_—­Old Ballad_.

The following tradition, like some of the preceding legends, has been found, under various modifications and disguises, connected with local scenery, and attaching itself in the mind of the hearer to well-known places and situations with which he may have been familiar.

Southport, a bathing-place of great resort on the Lancashire coast, has been pointed out as the scene of the following tragedy, which probably occurred long before its salubrity and convenience for sea-bathing had rendered this barren tract of sand the site of a populous and thriving hamlet.  From the mildness and congeniality of the air to persons of weak and relaxed habits, it has been not inaptly termed, “The Montpelier of England.”

“But the coast is probably as dangerous for shipping as any round the kingdom.  The sandbanks extend in a north-westerly direction for at least six miles, so as to render the navigation extremely difficult even to the natives, and impracticable for strangers.  Hence shipwrecks are very frequent;” and “in a coming tide, accompanied by a strong westerly wind, it is almost impossible for boats to put off or to live in the sea.”

“It not unfrequently happens that these accidents occur in the night-time, in very hazy weather, or at ebb tide.  In the latter case it is necessary for boats to be taken in carts over the sands down to low-water mark, before any assistance can be attempted.

“If the captain of the vessel be obstinate, and trust to his own skill, he increases the danger.  When the crews of the vessels take to their own boats, and disobey the directions of the Southport pilots, their jeopardy is tenfold greater, and their loss almost inevitable."[48]

Nearly one hundred vessels have been wrecked on this coast within the last thirty years, and more than half of them totally lost.  Of these calamities the particulars are upon record.  Which of them may have given rise to the events here detailed we have no means of ascertaining.

It was at the close of a bright and memorable evening in October that I had carelessly flung the reins upon the neck of my horse, as I traversed the bare and almost interminable sands skirting the Lancashire coast.

On my right a succession of low sand-hills, drifted by the partial and unsteady blasts, skirted the horizon—­their summits strongly marked upon the red and lowering sky in an undulating and scarcely-broken outline.  Behind them I heard the vast and busy waters rolling on, like the voice of the coming tempest.  Here and there some rude and solitary hut rose above the red hillocks, bare and unprotected:  no object of known dimensions being near by which its true magnitude might be estimated, the eye seemed to exaggerate its form upon the mind in almost gigantic proportions.  As twilight drew on, the deception increased; and, starting occasionally from the influence of some lacerating thought, I beheld, perchance, some huge-and turreted fortress, or a pile of misshapen battlements, rising beyond the hills like the grim castles of romance, or the air-built shadows of fairy-land....  Night was fast closing; I was alone, out of the beaten track, amidst a desert and thinly-inhabited region; a perfect stranger, I had only the superior sagacity of my steed to look to for safety and eventual extrication from this perilous labyrinth.