do one another. Great part of it fell under mine own eyes, for a period of a score of years, or something thereabout. My memory still is pretty good; but if I contradict myself, or seem to sweep beyond my reach, or in any way to meddle with things which I had better have let alone, as a humble mau and a Christian, I pray you to lay the main fault thereof on the badness of the times, and the rest of it on my neighbours. For I have been a roving man, and may have gathered much of evil from contact with my fellow-men, although by nature meant for good. In this I take some blame to myself; for if I had polished my virtue well, the evil could not have stuck to it. Nevertheless, I am, on the whole, pretty well satisfied with myself; hoping to be of such quality as the Lord prefers to those perfect wonders with whom He has no trouble at all, and therefore no enjoyment. But sometimes, taking up a book, I am pestered with a troop of doubts; not only about my want of skill, and language, and experience, but chiefly because I never have been a man of consummate innocence, excellence, and high wisdom, such as all these writers are, if we go by their own opinions. Now, when I plead among my neighbours, at the mouth of the old well, all the above, my sad short-comings, and my own strong sense of them (which perhaps is somewhat over-strong), they only pat me on the back, and smile at one another, and make a sort of coughing noise, according to my bashfulness. And then, if I look pleased (which for my life I cannot help doing), they wink, as it were, to one another, and speak up like this: 66 Now, Davy, you know better. You think yourself at least as good as any one of us, Davy, and likely far above us all. Therefore, Davy the fisherman, out with all you have to say, without any French palaver. You have a way of telling things so that we can see them." With this, and with that, and most of all with hinting about a Frenchman, they put me on my mettle, so that I sit upon the side-stones of the old-well gallery (which are something like the companionrail of a fore-and-after), and gather them around me, with the house-holders put foremost, according to their income, and the children listening between their legs; and thus I begin, but never end, the tale I now begin to you, and perhaps shall never end it. CHAPTER II. HUNGER DRIVES HIM A-FISHING. In the summer of the year 1782, I, David Llewellyn, of Newton-Nottage, fisherman and old sailor, was in very great distress and trouble, more than I like to tell you. My dear wife (a faithful partner for eight-and-twenty years, in spite of a very quick temper) was lately gone to a better world; and I missed her tongue and her sharp look-out at almost every corner. Also my son (as fine a seaman as ever went aloft), after helping Lord Rodney to his great victory over Grass the Frenchman, had been lost in a prize-ship called the Tonner of 51 guns and 500 Crappos, which sank with all hands on her way home to Spithead, under Admiral Graves. His young wife (who had been sent to us to see to, with his blessing) no sooner heard of this sad affair as in the Gazette reported and his pay that week stopped on her, but she fell into untimely travail, and was dead ere morning. So I buried my wife and daughter-in-law, and lost all chance to bury my son, between two Bridgend marketdays. Now this is not very much, of course, compared with the troubles some people have. But I had not been used to this sort of thing, except in case of a messmate; and so I was greatly broken down, and found my eyes so weak of a morning, that I was ashamed to be seen out of doors. The only one now to keep a stir or sound of life in my little cottage, which faces to the churchyard, was my orphan grandchild "Bunny," daughter of my son just drowned, and his only child that we knew of. Bunny was a rare strong lass, five years old about then, I think; a stout and hearty-feeding child, able to chew every bit of her victuals, and mounting a fine rosy colour, and eyes as black as Archangel pitch. One day, when I was moping there, all abroad about my bearings, and no better than water-ballasted, the while I looked at my wife's new broom, now carrying cobweb trysails, this little Bunny came up to me as if she had a boarding-pike, and sprang into the netting hammocks of the best black coat I wore. a barley-loaf, and two pig's feet, and a dogfish. 