Without any more ado, she kissed the child, and wanted to carry him straight away, after courtesying to his worship; but all the other women insisted on a smack of him, for pity's sake, and the pleasure of the gold, and to confirm the settlement. And a settlement it was, for nothing came of any publication of the case, such as in those days could be made without great expense and exertion.

So the boy grew up, tall, brave, and comely, and full of the spirit of adventure, as behooved a boy cast on the winds. So far as that goes, his foster-parents would rather have found him more steady and less comely, for if he was to step into their lost son's shoes, he might do it without seeming to outshine him. But they got over that little jealousy in time, when the boy began to be useful, and, so far as was possible, they kept him under by quoting against him the character of Bob, bringing it back from heaven of a much higher quality than ever it was upon the earth. In vain did this living child aspire to such level; how can an earthly boy compare with one who never did a wrong thing, as soon as he was dead?

Passing that difficult question, and forbearing to compare a boy with angels, be he what he will, his first need (after that of victuals) is a name whereby his fellow-boys may know him. Is he to be shouted at with, "Come here, what's your name?" or is he to be called (as if in high rebuke), "Boy?" And yet there are grown-up folk who do all this without hesitation, failing to remember their own predicament at a by-gone period. Boys are as useful, in their way, as any other order; and if they can be said to do some mischief, they can not be said to do it negligently. It is their privilege and duty to be truly active; and their Maker, having spread a dull world before them, has provided them with gifts of play while their joints are supple.

The present boy, having been born without a father or a mother (so far as could yet be discovered), was driven to do what our ancestors must have done when it was less needful. That is to say, to work his own name out by some distinctive process. When the parson had clearly shown him not to be a Frenchman, a large contumely spread itself about, by reason of his gold, and eyes, and hair, and name (which might be meant for Isaak), that he was sprung from a race more honored now than a hundred years ago. But the women declared that it could not be; and the rector desiring to christen him, because it might never have been done before, refused point-blank to put any "Isaac" in, and was satisfied with "Robin" only, the name of the man who had saved him.

The rector showed deep knowledge of his flock, which looked upon Jews as the goats of the Kingdom; for any Jew must die for a world of generations ere ever a Christian thinks much of him. But finding him not to be a Jew, the other boys, instead of being satisfied, condemned him for a Dutchman.

Whatever he was, the boy throve well, and being so flouted by his playmates, took to thoughts and habits and amusements of his own. In-door life never suited him at all, nor too much of hard learning, although his capacity was such that he took more advancement in an hour than the thick heads of young Flamborough made in a whole leap-year of Sundays. For any Flamburian boy was considered a "Brain Scholar," and a "Head-Languager," when he could write down the parson's text, and chalk up a fish on the weigh-board so that his father or mother could tell in three guesses what manner of fish it was. And very few indeed had ever passed this trial.

For young Robin it was a very hard thing to be treated so by the other boys. He could run, or jump, or throw a stone, or climb a rock with the best of them; but all these things he must do by himself, simply because he had no name. A feeble youth would have moped, but Robin only grew more resolute. Alone he did what the other boys would scarcely in competition dare. No crag was too steep for him, no cave too dangerous and wave-beaten, no race of the tide so strong and swirling as to scare him of his wits. He seemed to rejoice in danger, having very little else to rejoice in; and he won for himself by nimble ways and rapid turns on land and sea, the name of "Lithe," or "Lyth," and made it famous even far inland.

For it may be supposed that his love of excitement, versatility, and daring demanded a livelier outlet than the slow toil of deep-sea fishing. To the most patient, persevering, and long-suffering of the arts, Robin Lyth did not take kindly, although he was so handy with a boat. Old Robin vainly strove to cast his angling mantle over him. The gifts of the youth were brighter and higher; he showed an inborn fitness for the lofty development of free trade. Eminent powers must force their way, as now they were doing with Napoleon; and they did the same with Robin Lyth, without exacting tithe in kind of all the foremost human race.



CHAPTER XII

IN A LANE, NOT ALONE

Stephen Anerley's daughter was by no means of a crooked mind, but open as the day in all things, unless any one mistrusted her, and showed it by cross-questioning. When this was done, she resented it quickly by concealing the very things which she would have told of her own accord; and it so happened that the person to whom of all she should have been most open, was the one most apt to check her by suspicious curiosity. And now her mother already began to do this, as concerned the smuggler, knowing from the revenue officer that Mary must have seen him. Mary, being a truthful damsel, told no lies about it; but, on the other hand, she did not rush forth with all the history, as she probably would have done if left unexamined. And so she said nothing about the ear-ring, or the run that was to come off that week, or the riding-skirt, or a host of little things, including her promise to visit Bempton Lane.

