Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I don't know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain.

Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss--for as to sherry, my poor dear mother's own sherry was in the market then--and ten years afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings.

I was present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in that way.

The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short--as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any effect to prove to her.

It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two.