mournful sound on the wind. They have a legend here that when a ship is
lost bells are heard out at sea. I must ask the old man about this; he
is coming this way....
He is a funny old man. He must be awfully old, for his face is all
gnarled and twisted like the bark of a tree. He tells me that he is
nearly a hundred, and that he was a sailor in the Greenland fishing
fleet when Waterloo was fought. He is, I am afraid, a very sceptical
person, for when I asked him about the bells at sea and the White Lady
at the abbey he said very brusquely:--
I wouldn t fash masel about them, miss. Them things be all wore out.
Mind, I don t say that they never was, but I do say that they wasn t in
my time. They be all very well for comers and trippers, an the like,
but not for a nice young lady like you. Them feet-folks from York and
Leeds that be always eatin cured herrin s an drinkin tea an lookin
out to buy cheap jet would creed aught. I wonder masel who d be
bothered tellin lies to them--even the newspapers, which is full of
fool-talk. I thought he would be a good person to learn interesting
things from, so I asked him if he would mind telling me something about
the whale-fishing in the old days. He was just settling himself to begin
when the clock struck six, whereupon he laboured to get up, and said:--
I must gang ageeanwards home now, miss. My grand-daughter doesn t like
to be kept waitin when the tea is ready, for it takes me time to
crammle aboon the grees, for there be a many of em; an , miss, I lack
belly-timber sairly by the clock.
He hobbled away, and I could see him hurrying, as well as he could, down
the steps. The steps are a great feature on the place. They lead from
the town up to the church, there are hundreds of them--I do not know how
many--and they wind up in a delicate curve; the slope is so gentle that
a horse could easily walk up and down them. I think they must originally
have had something to do with the abbey. I shall go home too. Lucy went
out visiting with her mother, and as they were only duty calls, I did
not go. They will be home by this.
* * * * *
_1 August._--I came up here an hour ago with Lucy, and we had a most
65