On the other hand, she had a mind to tell her father, and take his opinion about it all. But he was a little cross that evening, not with her, but with the world at large; and that discouraged her; and then she thought that being an officer of the king—as he liked to call himself sometimes—he might feel bound to give information about the impending process of free trade; which to her would be a breach of honor, considering how she knew of it.

Upon the whole, she heartily wished that she never had seen that Robin Lyth; and then she became ashamed of herself for indulging such a selfish wish. For he might have been lying dead but for her; and then what would become of the many poor people whose greatest comfort he was said to be? And what good could arise from his destruction, if cruel people compassed it? Free trade must be carried on, for the sake of everybody, including Captain Carroway himself; and if an old and ugly man succeeded a young and generous one as leader of the free-trade movement, all the women in the country would put the blame on her.

Looking at these things loftily, and with a strong determination not to think twice of what any one might say who did not understand the subject, Mary was forced at last to the stern conclusion that she must keep her promise. Not only because it was a promise—although that went a very long way with her—but also because there seemed no other chance of performing a positive duty. Simple honesty demanded that she should restore to the owner a valuable, and beyond all doubt important, piece of property. Two hours had she spent in looking for it, and deprived her dear father of his breakfast shrimps; and was all this trouble to be thrown away, and herself, perhaps, accused of theft, because her mother was so short and sharp in wanting to know everything, and to turn it her own way?

The trinket, which she had found at last, seemed to be a very uncommon and precious piece of jewelry; it was made of pure gold, minutely chased and threaded with curious workmanship, in form like a melon, and bearing what seemed to be characters of some foreign language: there might be a spell, or even witchcraft, in it, and the sooner it was out of her keeping the better. Nevertheless she took very good care of it, wrapping it in lamb's-wool, and peeping at it many times a day, to be sure that it was safe, until it made her think of the owner so much, and the many wonders she had heard about him, that she grew quite angry with herself and it, and locked it away, and then looked at it again.

As luck would have it, on the very day when Mary was to stroll down Bempton Lane (not to meet any one, of course, but simply for the merest chance of what might happen), her father had business at Driffield corn market, which would keep him from home nearly all the day. When his daughter heard of it she was much cast down; for she hoped that he might have been looking about on the northern part of the farm, as he generally was in the afternoon; and although he could not see Bempton Lane at all, perhaps, without some newly acquired power of seeing round sharp corners, still it would have been a comfort and a strong resource for conscience to have felt that he was not so very far away. And this feeling of want made his daughter resolve to have some one at any rate near her. If Jack had only been at home, she need have sought no further, for he would have entered into all her thoughts about it, and obeyed her orders beautifully. But Willie was quite different, and hated any trouble, being spoiled so by his mother and the maidens all around them.

However, in such a strait, what was there to do but to trust in Willie, who was old enough, being five years in front of Mary, and then to try to make him sensible? Willie Anerley had no idea that anybody—far less his own sister—could take such a view of him. He knew himself to be, and all would say the same of him, superior in his original gifts, and his manner of making use of them, to the rest of the family put together. He had spent a month in Glasgow, when the whole place was astir with the ferment of many great inventions, and another month in Edinburgh, when that noble city was aglow with the dawn of large ideas; also, he had visited London, foremost of his family, and seen enough new things there to fill all Yorkshire with surprise; and the result of such wide experience was that he did not like hard work at all. Neither could he even be content to accept and enjoy, without labor of his own, the many good things provided for him. He was always trying to discover something which never seemed to answer, and continually flying after something new, of which he never got fast hold. In a word, he was spoiled, by nature first, and then by circumstances, for the peaceful life of his ancestors, and the unacknowledged blessings of a farmer.

"Willie dear, will you come with me?" Mary said to him that day, catching him as he ran down stairs to air some inspiration. "Will you come with me for just one hour? I wish you would; and I would be so thankful."

"Child, it is quite impossible," he answered, with a frown which set off his delicate eyebrows and high but rather narrow forehead; "you always want me at the very moment when I have the most important work in hand. Any childish whim of yours matters more than hours and hours of hard labor."

"Oh, Willie, but you know how I try to help you, and all the patterns I cut out last week! Do come for once, Willie; if you refuse, you will never, never forgive yourself."

