rather heightened than diminished the dismal aspect of
the scenery. For miles the bleak strand stretched away, no headland nor
even a hillock marking the coast; the spectral gable of a ruined church
being the only object visible against the leaden sky. Little garlands of
paper, the poor tributes of the very poor, decorated the graves and
the head-stones, and, as they rustled in the night wind, sounded like
ghostly whisperings. The driver piously crossed himself as they passed
the "un-cannie" spot, but Dunn took no heed of it. To wrap his cloak
tighter about him, to shelter more closely beneath his umbrella, were
all that the dreary scene exacted from him; and except when a vivid
flash of lightning made the horse swerve from the road and dash down
into the rough shingle of the strand, he never adverted to the way or
the weather.

"What's this,--where are we going?" cried he, impatiently.

"'T is the flash that frightened the beast, yer honner," said the man;
"and if it was plazin' to you, I 'd rather tarn back again."

"Turn back--where to?"

"To town, yer honner."

"Nothing of the kind; drive on, and quickly too. We have five miles yet
before us, and it will be midnight ere we get over them at this rate."

Sulkily and unwillingly did he obey; and, turning from the shore, they
entered upon a low, sandy road that traversed a wide and dreary tract,
barely elevated a few feet above the sea. By degrees the little patches
of grass and fern disappeared, and nothing stretched on either side but
low sand hummocks, scantily covered with rushes. Sea-shells crackled
beneath the wheels as they went, and after a while the deep booming of
the sea thundering heavily along a sandy shore, apprised them that they
had crossed the narrow neck of land which divided two bays.

"Are you quite certain you I 've taken the right road, my man?" cried
Dunn, as he observed something like hesitation in the other's manner.

"It ought to be somewhere hereabout we turn off," said the man, getting
down to examine more accurately from beneath. "There was a little cross
put up to show the way, but I don't see it."

"But you have been here before. Ton told me you knew the place."

"I was here onst, and, by the same token, I swore I 'd never come again.
I lamed the best mare I ever put a collar on, dragging through this
deep sand. Wirra, wirra! why the blazes would n't he live where other
Christians do! There it is now; I see a light. Ah! bother th