ions of long years, the stone
cottages by the roadside seemed deserted. Here and there the marshes had
encroached upon the far side of the road, creeping half a mile or more
farther inland, destroying the wholesome earth like rust corroding
steel, and stretching slimy tentacles towards the farmlands on the rise.

Humanity had retreated from the inroads of the sea only after a stubborn
fight. The ruins of an Augustinian priory, a crumbling fragment of a
Norman tower, the mouldering remnant of a castellated hall, showed how
prolonged had been the struggle with the elements of Nature before Man
had acknowledged his defeat and retreated, leaving hostages behind him.
And--significant indication of the bitterness of the fight--it was to be
noted that, while the builders of a bygone generation had built to face
the sea, the handful of their successors who still kept up the losing
fight had built their beach-stone cottages with sturdy stone backs to the
road, for the greater protection of the inmates from the fierce winter
gales which swept across the marshes from the North Sea.

The car had travelled some miles through this desolate region when the
chief constable directed Colwyn's attention to a spire rising from the
flats a mile or so away, and said it was the church of Flegne-next-sea.
Colwyn increased his speed a little, and in a few minutes the car had
reached the outskirts of the little hamlet, which consisted of a
straggling row of beach-stone cottages, a few gaunt farm-houses on the
rise, and a cruciform church standing back from the village on a little
hill, with high turret or beacon lights which had warned the North Sea
mariners of a former generation of the dangers of that treacherous
coast.

In times past Flegne-next-sea--pronounced "Fly" by the natives, "Fleen"
by etymologists, and "Flegney" by the rare intrusive Cockney--had
doubtless been a prosperous little port, but the encroaching sea had
long since killed its trade, scattered its inhabitants, and reduced it
to a spectre of human habitation compelled to keep the scene of its
former activities after life had departed. Half the stone cottages were
untenanted, with broken windows, flapping doors, and gardens overgrown
with rank marsh weeds. The road through the village had fallen into
disrepair, and oozed beneath the weight of the car, a few boards thrown
higgledy-piggledy across in places representing the local effort to
preserve the roadway from the invadin