Willie Anerley was as good-natured as any self-indulged youth can be; he loved his sister in his way, and was indebted to her for getting out of a great many little scrapes. He saw how much she was in earnest now, and felt some desire to know what it was about. Moreover—which settled the point—he was getting tired of sticking to one thing for a time unusually long with him. But he would not throw away the chance of scoring a huge debt of gratitude.

"Well, do what you like with me," he answered, with a smile; "I never can have my own way five minutes. It serves me quite right for being so good-natured."

Mary gave him a kiss, which must have been an object of ambition to anybody else; but it only made him wipe his mouth; and presently the two set forth upon the path toward Bempton.

Robin Lyth had chosen well his place for meeting Mary. The lane (of which he knew every yard as well as he knew the rocks themselves) was deep and winding, and fringed with bushes, so that an active and keen-eyed man might leap into thicket almost before there was a fair chance of shooting him. He knew well enough that he might trust Mary; but he never could be sure that the bold "coast-riders," despairing by this time of catching him at sea, and longing for the weight of gold put upon his head, might not be setting privy snares to catch him in his walks abroad. They had done so when they pursued him up the Dike; and though he was inclined to doubt the strict legality of that proceeding, he could not see his way to a fair discussion of it, in case of their putting a bullet through him. And this consideration made him careful.

The brother and sister went on well by the foot-path over the uplands of the farm, and crossing the neck of the Flamburn peninsula, tripped away merrily northward. The wheat looked healthy, and the barley also, and a four-acre patch of potatoes smelled sweetly (for the breeze of them was pleasant in their wholesome days), and Willie, having overworked his brain, according to his own account of it, strode along loftily before his sister, casting over his shoulder an eddy of some large ideas with which he had been visited before she interrupted him. But as nothing ever came of them, they need not here be stated. From a practical point of view, however, as they both had to live upon the profits of the farm, it pleased them to observe what a difference there was when they had surmounted the chine and began to descend toward the north upon other people's land. Here all was damp and cold and slow; and chalk looked slimy instead of being clean; and shadowy places had an oozy cast; and trees (wherever they could stand) were facing the east with wrinkled visage, and the west with wiry beards. Willie (who had, among other great inventions, a scheme for improvement of the climate) was reminded at once of all the things he meant to do in that way; and making, as he always did, a great point of getting observations first—a point whereon he stuck fast mainly—without any time for delay he applied himself to a rapid study of the subject. He found some things just like other things which he had seen in Scotland, yet differing so as to prove, more clearly than even their resemblance did, the value of his discovery.

"Look!" he cried; "can anything be clearer? The cause of all these evils is not (as an ignorant person might suppose) the want of sunshine, or too much wet, but an inadequate movement of the air—"

"Why, I thought it was always blowing up here. The very last time I came, my bonnet strings were split."

"You do not understand me; you never do. When I say inadequate, I mean, of course, incorrect, inaccurate, unequable. Now the air is a fluid; you may stare as you like, Mary, but the air has been proved to be a fluid. Very well; no fluid in large bodies moves with an equal velocity throughout. Part of it is rapid and part quite stagnant. The stagnant places of the air produce this green scum, this mossy, unwholesome, and injurious stuff; while the overrapid motion causes this iron appearance, this hard surface, and general sterility. By the simplest of simple contrivances, I make this evil its own remedy. An equable impulse given to the air produces an adequate uniform flow, preventing stagnation in one place, and excessive vehemence in another. And the beauty of it is that by my new invention I make the air itself correct and regulate its own inequalities."

"How clever you are, to be sure!" exclaimed Mary, wondering that her father could not see it. "Oh, Willie, you will make your fortune by it! However do you do it?"

"The simplicity of it is such that even you can understand it. All great discoveries are simple. I fix in a prominent situation a large and vertically revolving fan, of a light and vibrating substance. The movement of the air causes this to rotate by the mere force of the impact. The rotation and the vibration of the fan convert an irregular impulse into a steady and equable undulation; and such is the elasticity of the fluid called, in popular language, 'the air,' that for miles around the rotation of this fan regulates the circulation, modifies extremes, annihilates sterility, and makes it quite impossible for moss and green scum and all this sour growth to live. Even you can see, Mary, how beautiful it is."

"Yes, that I can," she answered, simply, as they turned the corner upon a large windmill, with arms revolving merrily; "but, Willie dear, would not Farmer Topping's mill, perpetually going as it is, answer the same purpose? And yet the moss seems to be as thick as ever here, and the ground as naked."

"Tush!" cried Willie. "Stuff and nonsense! When will you girls understand? Good-by! I will throw away no more time on you."