66 Yes, more; more bex-fass, grand-da.” And though she had not the words to tell, she put her hands in a way that showed me she ought to have more solid food. I could not help looking sadly at her, proud as I was of her appetite. But, recovering in a minute or two, I put a good face upon it. "My dear, and you shall have more," I said; "only take your feet out of my pocket. Little heart have I for fishing, God knows; but a-fishing I will go this day, if mother Jones will see to you." For I could not leave her alone quite yet, although she was a brave little maid, and no fire now was burning. But within a child's trot from my door, and down toward the sandhills, was that famous ancient well of which I spoke just now, dedicate to St. John the Baptist, where they used to scourge themselves. The village church stood here, they say, before the inroad of the sand; and the water was counted holy. How that may be I do not know; but the well is very handy. It has a little grey round tower of stone domed over the heart of it, to which a covered way goes down, with shallow steps irregular. If it were not for this plan, the sand would whelm the whole of it over; even as it has overwhelmed all the departure of the spring, and the cottages once surrounding it. Down these steps the children go, each with a little brown pitcher, holding hands and groping at the sides as the place feels darker. And what with the sand beneath their feet, and the narrowing of the roof above, and the shadows moving round them, and the doubt where the water begins or ends (which nobody knows at any time), it is much but what some one tumbles in, and the rest have to pull her out again. For this well has puzzled all the country, and all the men of great learning, being as full of contrariety as a maiden courted. It comes and goes, in a manner, against the coming and going of the sea, which is only half a mile from it; and twice in a day it is many feet deep, and again not as many inches. And the water is so crystal-clear, that down in the dark it is like a dream. Some people say that John the Baptist had nothing to do with the making of it, because it was made before his time by the ancient family of De Sandford, who once owned all the manors here. In this, "Something more to eat!" I cried, however, I have no faith, having read my almost with some astonishment, well as I Bible to better purpose than to believe knew her appetite; for the child had eaten 'that John Baptist was the sort of man to "Grand-da!" she said, and looked to know in what way I would look at her; “Grand-da, I must have sumkin more to eat." In either case, it is very pretty to see the children round the entrance on a summer afternoon, when they are sent for water. They are all a little afraid of it, partly because of its maker's name, and his having his head on a charger, and partly on account of its curious ways, and the sand coming out of its "nostrils" when first it begins to flow. claim anything, least of all any water, un-right of a heavy wound in capture of the less he came honestly by it. Bellona, Frenchman of two-and-thirty guns, by his Majesty's frigate Vesta, under Captain Hood) was all I had to hold on by, in support of myself and Bunny, except the slippery fish that come and go as Providence orders them. She had sailed from Martinique, when luckily we fell in with her; and I never shall forget the fun, and the five hours at close quarters. We could see the powder on the That day with which I begin my story, other fellows' faces while they were trainMrs. Jones was good enough to take ing their guns at us, and we showed them, charge of little Bunny; and after getting with a slap, our noses which they never ready to start, I set the thong of our latch contrived to hit. She carried heavier inside, so that none but neighbours who metal than ours, and had sixty more men knew the trick could enter our little cot-to work it, and therefore we were obliged tage (or rather "mine" I should say at last to capture her by boarding. I, like now); and thus with conger-rod, and a fool, was the first that leaped into her prawn-net, and a long pole for the bass, mizen-chains, without looking before me, and a junk of pressed tobacco, and a lump as ought to have been. The Frenchmen of barley-bread, and a may-bird stuffed came too fast upon me, and gave me more with onions (just to refine the fishiness), than I bargained for. away I set for a long-shore day, upon as dainty a summer morn as ever shone out of the heavens. "Fisherman Davy" (as they call me all around our parts) was fifty and two years of age, I believe, that very same July, and with all my heart I wish that he were as young this very day. For I never have found such call to enter into the affairs of another world, as to forget my business here, or press upon Providence impatiently for a more heavenly state of things. People may call me worldly-minded for cherishing such a view of this earth; and perhaps it is very wrong of me. However, I can put up with it, and be in no unkindly haste to say "good-bye" to my neighbours. For, to my mind, such a state of seeking, as many amongst us do even boast of, is, unless in a bad cough or a perilous calenture, a certain proof of curiosity displeasing to our Maker, and I might even say of fickleness degrading to a true Briton. The sun came down upon my head, so that I thought of bygone days, when I served under Captain Howe, or Sir Edward Hawke, and used to stroll away upon leave, with half a hundred Jacks ashore, at Naples, or in Bermudas, or wherever the luck inight happen. Now, however, was no time for me to think of strolling, because I could no longer live at the expense of the Government, which is the highest luck of all, and full of noble dignity. Things were come to such a push that I must either