LEGENDS OF ST. HILDA. 401 



lieving geologists call them), and various other curi- 

 osities to be met with abundantly in that locality : 



" They told how sea-fowl's pinions fail, 

 As over Whitby's towers they sail, 

 And sinking down with flutterings faint, 

 They do their homage to the saint ; " 



a phenomenon, by-the-by, very irreverently accounted 

 for by some naturalists, from the circumstance that 

 the flocks of migratory birds, which, after their long 

 passage across the sea, first reach the land, are in 

 this vicinity, as in many others, so exhausted by their 

 journey, as to be for some time incapable of further 

 exertion, and must needs rest their weary wings, 

 without much troubling their heads about the episco- 

 pacy of the neighbourhood. 



But the most startling legend of all, and for the 

 truth of which some of the ladies fully vouched, was 

 that Lady Hilda was herself still to be seen, haunting 

 the ruined pile she had so long presided over, and 

 manifestly continuing to take a deep interest in the 

 town and its inhabitants. Our incredulity upon this 

 point was evidently regarded by our fair companions 

 as a very unpardonable piece of heresy, more espe- 

 cially as, Whitby being our native place, such scepti- 

 cism was on that account the more unjustifiable. 



It happened that the evening of that day was a 

 most inviting one for a walk : a cloudless moon, 

 nearly at her full, rose gloriously upon the rippling 

 sea ; and as the dirty lanes and dingy alleys of the 

 old town consorted ill with such a state of things, we 

 sauntered forth to climb the Abbey-steps by which 

 vou mount to the top of the tall cliff" whereon the 