Without stopping to finish his sentence he was off and out of sight both of the mill and Mary, before the poor girl, who had not the least intention of offending him, could even beg his pardon, or say how much she wanted him; for she had not dared as yet to tell him what was the purpose of her walk, his nature being such that no one, not even his own mother, could tell what conclusion he might come to upon any practical question. He might rush off at once to put the revenue men on the smuggler's track, or he might stop his sister from going, or he might (in the absence of his father) order a feast to be prepared, and fetch the outlaw to be his guest. So Mary had resolved not to tell him until the last moment, when he could do none of these things.

But now she must either go on all alone, or give up her purpose and break her promise. After some hesitation she determined to go on, for the place would scarcely seem so very lonely now with the windmill in view, which would always remind her henceforth of her dear brother William. It was perfectly certain that Captain Robert Lyth, whose fame for chivalry was everywhere, and whose character was all in all to him with the ladies who bought his silks and lace, would see her through all danger caused by confidence in him; and really it was too bad of her to admit any paltry misgivings. But reason as she might, her young conscience told her that this was not the proper thing to do, and she made up her mind not to do it again. Then she laughed at the notion of being ever even asked, and told herself that she was too conceited; and to cut the matter short, went very bravely down the hill.

The lane, which came winding from the beach up to the windmill, was as pretty a lane as may anywhere be found in any other county than that of Devon. With a Devonshire lane it could not presume to vie, having little of the glorious garniture of fern, and nothing of the crystal brook that leaps at every corner; no arches of tall ash, keyed with dog-rose, and not much of honeysuckle, and a sight of other wants which people feel who have lived in the plenitude of everything. But in spite of all that, the lane was very fine for Yorkshire.

On the other hand, Mary had prettier ankles, and a more graceful and lighter walk, than the Devonshire lanes, which like to echo something, for the most part seem accustomed to; and the short dress of the time made good such favorable facts when found. Nor was this all that could be said, for the maiden (while her mother was so busy pickling cabbage, from which she drove all intruders) had managed to forget what the day of the week was, and had opened the drawer that should be locked up until Sunday. To walk with such a handsome tall fellow as Willie compelled her to look like something too, and without any thought of it she put her best hat on, and a very pretty thing with some French name, and made of a delicate peach-colored silk, which came down over her bosom, and tied in the neatest of knots at the small of her back, which at that time of life was very small. All these were the gifts of her dear uncle Popplewell, upon the other side of Filey, who might have been married for forty years, but nobody knew how long it was, because he had no children, and so he made Mary his darling. And this ancient gentleman had leanings toward free trade.

Whether these goods were French or not—which no decent person could think of asking—no French damsel could have put them on better, or shown a more pleasing appearance in them; for Mary's desire was to please all people who meant no harm to her—as nobody could—and yet to let them know that her object was only to do what was right, and to never think of asking whether she looked this, that, or the other. Her mother, as a matter of duty, told her how plain she was almost every day; but the girl was not of that opinion; and when Mrs. Anerley finished her lecture (as she did nine times in ten) by turning the glass to the wall, and declaring that beauty was a snare skin-deep, with a frown of warning instead of a smile of comfort, then Mary believed in her looking-glass again, and had the smile of comfort on her own face.

However, she never thought of that just now, but only of how she could do her duty, and have no trouble in her own mind with thinking, and satisfy her father when she told him all, as she meant to do, when there could be no harm done to any one; and this, as she heartily hoped, would be to-morrow. And truly, if there did exist any vanity at all, it was not confined to the sex in which it is so much more natural and comely.

For when a very active figure came to light suddenly, at a little elbow of the lane, and with quick steps advanced toward Mary, she was lost in surprise at the gayety, not to say grandeur, of its apparel. A broad hat, looped at the side, and having a pointed black crown, with a scarlet feather and a dove-colored brim, sat well upon the mass of crisp black curls. A short blue jacket of the finest Flemish cloth, and set (not too thickly) with embossed silver buttons, left properly open the strong brown neck, while a shirt of pale blue silk, with a turned-down collar of fine needle-work, fitted, without a wrinkle or a pucker, the broad and amply rounded chest. Then a belt of brown leather, with an anchor clasp, and empty loops for either fire-arm or steel, supported true sailor's trousers of the purest white and the noblest man-of-war cut; and where these widened at the instep shone a lovely pair of pumps, with buckles radiant of best Bristol diamonds. The wearer of all these splendors smiled, and seemed to become them as they became him.

"Well," thought Mary, "how free trade must pay! What a pity that he is not in the Royal Navy!"

