it had always been
easy to obtain an entrance there at night by means of a rope ladder, or
even by the use of the first ladder coming to hand in one of the
neighbouring fields. A consignment of goods or provisions left there
might await in perfect safety the time and opportunity for a furtive
embarkation. Tradition relates that forty years ago a fugitive--for
political offences as some affirm, for commercial as others
say--remained for some time concealed in the haunted house at Pleinmont;
whence he finally succeeded in embarking in a fishing-boat for England.
From England a passage is easily obtained to America.

Tradition also avers that provisions deposited in this house remain
there untouched, Lucifer and the smugglers having an interest in
inducing whoever places them there to return.

From the summit of the house, there is a view to the south of the Hanway
Rocks, at about a mile from the shore.

These rocks are famous. They have been guilty of all the evil deeds of
which rocks are capable. They are the most ruthless destroyers of the
sea. They lie in a treacherous ambush for vessels in the night. They
have contributed to the enlargement of the cemeteries at Torteval and
Rocquaine.

A lighthouse was erected upon these rocks in 1862. At the present day,
the Hanways light the way for the vessels which they once lured to
destruction; the destroyer in ambush now bears a lighted torch in his
hand; and mariners seek in the horizon, as a protector and a guide, the
rock which they used to fly as a pitiless enemy. It gives confidence by
night in that vast space where it was so long a terror--like a robber
converted into a gendarme.

There are three Hanways: the Great Hanway, the Little Hanway, and the
Mauve. It is upon the Little Hanway that the red light is placed at the
present time.

This reef of rocks forms part of a group of peaks, some beneath the sea,
some rising out of it. It towers above them all; like a fortress, it has
advanced works: on the side of the open sea, a chain of thirteen rocks;
on the north, two breakers--the High Fourquies, the Needles, and a
sandbank called the Herouee. On the south, three rocks--the Cat Rock,
the Percee, and the Herpin Rock; then two banks--the South Bank and the
Muet: besides which, there is, on the side opposite Pleinmont, the Tas
de Pois d'Aval.

To swim across the channel from the Hanways to Pleinmont is difficult,
but not impossible. We have already said that this was