old block, and you should see how neat and
handy they are in a gale of wind.

What have we done? A curse of ladybirds
is upon us. Everything is studded
with the little flying tortoise with the
orange shell and the black spots. They
crawl about the scorched white wild barley on
the edge of the cliff, and they nestle in the
thistle-down. They survey the fences and
emboss the walls. Where do they hail from?
What is their little game at Scarcliff? Where
were they before they came here? I just now
met four coming up to our front door at
Lowther's as if they were going to leave their
cards, and I see that little brute of a page
boy in plum colour at Mouther's scrunch
hundreds a day as he runs his errands.

What a morning! The sea looks as if it could
not drown a baby. The only sound is the sleepy
simmering of the surf on the shore as the ebbing
water leaves its thread of foam upon the sand.
The waves are frothing against the black
boulders at the Castle foot, and miles away
yonder I see the waves leaping up like a pack
of restless white deer-hounds round Filey
Brigg. A distant lamp on the Terrace sparkles
like a diamond, and the board with the touching
appeal, "Don't leave Scarcliff without
seeing the camera!" flaps protestingly against
the rails to which it is tied. The whole long
line of sea-side houses is all in shadow, except
one house that catches the eastern sun from a
side street.

Ba-ROOM!—a shock of thunder makes all
Scarcliff stagger again, and long, deep echoes
roll away seaward. That is a cannon: the
artillerymen on the castle are practising at a floating
mark. Number One, sponge; Number Two,
load—and so on. Ba-room! bellows the gun
Again, with very tolerable activity. One would
think the old line of walls—so often invested
in old times—was once more beleaguered; but
those shattered towers are helpless now, and
laughing at his work, Time, in likeness of a
Yorkshire urchin, sits on the broken
battlements and watches the gun practice. I go in
at a gate leading to the castle which is hung
with toy boats, and is guarded by a lame
sailor; a red flag waves above from the edge
of the northward cliff. Young fellows in
scarlet tunics, by twos and threes, come striding
up to the castle-hill with rifles on their
shoulders; they are Scarcliff riflemen going to
shoot for prizes. I find two batches of alert
scarlet men drawn up outside a tent in the broad
meadow above the castle. There are two
targets between high turf walls. Two of the
men are out on the edge of the cliff behind the
tent firing down at a bit of floating wreck.
The volunteers are fine stalwart, grave, resolute
fellows, intent on the prizes. A jolly fellow,
with big sandy beard, and in plain dress, is
seated in a chair with a telescope before him to
watch the targets. A bugle sounds. Hythe
position at three hundred yards, every bullet
on, and blue and red-and-white flags up every
moment. The bull's-eyes sound full and
clear; the outside shots give a slighter tang.
The prize is all with a quiet brown-looking
fellow, who fires carefully and without hurry,
waiting for lulls of the wind. Some young
sisters of volunteers, sent to bring their
dinners, look on with wonder and delight, as
David did when he was sent to the Israelitish
camp and culled the pebbles by the way. A
red and white flag—a bull's-eye. Hurrah! the
steady brown man has won the cup with a good
score of fifty-nine.

The tradesmen at Scarcliff are not smooth-
tongued; they are too rich for that. No, they
are blunt, sturdy Yorkshire people, who quietly
let you know they don't care whether you deal
with them or not. Yet for all that they do
not despise the small arts of trade, and your
second pound of tea, and your second joint,
and your second couple of fowls, are not, as a
rule, by any means so good as the first. They
remind me of the people on a wild hill outside
Monmouth, who in summer when you ask
where they come from, say boldly and rather
defiantly, "Why, from Penallt," with a devil-
may-care air sure enough; but in winter and
snow-time if you ask them, they reply with a
deprecating shudder, "Oh, from Penallt, God
bless us!" A month or two more, and you
might fire a seventy-four-pounder up and
down Scarcliff without hitting a visitor. The
Scarcliff shopocracy will be humble enough
then, I warrant, and they'd send you a pound
of sugar twenty miles, I very strongly
conjecture.

Sunday is a characteristic day at Scarcliff.
Go, just as the churches "come out," and see
how in the High-street the cross-currents of
Ritualists, Congregationalists, Wesleyans,
Primitive Christians, Roman Catholics, &c., ebb
and flow through the little gate they call the
Bar. And through the midst of the gaily-
dressed people, the rich manufacturers, the
simple country people in for the day, and
the chattering servants, stride to and fro (as
if for ever condemned to pace a real or
imaginary quarter-deck), the fishermen, broad-
chested rugged fellows, in the eternal blue
guernsey—the Norseman's shirt of mail
softened and civilised at last into harmless woollen,
but still covering bold, brave hearts. Like
pirates on shore, they seem to walk defiantly,
eyeing the degenerate tourists around them, and
ready at a shrill boatswain's whistle to sack
the whole town, and sail away with the Sabine
women to the "golden South Amerikies."

It is difficult, when the calm waves are breaking
in music on the shore, to reflect on
Scarcliff having any dangers; but it has. How
many a Scarcliff boat Death in his black coffin-
bark has hailed! One out of every three poor
women you meet would tell you she had lost a
brother or a son or a husband by drowning.
Some years ago a party were caught by the
tide on the sands near Filey, and nearly all
drowned. Those cliffs, too, that look so
calm in the sun, have had their countless
victims. Only last week, two boys, out for a
scramble over the Holmes under the castle
before breakfast, scaled the cliff to get home
the sooner. One boy got up safely, and hearing
a cry looked back. His friend hung half-