homeward way. Strange and wild were the
outcries that greeted the rider. Miss Dinah
Hamlyn, when, thus escorted. she reached her
father's door, in the very embrace of a wild,
rough, tall man, who announced himself by a
name—never afterwards forgotten in those parts
—as Coppinger, a Dane. He arrayed himself
without the smallest scruple in the Sunday suit
of his host. The Iong-skirted coat of purple
velveteen with large buttons, the embroidered
vest, and nether garments to match, became
him well. So thought the lady of his sudden
choice. She, no doubt, forgave his onslaught on
her and on her horse for the compliment it
conveyed. He took his immediate place at the
family board, and on the settle by the hearth,
as though he had been the most welcome and
long-invited guest in the land. Strange to say,
the vessel disappeared immediately he had left
her deck, nor was she ever after traced by land
or sea. At first, the stranger subdued all the
fierce phases of his savage character, and
appeared deeply grateful for all the kindness he
received at the hands of his simple-hearted host.
Certain letters which he addressed to persons of
high name in Denmark were, or were alleged to
be, duly answered, and remittances from his
friends were supposed to be received. He
announced himself as of a wealthy family and
superior rank in his native country, and gave
out that it was to avoid a marriage with a titled
lady that he, had left his father's house and gone
to sea. All this recommended him to the
unsuspecting Dinah, whose affections he completely
won. Her father's sudden illness postponed
their marriage. The good old man died to be
spared much evil to come.

The Dane succeeded almost naturally to the
management and control of the house, and the
widow held only an apparent influence in
domestic affairs. He soon persuaded the daughter
to become his wife, and immediately afterwards
his evil nature, so long smouldering, brake out
like a wild beast uncaged. All at once the
house became the den and refuge of every
lawless character on the coast. All kinds of wild
uproar and reckless revelry appalled the
neighbourhood day and night. It was discovered
that an organised band of desperadoes, smugglers,
wreckers, and poachers, were embarked in
a system of bold adventure, and that "Cruel
Coppinger" was their captain. In those
days, and in that unknown and far-away
region, the peaceable inhabitants were totally
unprotected. There was not a single resident
gentleman of property or weight in the entire
district: and the clergyman, quite insulated
from associates of his own standing, was cowed
into silence and submission. No revenue officer
durst exercise vigilance west of the Tamar;
and to put an end to all such surveillance at
once, it was well known that one of the
"Cruel" gang had chopped off a gauger's head
on the gunwale of a boat, and carried the body
off to sea.

Amid such scenes, Coppinger pursued his
unlawful impulses without check or restraint.
Strange vessels began to appear at regular intervals
on the coast, and signals were duly flashed
from the headlands to lead them into the
safest creek or cove. If the ground-sea were
too strong to allow them to run in, they
anchored outside the surf, and boats prepared
for that service were rowed or hauled to and
fro, freighted with illegal spoil. Amongst these
vessels, one, a full-rigged schooner, soon became
ominously conspicuous. She bore the name of
the Black Prince, and was the private
property of the Dane, built to his own order in a
dockyard of Denmark. She was for a long
time the chief terror of the Cornish Channel.
Once with Coppinger on board, when, under
chase, she led a revenue cutter into an intricate
channel near the Gull Rock, where, from
knowledge of the bearings, the Black Prince
escaped scathless, while the king's vessel
perished with all on board. In those times, if
any landsman became obnoxious to Coppinger's
men, he was either seized by violence or by craft,
and borne away, handcuffed, to the deck of the
Black Prince; where, to save his life, he had to
enrol himself, under fearful oaths, as one of the
crew. In 1835, an old man of the age of ninety-
seven related to the writer that, when a youth,
he had been so abducted, and after two years'
service had been ransomed by his friends with a
large sum. "And all," said the old man, very
simply, "because I happened to see one
man kill another, and they thought I should
mention it."

Amid such practices ill-gotten gold began to
flow and ebb in the hands of Coppinger. At
one time he chanced to hold enough money to
purchase a freehold farm bordering on the sea.
When the day of transfer arrived, he and one of
his followers appeared before the astonished
lawyer with bags filled with various kinds of
foreign coin. Dollars and ducats, doubloons and
pistoles, guineas—the coinage of every foreign
country with a seaboard—were displayed on
the table. The man of law at first demurred
to such purchase-money; but, after some
controversy, and an ominous oath or two of "that
or none," the lawyer agreed to take it by
weight. The document bearing Coppinger's
name is still extant. His signature is traced in
stern, bold, fierce characters, as if every letter
had been stabbed upon the parchment with the
point of a dirk. Underneath his autograph,
also in his own writing, is the word "Thuro."

Long impunity increased Coppinger's daring.
There were certain byways and bridle-roads along
the fields over which he exercised exclusive
control. Although every one had a perfect right
by law to use these ways, he issued orders that,
no man was to pass over them by night, and
accordingly from that hour none ever did. They
were called "Coppinger's Tracks." They
all converged at a headland which had the
name of Steeple Brink. Here the cliff sheered
off, and stood three hundred feet of
perpendicular height, a precipice of smooth rock
toward the beach, with an overhanging face one
hundred feet down from the brow. There was a