hanging from her sleeves, and a short môde mantle over her shoulders, was often seen walking in the gardens or standing under an apple-tree, leaning on the gold-headed cane she always carried. Indoors, too, her high-heeled shoes were plainly heard night after night tapping on the floors as she paced up and down the rooms, which noise was often varied by the whirring of her spinning-wheel. For some time the house was unoccupied, now it is divided into two, and the ghost has been laid to rest. But long after Mrs. Baines ceased to appear her wheel was heard. At last it was discovered that some leather, which had been nailed around a door to keep out draughts, was loose in places, and that the whistling of the wind through this made the peculiar sound. Mr. Bottrell says "that her spirit was laid by a parson, whose name he thinks was Singleton, and he succeeded in getting her away to the Western Green (west of Penzance), which was then spread over many acres of land, where the waves now roll.[1] Here this powerful parson single-handed bound her to spin from the banks ropes of sand for the term of a thousand years, unless she, before that time, spun a sufficiently long and strong one to reach from St. Michael's Mount to St. Clement's Isle (across the bay)." About a stone's throw from Mrs. Baines's house, on an eminence above Quay Street, stood in her days Penzance Chapel of Ease, for Penzance was then in Madron parish, called Our Lady's or St. Mary's Chapel. On the same site was built in 1835 the present parish church of St. Mary's. Here, in the memory of a few who still survive, a gentleman in the early part of the century did penance, and afterwards walked from thence through the streets to his house, wrapped in a sheet, with a lighted taper in his hand. It was usual then, as now, for the Mayor and Corporation of Penzance, with the mace-bearers and constables, to go once a month in state to church. Before the reading of the first lesson the mace-bearers left, and visited the public-houses, in order to see that they were shut during service time. When the sermon began they came back and returned to their seats in order to be in readiness to escort the Mayor home. Quay Street was
- ↑ The Penzance promenade is built on part of it. In my childhood it was said to be one of the resorts of "Spring-heeled Jack," of whom I then lived in mortal dread.
