Castle. It was then, upon that very beach, some hundred yards distant
from high-water mark, that his eye fell upon something like an ugly
woman in a red cloak. She was seated on what seemed to be a large
stone, in an interesting attitude, with her elbows resting upon her
knees, and her chin upon her thumbs The Baron started; the remembrance
of his interview with a similar personage in the same place, some three
years since, flashed upon his recollection. He rushed towards the spot,
but the form was gone:--nothing remained but the seat it had appeared
to occupy. This, on examination, turned out to be no stone, but the
whitened skull of a dead horse! A tender remembrance of the deceased
Grey Dolphin shot a momentary pang into the Baron's bosom: he drew the
back of his hand across his face; the thought of the hag's prediction
in an instant rose, and banished all softer emotions. In utter contempt
of his own weakness, yet with a tremor that deprived his redoubtable
kick of half its wonted force, he spurned the relic with his foot. One
word alone issued from his lips, elucidatory of what was passing in his
mind--it long remained imprinted on the memory of his faithful
followers--that word was "Gammon!" The skull bounded across the beach
till it reached the very margin of the stream:--one instant more and it
would be ingulfed for ever. At that moment a loud "Ha! ha! ha!" was
distinctly heard by the whole train to issue from its bleached and
toothless jaws: it sank beneath the flood in a horselaugh.

Meanwhile Sir Robert de Shurland felt an odd sort of sensation in his
right foot. His boots had suffered in the wars. Great pains had been
taken for their preservation. They had been "soled" and "heeled" more
than once:--had they been "goloshed," their owner might have defied
Fate! Well has it been said that "there is no such a thing as a
trifle." A nobleman's life depended upon a question of ninepence.