and the one long, low, white cottage which faced the sea would have seemed a most enviable abode, so peaceful, so calm it looked. Closely girt in on three sides by rocky cliffs, whose wild, fantastic outlines presented every imaginable form, now rising in graceful pinnacles and minarets, now standing out in all the stern majesty of some massive fortress or donjon keep, some blue and purple heaths might be seen clothing the little shelves of rock, and, wherever a deeper cleft occurred, some tall, broad-leaved ferns; but, except these, no other vegetation was to be met with. Indeed, the country for miles around displayed little else than the arid yellowish grass that springs from light sandy soil, the scant pasturage of mountain sheep. Directly in front of the bay, and with a distinctness occasionally startling, might be seen rising up from the sea a mass of stately cliffs, which seemed like a reflection of the Causeway. This was Staffa, something more than thirty-odd miles off, but which, in the thin atmosphere of a calm day, might easily be traced out from the little cove of Port-na-Whapple.
Port-na-Whapple had once been a noted spot amongst fishermen; the largest “takes” of salmon—and of the finest fish on the coast—had been made there. For three or four weeks in the early autumn the little bay was the scene of a most vigorous activity, the beach covered with rude huts of branches and boat canvas, the strand crowded with people, all busily engaged salting, drying, or packing the fish; boats launching, or standing in, deep-laden with their speckled freight; great fires blazing in every sheltered nook, where the cares of household were carried on in common, for the fishermen who frequented the place lived like one large family. They came from the same village in the neighborhood, and, from time out of mind, had resorted to this bay as to a spot especially and distinctively their own. They had so identified themselves with the place that they were only known as Port-na-Whapple men; a vigorous, stalwart, sturdy race of fellows were they, too, that none molested or interfered with willingly.
About forty years before the time we now speak of, a new proprietor had succeeded to the vast estate, which had once belonged to the Mark-Kers, and he quickly discovered that the most valuable part of his inheritance consisted in the fishing royalties of the coast. To assert a right to what nobody ever believed was the actual property of any one in particular, was not a very easy process. Had the Port-na-Whapple men been told that the air they breathed, or the salt sea they traversed, were heritable, they could as readily have believed it, as that any one should assert his claim to the strip of sandy beach where they and their fathers before them had fished for ages.
Sir Archibald Beresford, however, was not a man to relinquish a claim he had once preferred; he had right and parchment on his side, and he cared very little for prescription, or what he called the prejudices of a barbarous peasantry. He went vigorously to work, served the trespassers with due notice to quit, and proceeded against the delinquents at sessions. For years and years the conflict lasted, with various and changeful successes. Now, the landlord would seem triumphant, he had gained his decree, taken ont his execution against the nets, the boats, and the tackle, but when the hour of enforcing the law arrived, his bailiffs had been beaten ignominiously from the field, and the fishermen left in full possession of the territory. Driven to desperation by the stubborn resistance, Sir Archy determined on a bolder stand. He erected a cottage on the beach, and established himself there with a strong garrison of retainers well armed, and prepared to defend their rights. Port-na-Whapple was at length won, and although some bloody affrays did occasionally occur between the rival parties, the fishermen were compelled to abandon the station and seek a livelihood elsewhere.
With a confidence inspired by some years of security, Sir Archy diminished his garrison, till at length it was his habit to come down to the bay accompanied by only a single servant. The old feud appeared to have died out; not, indeed, that the landlord met those signs of respect from his tenantry which imply good understanding between them; no welcome met him when he came, no regrets followed him when he departed, and even few of the country people accorded the courtesy of touching their hat as they met him passingly on the road. He was a “hard man,” however, and cared little for such slights. At length—it was a season when he had exceeded his usual stay at the coast—there came a period of great distress amongst the fishermen. Day after day the boats went out and returned empty. It was in vain that they passed days and nights at sea, venturing far out upon that wild northern ocean—the most treacherous in existence—in vain they explored the bays, more perilous still than the open sea. Their sole subsistence was derived from the sea, and what was to be done? Gaunt famine was stamped on many a hardy face, and strong men dragged their limbs lazily and languidly, as if in sickness. As Sir Archy had never succeeded in obtaining a tenant for the royalty of Port-na-Whapple, he amused himself gaffing the salmon, which he from time to time sent as presents to his friends; and even now, in this season of dearth, many a well-filled hamper found its way up the steep cliffs to be despatched to some remote corner of the kingdom. It was on one of these days that an enormous fish—far too big for any basket—was carefully encased in a matting, and sent off by the Coleraine coach, labelled, “The largest ever gaffed at Port-na-Whapple.” Many an eye, half glazed with hunger, saw the fish, and gazed on the superscription as it was sent into the village, and looks of ominous meaning were cast over the deep cliffs towards the little cottage below. The morning after this, while Sir Archibald's servant was at the post for his letters, a boat rowed into the little cove, and some men, having thrown out the anchor, waded ashore.
“What brings you here, fellows?” cried Sir Archy, haughtily, as he met them on the beach.
“We are come to gaff a bigger fish than yours o' yesterday,” said the foremost, striking him on the forehead with the handle of the gaff; and he passed the spear through his heart while he yet reeled under the blow.
Notwithstanding the most active exertions of the Government of the day and the local magistrature, the authors of the foul deed were never discovered, and although there could be no doubt they were well known to a large population, none betrayed them. More strange still, from that day and hour not a fish was ever taken at Port-na-Whapple!
The property had fallen into Chancery, and, the interests of the claimants not being very closely guarded, the fishermen were again at liberty to fish wherever they pleased. The privilege was of no value; the fish had deserted the spot, and even when they swarmed at Carrig-a-rede, and all along the shore, not one ever was taken there! That the place was deemed “uncannie,” and that none frequented it, need not cause any wonder, and so the little cottage fell into ruin, the boat-house was undermined by the sea and carried away, and even of the little boat-pier only a few bare piles now remained to mark the place, when at length there arrived, from Dublin, a doctor to take charge of the Ballintray Dispensary, and, not being able to find a habitable spot in the village, he was fain to put the old cottage in repair, little influenced by the superstition that attached to the unholy place.
He was an elderly man, whose family consisted of his wife and a single servant, and who, from the day of his first arrival, showed a decided repugnance to forming acquaintance with any, or holding other intercourse with his neighbors than what the cares of his profession required. In person he was tall, and even stately; his features those of a man once handsome, but now disfigured by two red blotches over the eyes, and a tremulousness of the nether lip, indications of long years of dissipation, which his watery eye and shaking hand abundantly confirmed. Either, too, from a consciousness of his infirmity, or a shame not less deeply rooted, he never met the eyes of those he addressed, but turned his gaze either askance or to the ground, giving him then an expression very different from the look he wore when alone and unobserved. At such times the face was handsome but haughty, a character of almost defiant pride in the eye, while the angles of the mouth were slightly drawn down, as one sees in persons of proud temperament. A few words will suffice for so much of his history as the reader need know. Herbert Layton had the proud distinction of being a Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin, at the age of twenty-one, and, three years later, won, against many distinguished competitors, the chair of medicine in the university. His whole academic career had been a succession of triumphs, and even able men made this excuse for not obtaining honors, that they were “in Layton's division.” His was one of those rare natures to which acquirements the most diverse and opposite are easy. The most critical knowledge of