the beach, with
an overhanging face one hundred feet down from the brow. Under this was
a cave, only reached by a cable ladder lowered from above, and made fast
below on a projecting crag. It received the name of "Coppinger's Cave."
Here sheep were tethered to the rock, and fed on stolen hay and corn
till slaughtered; kegs of brandy and hollands were piled around; chests
of tea; and iron-bound sea-chests contained the chattels and revenues of
the Coppinger royalty of the sea....

But the end arrived. Money became scarce, and more than one armed king's
cutter was seen day and night hovering off the land. So he "who came
with the water went with the wind." His disappearance, like his arrival,
was commemorated by a storm.

A wrecker who had gone to watch the shore, saw, as the sun went down, a
full-rigged vessel standing off and on. Coppinger came to the beach, put
off in a boat to the vessel, and jumped on board. She spread canvas,
stood off shore, and with Coppinger in her was seen no more. That night
was one of storm. Whether the vessel rode it out, or was lost,
none knew.

* * * * *

In 1864 a large ship was seen in distress off the coast. The Rev. A.
Thynne, rector of Kilkhampton, at once drove to Morwenstow. The vessel
was riding at anchor a mile off shore, west of Hartland Race. He found
Mr. Hawker in the greatest excitement, pacing his room and shouting for
some things he wanted to put in his greatcoat-pockets, and intensely
impatient because his carriage was not round. With him was the Rev. W.
Valentine, rector of Whixley in Yorkshire, then resident at Chapel in
the parish of Morwenstow.

"What are you going to do?" asked the rector of Kilkhampton: "I shall
drive at once to Bude for the lifeboat."

"No good!" thundered the vicar, "no good comes out of the west. You must
go east. I shall go to Clovelly, and then, if that fails, to Appledore.
I shall not stop till I have got a lifeboat to take those poor fellows
off the wreck."

"Then," said the rector of Kilkhampton, "I shall go to Bude, and see to
the lifeboat there being brought out."

"Do as you like; but mark my words, no good comes of turning to the
west. Why," said he, "in the primitive church they turned to the west to
renounce the Devil."

His carriage came to the door, and he drove off with Mr. Valentine as
fast as his horses could spin him along the hilly, wretched roads.

Before he reached Clovelly, a boat had