The Witchs Head | Page 8

about a mile and a half below here, just this side of the
quicksand. The moon was so bright that it was almost like day, and for
the last mile the stag was in view not more than a hundred yards in
front of the hounds, and the pace was racing. When he came to the
beach he went right through the waves out to the sea, and the hounds
after him, and grandfather after them. They caught him a hundred yards
out and killed him, and then grandfather turned his horse's head and
swam with the hounds."
"My eye!" was Ernest's comment on this story. "And what did Jack
Tares do?"
"O, he stopped on the beach and said his prayers; he thought that they
would all be drowned."
Then they passed through the old house, which was built on a little ness

or headland that jutted beyond the level of the shore-line, and across
which the wind swept and raved all the winter long, driving the great
waves in ceaseless thunder against the sandy cliffs. It was a desolate
spot that the grey and massive house, of which the roof was secured by
huge blocks of rock, looked out upon, nude of vegetation, save for rank,
rush-like grass and plants of sea-holly. In front was the great ocean,
rushing in continually upon the sandy bulwarks, and with but few ships
to break its loneliness. To the left, far as the eye could reach, ran a line
of cliff, till it was as full of gaps as an old crone's jaw. Behind this
stretched mile upon mile of desolate-looking land, covered for the most
part with ling and heath, and cut up with dikes, whence the water was
pumped by means of windmills, that gave a Dutch appearance to the
landscape.
"Look," said Dorothy, pointing to a small white house about a mile and
a half away up the shore-line, "that is the lock-house, where the great
sluice-gates are, and beyond that is the dreadful quick-sand in which a
whole army was once swallowed up, like the Egyptians in the Red
Sea."
"My word," said Ernest, much interested; "and, I say, did my uncle
build this house?"
"You silly boy! why, it has been built for hundreds of years. Somebody
of the name of Dum built it, and that is why it is called Dum's Ness; at
least, I suppose so. There is an old chart that Reginald has, which was
made in the time of Henry VII., and it is marked as Dum's Ness there,
so Dum must have lived before then. Look," she went on, as, turning to
the right, they rounded the old house and reached the road which ran
along the top of the cliff, "there are the ruins of Titheburgh Abbey;"
and she pointed to the remains of an enormous church with a still
perfect tower, that stood within a few hundred yards of them, almost
upon the edge of the cliff.
"Why don't they build it up again?" asked Ernest.
Dorothy shook her head. "Because in a few years the sea will swallow
it. Nearly all the graveyard has gone already. It is the same with

Kesterwick, where we are going. Kesterwick was a great town once.
The kings of East Anglia made it their capital, and a bishop lived there.
After that it was a great port, with thousands upon thousands of
inhabitants. But the sea came on and on and choked up the harbour, and
washed away the cliffs, and they could not keep it out, and now
Kesterwick is nothing but a little village with one fine old church left.
The real Kesterwick lies there, under the sea. If you walk along the
beach after a great gale, you will find hundreds of bricks and tiles
washed from the houses that are going to pieces down in the deep water.
Just fancy, on one Sunday afternoon, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth,
three of the parish churches were washed over the cliff into the sea!"
So she went on, telling the listening Ernest tale after tale of the old
town, than which Babylon had not fallen more completely, till they
came to a pretty little modern house bowered up in trees--that is, in
summer, for there were no leaves upon them now--with which Ernest
was destined to become very well acquainted in after years.
Dorothy left her companion at the gate while she went in to leave her
book, remarking that she would be ashamed to introduce a boy with so
black an eye. Presently she came back again, saying that Miss Ceswick
was out.
"Who is Miss Ceswick?" asked Ernest, who at this period of his
existence had a burning thirst for information of every sort.
"She is a very beautiful