With his usual quickness, and the self-esteem which added such lustre to his character, the smuggler perceived what was passing in her mind, but he was not rude enough to say so.

"Young lady," he began—and Mary, with all her wisdom, could not help being fond of that—"young lady, I was quite sure that you would keep your word."

"I never do anything else," she answered, showing that she scarcely looked at him. "I have found this for you, and then good-by."

"Surely you will wait to hear my thanks, and to know what made me dare to ask you, after all you had done for me already, to begin again for me. But I am such an outcast that I never should have done it."

"I never saw any one look more thoroughly unlike an outcast," Mary said; and then she was angry with herself for speaking, and glancing, and, worst of all, for smiling,

"Ladies who live on land can never understand what we go through," Robin replied, in his softest voice, as rich as the murmur of the summer sea. "When we expect great honors, we try to look a little tidy, as any one but a common boor would do; and we laugh at ourselves for trying to look well, after all the knocking about we get. Our time is short—we must make the most of it."

"Oh, please not to talk in such a dreadful way," said Mary.

"You remind me of my dear friend Dr. Upround—the very best man in the whole world, I believe. He always says to me, 'Robin, Robin—'"

"What! is Dr. Upandown a friend of yours?" Mary exclaimed, in amazement, and with a stoppage of the foot that was poised for quick departure.

"Dr. Upandown, as many people call him," said the smuggler, with a tone of condemnation, "is the best and dearest friend I have, next to Captain and Mistress Cockscroft, who may have been heard of at Anerley Manor. Dr. Upround is our magistrate and clergyman, and he lets people say what they like against me, while he honors me with his friendship. I must not stay long to thank you even, because I am going to the dear old doctor's for supper at seven o'clock and a game of chess."

"Oh dear! oh dear! And he is such a Justice! And yet they shot at you last week! It makes me wonder when I hear such things."

"Young lady, it makes everybody wonder. In my opinion there never could be a more shameful murder than to shoot me; and yet but for you it would surely have been done."

"You must not dwell upon such things," said Mary; "they may have a very bad effect upon your mind. But good-by, Captain Lyth; I forgot that I was robbing Dr. Upround of your society."

"Shall I be so ungrateful as not to see you safe upon your own land after all your trouble? My road to Flamborough lies that way. Surely you will not refuse to hear what made me so anxious about this bauble, which now will be worth ten times as much. I never saw it look so bright before."

"It—it must be the sand has made it shine," the maiden stammered, with a fine bright blush; "it does the same to my shrimping net."

"Ah, shrimping is a very fine pursuit! There is nothing I love better; what pools I could show you, if I only might; pools where you may fill a sack with large prawns in a single tide—pools known to nobody but myself. When do you think of going shrimping next?"

"Perhaps next summer I may try again, if Captain Carroway will come with me."

"That is too unkind of you. How very harsh you are to me! I could hardly have believed it after all that you have done. And you really do not care to hear the story of this relic?"

"If I could stop, I should like it very much. But my brother, who came with me, may perhaps be waiting for me." Mary knew that this was not very likely; still, it was just possible, for Willie's ill tempers seldom lasted very long; and she wanted to let the smuggler know that she had not come all alone to meet him.

"I shall not be two minutes," Robin Lyth replied; "I have been forced to learn short talking. May I tell you about this trinket?"

"Yes, if you will only begin at once, and finish by the time we get to that corner."

"That is very short measure for a tale," said Robin, though he liked her all the better for such qualities; "however, I will try; only walk a little slower. Nobody knows where I was born, any more than they know how or why. Only when I came upon this coast as a very little boy, and without knowing anything about it, they say that I had very wonderful buttons of gold upon a linen dress, adorned with gold-lace, which I used to wear on Sundays. Dr. Upround ordered them to keep those buttons, and was to have had them in his own care; but before that, all of them were lost save two. My parents, as I call them from their wonderful goodness, kinder than the ones who have turned me on the world (unless themselves went out of it), resolved to have my white coat done up grandly, when I grew too big for it, and to lay it by in lavender; and knowing of a great man in the gold-lace trade, as far away as Scarborough, they sent it by a fishing-smack to him, with people whom they knew thoroughly. That was the last of it ever known here. The man swore a manifest that he never saw it, and threatened them with libel; and the smack was condemned, and all her hands impressed, because of some trifle she happened to carry; and nobody knows any more of it. But two of the buttons had fallen off, and good mother had put them by, to give a last finish to the coat herself; and when I grew up, and had to go to sea at night, they were turned into a pair of ear-rings. There, now, Miss Anerley, I have not been long, and you know all about it."