work or starve; and could I but recall the past, I would stroll less in the days gone by. A pension of one and eightpence farthing for the weeks I was alive (being in Thus it happened that I fell off, in the very prime of life and strength, from an able-bodied seaman and captain of the foretop to a sort of lurcher along shore, and a man who must get his own living with nets and rods and suchlike. For that very beautiful fight took place in the year 1759, before I was thirty years old, and before his present most gracious Majesty came to the throne of England. And inasmuch as a villanous Frenchman made at me with a cutlash, and a power of blue oaths (taking a nasty advantage of me, while I was yet entangled), and thumped in three of my ribs before a kind Providence enabled me to relieve him of his head at a blow - I was discharged, when we came to Spithead, with an excellent character in a silk bag, and a considerable tightness of breathing, and leave to beg my way home again. Now I had not the smallest meaning to enter into any of these particulars about myself, especially as my story must be all about other people - beautiful maidens, and fine young men, and several of the prime gentry. But as I have written it, so let it stay; because, perhaps, after all, it is well that people should have some little knowledge of the man they have to deal with, and learn that his character and position are a long way above all attempt at deceit. To come back once again, if you please, to that very hot day of July 1782 — whence I mean to depart no more until I have fully done with it both from the state of the moon, I knew, and from the neap when my wife went, off, that the top of the spring was likely to be in the dusk | cause, of course, I had no objection to his of that same evening. At first I had forbidding other people, and especially one thought of going down straight below us vile Scotchman. Yet being a man of no to Newton Bay, and peddling over the liberality, he never could see even me fish Black Rocks towards the Ogmore river, there without following and abusing me, some two miles to the east of us. But the and most of all after a market-day. bright sun gave me more enterprise; and remembering how the tide would ebb, also how low my pocket was, I felt myself bound in honour to Bunny to make a real push for it, and thoroughly search the conger-holes and the lobster-ledges, which are the best on all our coast, round about Pool Tavan, and down below the old house at Sker. CHAPTER III. THE FISH ARE AS HUNGRY AS HE IS. That tide I had the rarest sport that you ever did see. Scarcely a conger-hole I tried without the landlord being at home, and biting savagely at the iron, which came (like a rate) upon him; whereupon I had him by the jaw, as the tax-collector has us. Scarcely a lobster-shelf I felt, tickling as I do under the weeds, but what a grand old soldier came to the portcullis of his stronghold, and nabbed the neathide up my fingers, and stuck thereto till I hauled him out "nolus-woluss," as we say; and there he showed his purple nip his sides, hooped like a cask, till his Glo To fish at Sker had always been a mat-pers, aud his great long whiskers, and then ter of some risk and conflict; inasmuch as Evan Thomas, who lived in the ancient house there, and kept the rabbit-warren, never could be brought to know that the sea did not belong to him. He had a grant from the manor, he said, and the shore was part of the manor; and whoso-rious luck I had, in truth, and began to ever came hankering there was a poacher, a thief, and a robber. With these hard words, and harder blows, he kept off most of the neighbourhood; but I always felt that the lurch of the tide was no more than the heeling of a ship, and therefore that any one free of the sea, was free of the ebb and flow of it. So when he began to reproach me once, I allowed him to swear himself thoroughly out, and then, in a steadfast manner, said, “Black Evan, the shore is not mine or yours. Stand you here and keep it, and I will never come again;" for in three hours' time there would be a fathom of water where we stood. And when he caught me again, I answered, " Evan Black, if you catch me inland, meddling with any of your land-goods, coneys, or hares, or partridges, give me a leathering, like a man, and I must put up with it; but dare you touch me on this shore, which belongs to our lord the King, all the way under high-water mark, and by the rod of the Red Sea I will show you the law of it." forget my troubles, and the long way home again to a lonely cottage, and my fear that little Bunny was passing a sorry day of it. She should have a new pair of boots, and mother Jones a good Sunday dinner; and as for myself, I would think, perhaps, about half a glass of fine old rum (to remind me of the navy), and a pipe of the short-cut Bristol tobacco- but that must depend upon circumstances. Now circumstances had so much manners (contrary to their custom) that they contrived to keep themselves continually in my favour. Not only did I fetch up and pile a noble heap of oysters and mussels