HOTELS AND OTHERWISE 121 



corridors leading to them. A dining-room where 

 forty people could have dined, echoing in its 

 emptiness, a huge table and a waiter, ghostly as 

 the place, creeping forlornly about, staring at 

 three or four chairs drawn up to the vast table. 



" Ye might have mutton for the dinner — the 

 butcher brought it. An5rways, there was then two 

 grey cocks outside, an' lashins of time to knock 

 the heads from them. Look at them on the wall." 



Upstairs, more echoing empty rooms, fallen 

 ceilings, rotting floors, wind shrieking through 

 broken panes, and outside the fret and turmoil 

 of the wild, wonderful sea. 



They camped us out when I stayed there where 

 the roof still held. My mattress was stuffed with 

 straw and so was my pillow ; but, having pity on 

 us, we were only three, they gave us dinner out 

 of the ghostly dining hall, in a small room, with 

 the tide, when it was high, fUnging spray almost to 

 the windows, across the stone terrace. 



A ghostly terrace, with moss-grown flags, its 

 parapet crumbling away, with broken steps leading 

 to the rocks ; a mere narrow strip divides the 

 gaunt old shell from the sea. 



In winter the spray hides the mournful, tattered 

 wreck, and great waves come tearing up to smash 

 what is left of the glass ; it is crumbling away 

 daily. 



People used to stay there once, faint effort 

 being made then to keep it patched, but when 



