The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1864-07-28
THE SHIPPERS WIFE.
A STORY FOUNDED ON FACT
From the London once a Week


Elruin is much like other fishing villages
on the Suffolk coast, nothing particularly
striking i'll the scenery. Some say the lights
on the water are more varied than in many
places, and when the sun sets in the sultry
simmer evenings, there certainly is par
ticularly bright line of dancing light from
the horiann ending where the waves ripple
in at the base of the cliff.
| say cliff, for there is only one at Elruin,
jutting out into the sea some forty yards
farther than the rest Of the mainland, which
forms almost straight line from the har
BORA mile to the east of the village, to the
remains Of the old castle, a,hundred yards
to the west ofthe cliff.
The Shark s-tooth Cliff, as it is called
rises about sixty feet above the sea it used
to be much higher once, but every year, as
the tide runs high,a portion gives way.
One Of the fishermen has often told me
that he could remember wel'as a child. its
being perfect hill, and that he and other
lads used to amuse themselves by sliding
down the slippery turf facing the sea, and
gathering the mushrooms for which the hill
used to be so celebrated.
The sea encroaches very FAST though not
so rapidly as it did before they put up the
breakWater.
At certain times when the tides are very
low, you can see a rock covered with long
matted sea weeds this the fishermen call
the BeIfry Rock, and it is where the old
parish church used to stand
Three years ago, when the tides were very
| low, hired boat, and was rowed out to
the Belfry The waters We're as still and
clear as crystal, and, gazing over the sides
of the crab-boat, | could distinctly make out
in places where the foundations must have
stood. | had been reading the account of
the old church in the county history and it
seemed to me so strange to be floating over
the foundations Of those Norman arches
that had once been so much admired
Ash gazed down, saw red lines of
sea-v eed lazily moving at the bottom, where
the shrimps were darting quickly about and
the little cells showing their pointed heads
from the crevices of what might have been
old building stones
1t was an important village once, Hruin.
and the church(so said by my county history
was the pride of the neighborhood.
The noble family Of Blas for many hun
bred years, owned the entire parish and,
among other strange things, | read how, up
to 1000, they used to enforce a toll onevery
boat in the village, as it returned from. the
herring or mackerel harvest and how no
boats were perInitte to put out on the day
that body was borne from the castle to
the family vaults, long since filled with sand
and sea-water
The iishermen's wives, even to the pres
ent day, brighten their noisy children into
silence by threatning to hand them over to
the Black Earl.
Who this Black Earl was | could never
quite satisfactorily discover: but tradition
said that an owner Of the place. some hun
dred of years ago, had finished a life of
unexampled wickedness, by sprlnging off the
cliff into the sea and this l know that,
even to this time, before storm che fisher
men will tell you that the form of the Black
Earl is to be seen lowering over where the
chancel OF the church once stood, AM. where
his body if it could have been found, would
have beeu buried,
Cant see much of the ruin young gen.
tleman, said the old fisherman VINO had
rowed me out, and who had been watching,
with evident satisfaction, the interes; l took
in surveying the site of the church, which
he, i'll common with the other villagers,
took great delight in pointing out
Very little" | said: waking from the
reverie about the old Norman church, st.
Matthias its vaults filled with sand and sea-
weed, and all those bodies resting around it.,
where the once grassy chnrchyard STITCHED
waiting till the sea shall give up ib dead
had been thinking and dreaming till |
could almost fancy that the low roling of
the sea was the sound Of the orgal, and
that once more Elruin church stood before
me- with its lofty spire and dsep-cut
windows, and that could, see the simple
fishing folk bowling before the old EarI.s
pew, who, with his wife and daughters, sat
in ruff1ed state, surrounded by the qlaintly
carved monument of sleeping ancestGs.
''Did you ever see the Black Ea.?'' l
said, raising my eyes from gazing over the
| side OF the boat, seeing that my coma Mon
expected me to talk.
Thank the Lord never he an,ve red,
re-flling his pipe: ''my mother did how
ever, atore that great storm, which blew
! so uncommon hard, ffty-six years ag. One