however, was of a different mind. He made little
Peter take hold of my mother's apron, and
ran back to save what he could of our goods.
By the help of the neighbours, every thing
was dragged out before the rafters fell in,
and nothing was lost but the tobacco, which
was poked in under the boards. When our
neighbours and partners, Glassford and
Oulton, perceived that Bony was not yet
actually on the beach, they ventured to secure
the goods in their own houses, and hide
them cleverly before the officers should come
down.

The officers were not long in coming.
Amidst the other sounds of that awful night,
were the gun fired at intervals from the
Preventive Station, and the military music
approaching from the barracks; and again
(what seemed to me as terrific as anything),
the jingling and crashing of the heavy
waggons, that came down the lanes from the
inland farmsteads, to carry away the women
and children, and most valuable goods. My
mother hailed two or three of these; but the
drivers only inquired whereabouts the French
had really landed, and whether we had seen
them; and then told us that we must wait,
and they would pick us up as they returned.

"Don't, mother, don't!" I said at last,
when her loud crying became more than I
could bear. "Don't cry so loud. Bony is
not here."

She told me that I did not know that; and
the words froze my very heart. I hid my
face on her shoulder; and of the rest of the
night I remember nothing.

The next was a brilliant autumn morning,
and I saw the wide stretch of coast, and
broad expanse of sea, for the first time for
some months. We were brought down to
our own beach again. When the heaving sea,
with its glittering tract to the eastward, was
seen without ship or boat upon it (for the
boats were drawn up along the whole coast
where the beacon fires had been visible), it
was supposed that the French fleet of
gunboats had passed on to the westward: but by
degrees it came out that the whole was a
prodigious mistake. The soldiers, and the
country people whom they had got to help
them with the sea-wall, had been in the habit,
all the summer, of burning tarred wood, as a
safeguard against the stench of the marsh;
and on concluding their work, some of the
lads had fed the little fire into one so far
visible from a distance as to be taken by the
townspeople for the kindling of a beacon.
Out rang their bells; forth went the news,
gathering force and fulness at every step;
and the consequence was the firing of the
beacons all along the coast. It was a
consolation dear to the hearts of many, to their
dying day, that the Prime Minister was
waked out of his sleep the next night, to hear
about our town, and our beacon, and our
headland; and that our doings were heard of
by King George the Third himself, who was,
in fact, almost as much interested in Bony's
landing as we were. We were a prouder set
of people from that day.

Except that a heap of charred wood lay
where our cottage had stood, the scene looked
to everybody else just the same as usual. But
to me, it was wonderfully changed. Since I
had seen it last, the sea-wall had been built,
and the whole marsh had quite changed in
appearance. No more water had flowed in,
and a vast deal had drained out. There were
no glittering pools and little streams, and the
land was almost as dark as the moor. Along
its seaward edge was a broad, firm walk, on
which sentries were now placed, and by
which we could reach the hard sands to the
west in a few minutes, without wetting the
soles of our feet. I was told that the townspeople,and the boys of the whole neighbourhood,
were so eager about the new work and
pay, and so sorry when the sea-wall was
finished, that it was thought that another
work would answer; and a causeway to the
town across the narrowest part of the marsh
was planned. It was likely to pay well in
time by a very small toll, and as the fishermen
along the coast would traffic in the town every
day of the week. The shops would have their
custom; and the townspeople would be glad of
a constant supply of fish. The doctors said
the wall and causeway would be paid for
presently, if toll was taken from the average
number of persons that would have had the
fever if the marsh had remained as it was.
The mere money-saving from abolishing so
much illness, though it was the least part of
the good, was such as to justify a free
expenditure on such improvements.

What the doctors said was confirmed by
experience. From that time, the fever
lessened, year by year, as the marsh dried up,
till at last (and that was before I was in my
teens) it became a matter of public information
and serious inquiry when a case of fever
occurred in the town. Before that time the
marsh had changed its aspect again and again.
It was very ugly while it was black, with
brown water trickling through its drains, and
rusting the sands at low water. Then it was
covered by degrees with a woolly bluish
grass; and in July we saw it dotted over
with rushy ricks of meadow hay, such as
cattle would not take if they could get
anything better. Then we saw more and more
beasts grazing there, and patches of it were
manured upon trial. When once a turnip-
crop was taken off one corner of it, the
improvement went on rapidly. The rent that it
yields is rather low still; but I have seen
more loads of potatoes and turnips carried
from it, than of manure carried to it: and in a
few years there were thin crops of oats waving
in the breeze. As the fish-carts pass to the
town, along the clean sandy causeway, with
hedges and green fields on either hand, it is
difficult to believe how, within the remembrance
of many residents of Dunridge, the