"How very lonesome it must be for you," said Mary, with a gentle gaze, which, coming from such lovely eyes, went straight into his heart, "to have no one belonging to you by right, and to seem to belong to nobody! I am sure I can not tell whatever I should do without any father, or mother, or uncle, or even a cousin to be certain of."

"All the ladies seem to think that it is rather hard upon me," Robin answered, with an excellent effort at a sigh; "but I do my very best to get on without them. And one thing that helps me most of all is when kind ladies, who have good hearts, allow me to talk to them as if I had a sister. This makes me forget what I am sometimes."

"You never should try to forget what you are. Everybody in the world speaks well of you. Even that cruel Lieutenant Carroway can not help admiring you. And if you have taken to free trade, what else could you do, when you had no friends, and even your coat was stolen?"

"High-minded people take that view of it, I know. But I do not pretend to any such excuse. I took to free trade for the sake of my friends—to support the old couple who have been so good to me."

"That is better still; it shows such good principle. My uncle Popplewell has studied the subject of what they call 'political economy,' and he says that the country requires free trade, and the only way to get it is to go on so that the government must give way at last. However, I need not instruct you about that; and you must not stop any longer."

"Miss Anerley, I will not encroach upon your kindness. You have said things that I never shall forget. On the Continent I meet very many ladies who tell me good things, and make me better; but not at all as you have done. A minute of talk with you is worth an hour with anybody else. But I fear that you laugh at me all the while, and are only too glad to be rid of me. Good-by. May I kiss your hand? God bless you!"

Mary had no time to say a single word, or even to express her ideas by a look, before Robin Lyth, with all his bright apparel, was "conspicuous by his absence." As a diving bird disappears from a gun, or a trout from a shadow on his hover, or even a debtor from his creditor, so the great free-trader had vanished into lightsome air, and left emptiness behind him.

The young maid, having been prepared to yield him a few yards more of good advice, if he held out for another corner, now could only say to herself that she never had met such a wonderful man. So active, strong, and astonishingly brave; so thoroughly acquainted with foreign lands, yet superior to their ladies; so able to see all the meaning of good words, and to value them when offered quietly; so sweet in his manner, and voice, and looks; and with all his fame so unpretending, and—much as it frightened her to think it—really seeming to be afraid of her.



CHAPTER XIII

GRUMBLING AND GROWLING

While these successful runs went on, and great authorities smiled at seeing the little authorities set at naught, and men of the revenue smote their breasts for not being born good smugglers, and the general public was well pleased, and congratulated them cordially upon their accomplishment of naught, one man there was whose noble spirit chafed and knew no comfort. He strode up and down at Coast-guard Point, and communed with himself, while Robin held sweet converse in the lane.

"Why was I born?" the sad Carroway cried; "why was I thoroughly educated and trained in both services of the king, expected to rise, and beginning to rise, till a vile bit of splinter stopped me, and then sent down to this hole of a place to starve, and be laughed at, and baffled by a boy? Another lucky run, and the revenue bamboozled, and the whole of us sent upon a wild-goose chase! Every gapper-mouth zany grinning at me, and scoundrels swearing that I get my share! And the only time I have had my dinner with my knees crook'd, for at least a fortnight, was at Anerley Farm on Sunday. I am not sure that even they wouldn't turn against me; I am certain that pretty girl would. I've a great mind to throw it up—a great mind to throw it up. It is hardly the work for a gentleman born, and the grandson of a rear-admiral. Tinkers' and tailors' sons get the luck now; and a man of good blood is put on the back shelf, behind the blacking-bottles. A man who has battled for his country—"

"Charles, are you coming to your dinner, once more?"

"No, I am not. There's no dinner worth coming to. You and the children may eat the rat pie. A man who has battled for his country, and bled till all his veins were empty, and it took two men to hold him up, and yet waved his Sword at the head of them—it is the downright contradiction of the world in everything for him to poke about with pots and tubs, like a pig in a brewery, grain-hunting."

"Once more, Charles, there is next to nothing left. The children are eating for their very lives. If you stay out there another minute, you must take the consequence."

"Alas, that I should have so much stomach, and so little to put into it! My dear, put a little bit under a basin, if any of them has no appetite. I wanted just to think a little."

"Charles, they have all got tremendous appetites. It is the way the wind is. You may think by-and-by, but if you want to eat, you must do it now, or never."

