spoken of always with bated breath, and I knew that it was very cruel
to fisher folk, and hurt them so sometimes that they would cry whole
days and nights together with the pain, or would sit with white
scared faces, rocking themselves to and fro.

Once when I was playing among the sandhills, there came by a tall,
grey woman, bending beneath a load of driftwood. She paused when
nearly opposite to me, and, facing seaward, fixed her eyes upon the
breaking surf above the Bar. "Ah, how I hate the sight of your white
teeth!" she muttered; then turned and passed on.

Another morning, walking through the village, I heard a low wailing
come from one of the cottages, while a little farther on a group of
women were gathered in the roadway, talking. "Ay," said one of them,
"I thought the Bar was looking hungry last night."

So, putting one and the other together, I concluded that the "Bar"
must be an ogre, such as a body reads of in books, who lived in a
coral castle deep below the river's mouth, and fed upon the fishermen
as he caught them going down to the sea or coming home.

From my bedroom window, on moonlight nights, I could watch the
silvery foam, marking the spot beneath where he lay hid; and I would
stand on tip-toe, peering out, until at length I would come to fancy
I could see his hideous form floating below the waters. Then, as the
little white-sailed boats stole by him, tremblingly, I used to
tremble too, lest he should suddenly open his grim jaws and gulp them
down; and when they had all safely reached the dark, soft sea beyond,
I would steal back to the bedside, and pray to God to make the Bar
good, so that he would give up eating the poor fishermen.