194 SEA-SIDE STUDIES. 



the moral world I noticed a similar dilapidation. The 

 discrepancies were painful. In the " bill/' arrange- 

 ments were made which showed fiscal genius : and 

 when a suggestion was offered that the remains of 

 yesterday's fowl might serve for to-day's luncheon, a 

 look of pained reproach passed over the widow's face, 

 followed by a gulp, and a silence which was broken 

 only by diversion of the dialogue into quite other direc- 

 tions — the look, the gulp, the silence expressed, as 

 plainly as words, the mean opinion which the widow 

 entertained of her victim. Low as her opinion had 

 placed him before, it had not reached such depths as 

 that; the request for a paltry remnant of fowl, in- 

 deed, was answerable only by profound silence. Thus 

 it tuas answered. I never gazed upon that bird again. 

 Weather-bound in such a place — the equinoctial 

 gales hurrying d!i — boxes corded, soul unquiet — you 

 may imagine the alacrity with which I sprang out of 

 bed, the morning when a sailor came up from the 

 packet to say that anchor was weighed, and we should 

 start as soon as I could slip on my things. This was 

 at six in the morning, and, by half-past, the Ariadne, 

 formerly Lord Godolphin's yacht, but now the property 

 of Captain Tregarthen, who runs it between Scilly and 

 Penzance as the mail and sole communication, left 

 the harbour, and reached Scilly by one o'clock. This 

 was on Thursday, 26th March 1857. A century ago, 

 on the 25th May 1752, Borlase, the admirable anti- 

 quarian, whose Observations on the Ancient and Pre- 

 sent State of the Scilly Islands was among my 