"'Never' never suits me in that matter," the brave lieutenant answered. "Matilda, put Geraldine to warm the pewter plate for me. Geraldine darling, you can do it with your mouth full."

The commander of the coast-guard turned abruptly from his long indignant stride, and entered the cottage provided for him, and which he had peopled so speedily.

Small as it was, it looked beautifully clean and neat, and everybody used to wonder how Mrs. Carroway kept it so. But in spite of all her troubles and many complaints, she was very proud of this little house, with its healthful position and beautiful outlook over the bay of Bridlington. It stood in a niche of the low soft cliff, where now the sea-parade extends from the northern pier of Bridlington Quay; and when the roadstead between that and the point was filled with a fleet of every kind of craft, or, better still, when they all made sail at once—as happened when a trusty breeze arose—the view was lively, and very pleasant, and full of moving interest. Often one of his Majesty's cutters, Swordfish, Kestrel, or Albatross, would swoop in with all sail set, and hover, while the skipper came ashore to see the "Ancient Carroway," as this vigilant officer was called; and sometimes even a sloop of war, armed brigantine, or light corvette, prowling for recruits, or cruising for their training, would run in under the Head, and overhaul every wind-bound ship with a very high hand.

"Ancient Carroway"—as old friends called him, and even young people who had never seen him—was famous upon this coast now for nearly three degrees of latitude. He had dwelled here long, and in highly good content, hospitably treated by his neighbors, and himself more hospitable than his wife could wish, until two troubles in his life arose, and from year to year grew worse and worse. One of these troubles was the growth of mouths in number and size, that required to be filled; and the other trouble was the rampant growth of smuggling, and the glory of that upstart Robin Lyth. Now let it be lawful to take that subject first.

Fair Robin, though not at all anxious for fame, but modestly willing to decline it, had not been successful—though he worked so much by night—in preserving sweet obscurity. His character was public, and set on high by fortune, to be gazed at from wholly different points of view. From their narrow and lime-eyed outlook the coast-guard beheld in him the latest incarnation of Old Nick; yet they hated him only in an abstract manner, and as men feel toward that evil one. Magistrates also, and the large protective powers, were arrayed against him, yet happy to abstain from laying hands, when their hands were their own, upon him. And many of the farmers, who should have been his warmest friends and best customers, were now so attached to their king and country, by bellicose warmth and army contracts, that instead of a guinea for a four-gallon anker, they would offer three crowns, or the exciseman. And not only conscience, but short cash, after three bad harvests, constrained them.

Yet the staple of public opinion was sound, as it must be where women predominate. The best of women could not see why they should not have anything they wanted for less than it cost the maker. To gaze at a sister woman better dressed at half the money was simply to abjure every lofty principle. And to go to church with a counterfeit on, when the genuine lace was in the next pew on a body of inferior standing, was a downright outrage to the congregation, the rector, and all religion. A cold-blooded creature, with no pin-money, might reconcile it with her principles, if any she had, to stand up like a dowdy and allow a poor man to risk his life by shot and storm and starvation, and then to deny him a word or a look, because of his coming with the genuine thing at a quarter the price fat tradesmen asked, who never stirred out of their shops when it rained, for a thing that was a story and an imposition. Charity, duty, and common honesty to their good husbands in these bad times compelled them to make the very best of bargains; of which they got really more and more, as those brave mariners themselves bore witness, because of the depression in the free trade now and the glorious victories of England. Were they bound to pay three times the genuine value, and then look a figure, and be laughed at?

And as for Captain Carroway, let him scold, and threaten, and stride about, and be jealous, because his wife dare not buy true things, poor creature—although there were two stories also about that, and the quantities of things that he got for nothing, whenever he was clever enough to catch them, which scarcely ever happened, thank goodness! Let Captain Carroway attend to his own business; unless he was much belied, he had a wife who would keep him to it. Who was Captain Carroway to come down here, without even being born in Yorkshire, and lay down the law, as if he owned the manor?

Lieutenant Carroway had heard such questions, but disdained to answer them. He knew who he was, and what his grandfather had been, and he never cared a—short word—what sort of stuff long tongues might prate of him. Barbarous broad-drawlers, murderers of his Majesty's English, could they even pronounce the name of an officer highly distinguished for many years in both of the royal services? That was his description, and the Yorkshire yokels might go and read it—if read they could—in the pages of authority.

