Not a word broke upon the sound of the splashing oars
until, nearing the shore, one of the men, looking
round, directed us to steer a little to the right,
in the direction of a sort of dell or land-break, peculiar
to the Isle of Thanet; and presently we ran the head
of the boat upon the shingle, just where a small rivulet
that, descending from the higher grounds, waters the
thickly wooded ravine, and discharges itself into the
sea. The entrance of this dell is formed by a
lofty precipitous rock, with a few stunted overhanging
trees on one side, while the other is more open and
softened in its aspect, and though steep and narrow
at the mouth, gently slopes away into a brushwood-covered
bank, which, stretching up the little valley, becomes
lost in a forest of lofty oaks that close the inland
prospect of the place. Here, to the left (just
after one gets clear of the steeper part), commanding
a view of the sea, and yet almost concealed from the
eye of a careless traveller, was a lonely hut (the
back wall formed by an excavation of the sandy rock)
and the rest of clay, supporting a wooden roof, made
of the hull of a castaway wreck, the abode of an old
woman, called Grace Ganderne, well known throughout
the whole Isle of Thanet as a poor harmless secluded
widow, who subsisted partly on the charity of her
neighbours, and partly on what she could glean from
the smugglers, for the assistance she affords them
in running their goods on that coast; and though she
had been at work for forty years, she had never had
the misfortune to be detected in the act, notwithstanding
the many puncheons of spirits and many bales of goods
fished out of the dark woods near her domicile.
To this spot it was, just as the “setting sun’s
pathetic light” had been succeeded by the grey
twilight of the evening, that we bore the body of
our unfortunate companion. The door was closed,
but Grace being accustomed to nocturnal visitors,
speedily answered the first summons and presented
herself. She was evidently of immense age, being
nearly bowed double, and her figure, with her silvery
hair, confined by a blue checked cotton handkerchief,
and palsied hand, as tremblingly she rested upon her
staff and eyed the group, would have made a subject
worthy of the pencil of a Landseer. She was wrapped
in an old red cloak, with a large hood, and in her
ears she wore a pair of long gold-dropped earrings,
similar to what one sees among the Norman peasantry—the
gift, as I afterwards learned, of a drowned lover.
After scrutinising us for a second or two, during
which time a large black cat kept walking to and fro,
purring and rubbing itself against her, she held back
the door and beckoned us to enter. The little
place was cleanly swept up, and a faggot and some
dry brushwood, which she had just lighted for the
purpose of boiling her kettle, threw a gleam of light
over the apartment, alike her bedchamber, parlour,
and kitchen. Her curtainless bed at the side,
covered with a coarse brown counterpane, was speedily
prepared for our friend, into which being laid, our
new acquaintances were dispatched in search of doctors,
while the boatman and myself, under the direction
of old Grace, applied ourselves to procuring such
restoratives as her humble dwelling afforded.