just at the lowest of the ebb, but after that, when the tide was flowing, and my work grew brisker - as it took me by the calves, and my feet were not cut by the mussels more than I could walk upon suddenly I found a thing beating all experience both of the past and future. This was, that the heat of the weather, and the soft south wind prevailing, had filled the deep salt water pools among the rocks of Pool Tavan, and as far as Funnon Gwyn, with the finest prawns ever seen or dreamed of; and also had peopled the shallow pools higher up the beach with shoals of silver mullet-fry small indeed, and as quick as lightning, but well worth a little trouble to catch, being as fine eating as any lady in the land could long for. And here for a moment I stood in some doubt, whether first to be down on the | when the round pool fills with sea (pourprawns or the mullet; but soon I remem-ing in through the gate of rock), and the bered the tide would come first into the waves push merrily onward, then a mighty pools that held the prawns. Now it did not take me very long to fill a great Holland bag with these noble fellows, rustling their whiskers, and rasping their long saws at one another. Four gallons I found, and a little over, when I came to measure them; and sixteen shillings I made of them, besides a good many which Bunny ate raw. Neither was my luck over yet, for being now in great heart and good feather, what did I do but fall very briskly upon the grey mullet in the pools; and fast as they scoured away down the shallows, fluting the surface with lines of light, and huddling the ripples all up in a curve, as they swung themselves round on their tails with a sweep, when they could swim no further - nevertheless it was all in vain, for I blocked them in with a mole of kelp, weighted with heavy pebbles, and then baled them out at my pleasure. Now the afternoon was wearing away, and the flood making strongly up channel by the time I came back from Funnon Gwyn-whither the mullet had led me to my head-quarters opposite Sker farmhouse, at the basin of Pool Tavan. This pool is made by a ring of rocks sloping inward from the sea, and is dry altogether for two hours' ebb and two hours' flow of a good spring-tide, except so much as a little land-spring, sliding down the slippery sea-weed, may have power to keep it moist. stir arises, and a different race of birdsthose which love a swimming dinner swoop upon Pool Tavan. Here is the giant grey gull, breasting (like a cherub in church) before he dowses down his head, and here the elegant kitty wake, and the sullen cormorant in the shadow swimming; and the swiftest of swift wings, the silver-grey sea-swallow, dips like a butterfly and is gone; while from slumber out at sea, or on the pool of Kenfig, in a long wedge, cleaves the air the whistling flight of wild-ducks. Standing upright for a moment, with their red toes on the water, and their strong wings flapping, in they souse with one accord and a strenuous delight. Then ensues a mighty quacking of unanimous content, a courteous nodding of quick heads, and a sluicing and a shovelling of water over shoulder-blades, in all the glorious revelry of insatiable washing. Recovering thence, they dress themselves in a sober-minded manner, paddling very quietly, proudly puffing out their breasts, arching their necks, and preening themselves, titivating (as we call it) with their bills in and out the down, and shoulders up to run the wet off; then turning their heads, as if on a swivel, they fettle their backs and their scapular plume. Then, being as clean as clean can be, they begin to think of their dinners, and with stretched necks down they dive to catch some luscious morsel, and all you can see is a little sharp tail and a pair of red feet kicking. Bless all their innocent souls, how often I longed to have a good shot at them, and might have killed eight or ten at a time with a long gun heavily loaded! But all these birds knew, as well as I did, that I had no gun with me; and although they kept at a tidy distance, yet they let me look at them, which I did with great peace of mind all the time I was eating my supper. The day had been too busy till now to stop for any feeding; but now there would be twenty minutes or so ere the bass came into Pool Tavan, for these like a depth of water. First the seapie runs and chatters, and the turnstone pries about with his head laid sideways in a most sagacious manner, and the sanderlings glide in file, and the green-shanks separately. Then the shy So, after consuming my bread and maycurlews over the point warily come, and bird, and having a good drink from the leave one to watch; while the brave little spring, I happened to look at my great mallard teal, with his green triangles flag-basket, now ready to burst with conglistening, stands on one foot in the fresh-gers and lobsters and mullet, and spiderwater runnel, and shakes with his quacks crabs for Bunny (who could manage any of enjoyment. quantity), also with other good saleable Again, at the freshening of the flood, fish; and I could not help saying to my |