had prowled and yelled there from time immemorial. The fishing folks, being superstitious, would not be persuaded that they were cats at all. They said that the yells were unearthly sounds proceeding from unhappy souls who were, for some dire misdeeds, tormented before their time, whilst their bodies rested in the lonely churchyard. They were, however, large ferocious creatures, that played havoc at times with the farmers' poultry. The farmers killed any of the cats they could get at, but many remained and wailed at nights round about the old church, which was hidden, all except the square grey tower, in the midst of the trees. Not one of the fisher lads would take his way by that church in the night-time, although it was a much shorter cut to their homes. through the churchyard from the boats in the creek.

Men and their sons who would, without the least hesitation, put off in a storm to a ship's crew on the Goodwin Sands, fought shy of that wood in the dark.

Once only Den went there as a boy, but it was in the day-time, when the sun was shining brightly, and the birds were singing in full chorus in the wood outside. Inside, the windows were arched, with

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quarried lights, and the glass was dim and yellow with age. There was only one window of stained glass. Weird old carvings on the pulpit sides represented the states of the blessed and of the condemned. There were old grotesque carvings on the ends of the seats also. It was a dreary place; those who ever worshipped there might have fancied they were pleasing their Maker by condemning themselves for a space, voluntarily, to a living tomb.

The boy said afterwards he felt as though he could not stop in it; a weird uncanny feeling took possession of him, a creeping sensation, as though he was in the presence of what was unholy and unnatural. He hurried out, and never went there again until many years afterwards, when the dark wood had been cleared away, and the ground had been grubbed up and the place converted into blossoming fruit orchards. That small fishing hamlet, with its scattered homes dotted here, there, and everywhere, like rooks' nests in the elmtrees, has been improved away, and a cheerful village now stands in its place.

The narrow winding road that led to it from the

old coach-road to London has been widened, so that it is no longer necessary for the farmers who drive their waggons there to put peals of bells on each of their horses, to give notice by their jangling music that they have entered the lane at one end, and therefore there will not be room for any other waggon to pass them in coming up from the other side.

But in spite of all improvements-railways and good board schools-superstition and religious fanaticism still have a great hold on the country and fisher folks in the out-of-the-way hamlets on and about those flats.

It was near the spot I have been describing, that deluded or deluding Courtenay fell with a number of Kentish peasants, riddled with bullets from the muskets of a company of soldiers, whose commanding officer Courtenay had shot with a pistol when he was endeavouring to parley with the rioters. Den's father saw the fantastic impostor as he lay dead on the ground at that fatal gathering-place. That was soon after Denzil's birth. His mother also saw and heard him address the people in the neighbourhood of their home.

Our readers will most of them be familiar with the details of what was called the Courtenay delusion of the year 1835. Long after the more educated people in and about Canterbury had ceased to believe in the man who called himself the Knight of Malta and the King of Jerusalem-and who went about in a gorgeous crimson uniform, attended by two gentlemen of highly respectable position, with a sword at his side, and wearing a long flowing beard, which was very unusual at that time — the country folks in the North Kent marshes believed him to be what he proclaimed himself to them, a second Messiah, sent to deliver them from their poverty, and to give them the wealth of the city of Canterbury. He shot a constable dead who tried to stop his proceedings; and it was then that the military were ordered out to put down what had become an insurrection.

The whole population of one prosperous village worshipped him, and many, indeed, died for him, after making a most violent and determined charge on the soldiers.

Courtenay's real name was Thom, and he was, in point of fact, an insolvent brewer; but even after

he had been confined in an asylum as a lunatic, the poorer people still believed in him, although the loss of his flowing beard and his grand uniform had made a great change in his appearance. Besides those who were shot, others of his followers were tried for murder; for they had fallen upon the first body of soldiers, who were unarmed. These were sentenced to be executed; but in consideration of their ignorance and the extraordinary fascination exercised by Thom, they were allowed to go free again.

But even in this year of 1890, we can positively affirm that it would hardly be safe in the outlying districts surrounding that fatal gathering-place to mention with a sneer or a rude jest the name of William Courtenay. The descendants of those who followed him-a few of whom are still living therebelieve in him to this day.