Other beacons, not calculated to draw general notice, but sufficiently understood by the initiated, soon made their appearance, telegraphing the news from place to place.  As soon as the evening began to close in the Crooked Mary would be observed rapidly approaching the land, and occasionally giving out signals indicating the creek into which she meant to run.  Both on sea and land hairbreadth escapes were the rule rather than the exception, and it is related of one of the Crooked Mary’s confederates on shore, poor Philip Kennedy, that one night, while clearing the way for the cargo just landed from the contraband trader’s hold, he was simply murdered by the excise-officers.  The heavy cart laden with the cargo was yet some distance behind, and Kennedy with some dastardly companions was slowly going forward to ascertain if all was safe, when three officers of the customs suddenly made their unwelcome appearance.  Brave as a lion, Kennedy attacked two of them, and actually succeeded for a time in keeping them down in his powerful grasp, while he called to his party to secure the third.  They, however, thinking prudence the better part of valor, decamped ignominiously, and the enemy remained master of the brave man’s life.  Anderson, the third officer, was observed to hold up his sword to the moon, as if to ascertain if he were using the edge, and then to bring it down with accurate aim and tremendous force upon the smuggler’s skull.  Strange to say, Kennedy, streaming with blood, actually succeeded in reaching Kirkton of Slains, nearly a quarter of a mile away, but expired a few moments after his arrival.  His last words were:  “If all had been true as I was, the goods would have been safe, and I should not have been bleeding to death.”  The brave fellow was buried in the churchyard of Slains, where a plain stone marks his grave, and bears the simple inscription, “To the memory of Philip Kennedy, in Ward, who died the 19th of December, 1798.  Aged 38.”

My own earliest recollections of the grand, desolate old castle are derived, not from my first visit to it made in infancy, but from the descriptions of one whose home it was during a brief but intensely observant period of childhood.  There came one day a storm such as seldom even on that coast lashes up the gray, livid ocean.  The waves, as far out as sight could reach, were one mass of foam, and the ghastly lightning flashed upon the torn sails of a ship as near destruction as it well could be.  Cries came up from below in the brief pauses of the storm, and above lanterns were quickly carried to and fro, while pale attendants hurriedly and silently obeyed the signals of a more collected master.  The occupants of the castle hardly knew to what its chambers might be destined—­whether to receive the dead or to afford rest to the saved.  Beds, fires and cordials were in readiness, and strong men bore dread burdens up dizzy paths leading from beneath.  The ship broke in pieces on the merciless