Like the celebrated calf that sucked two cows, Carroway had drawn royal pay, though in very small drains, upon either element, beginning with a skeleton regiment, and then, when he became too hot for it, diving off into a frigate as a recommended volunteer. Here he was more at home, though he never ceased longing to be a general; and having the credit of fighting well ashore, he was looked at with interest when he fought a fight at sea. He fought it uncommonly well, and it was good, and so many men fell that he picked up his commission, and got into a fifty-two-gun ship. After several years of service, without promotion—for his grandfather's name was worn out now, and the wars were not properly constant—there came a very lively succession of fights, and Carroway got into all of them, or at least into all the best of them. And he ought to have gone up much faster than he did, and he must have done so but for his long lean jaws, the which are the worst things that any man can have. Not only because of their own consumption and slow length of leverage, but mainly on account of the sadness they impart, and the timid recollection of a hungry wolf, to the man who might have lifted up a fatter individual.

But in Rodney's great encounter with the Spanish fleet, Carroway showed such a dauntless spirit, and received such a wound, that it was impossible not to pay him some attention. His name was near the bottom of a very long list, but it made a mark on some one's memory, depositing a chance of coming up some day, when he should be reported hit again. And so good was his luck that he soon was hit again, and a very bad hit it was; but still he got over it without promotion, because that enterprise was one in which nearly all our men ran away, and therefore required to be well pushed up for the sake of the national honor. When such things happen, the few who stay behind must be left behind in the Gazette as well. That wound, therefore, seemed at first to go against him, but he bandaged it, and plastered it, and hoped for better luck. And his third wound truly was a blessed one, a slight one, and taken in the proper course of things, without a slur upon any of his comrades. This set him up again with advancement and appointment, and enabled him to marry and have children seven.

The lieutenant was now about fifty years of age, gallant and lively as ever, and resolute to attend to his duty and himself as well. His duty was now along shore, in command of the Coast-guard of the East District; for the loss of a good deal of one heel made it hard for him to step about as he should do when afloat. The place suited him, and he was fond of it, although he grumbled sometimes about his grandfather, and went on as if his office was beneath him. He abused all his men, and all the good ones liked him, and respected him for his clear English. And he enjoyed this free exercise of language out-of-doors, because inside his threshold he was on his P's and Q's. To call him "ugly Carroway," as coarse people did, because of a scar across his long bold nose, was petty and unjust, and directly contradicted by his own and his wife's opinion. For nobody could have brighter eyes, or a kindlier smile, and more open aspect in the forepart of the week, while his Sunday shave retained its influence, so far as its limited area went, for he kept a long beard always. By Wednesday he certainly began to look grim, and on Saturday ferocious, pending the advent of the Bridlington barber, who shaved all the Quay every Sunday. But his mind was none the worse, and his daughters liked him better when he rasped their young cheeks with his beard, and paid a penny. For to his children he was a loving and tender-hearted father, puzzled at their number, and sometimes perplexed at having to feed and clothe them, yet happy to give them his last and go without, and even ready to welcome more, if Heaven should be pleased to send them.

But Mrs. Carroway, most fidgety of women, and born of a well-shorn family, was unhappy from the middle to the end of the week that she could not scrub her husband's beard off. The lady's sense of human crime, and of everything hateful in creation, expressed itself mainly in the word "dirt." Her rancor against that nobly tranquil and most natural of elements inured itself into a downright passion. From babyhood she had been notorious for kicking her little legs out at the least speck of dust upon a tiny red shoe. Her father—a clergyman—heard so much of this, and had so many children of a different stamp, that when he came to christen her, at six months of age (which used to be considered quite an early time of life), he put upon her the name of "Lauta," to which she thoroughly acted up; but people having ignorance of foreign tongues said that he always meant "Matilda."

Such was her nature, and it grew upon her; so that when a young and gallant officer, tall and fresh, and as clean as a frigate, was captured by her neat bright eyes, very clean run, and sharp cut-water, she began to like to look at him. Before very long, his spruce trim ducks, careful scrape of Brunswick-leather boots, clean pocket-handkerchiefs, and fine specklessness, were making and keeping a well-swept path to the thoroughly dusted store-room of her heart. How little she dreamed, in those virgin days, that the future could ever contain a week when her Charles would decline to shave more than once, and then have it done for him on a Sunday!

She hesitated, for she had her thoughts—doubts she disdained to call them—but still he forgot once to draw his boots sideways, after having purged the toe and heel, across the bristle of her father's mat. With the quick eye of love he perceived her frown, and the very next day he conquered her. His scheme was unworthy, as it substituted corporate for personal purity; still it succeeded, as unworthy schemes will do. On the birthday of his sacred Majesty, Charles took Matilda to see his ship, the 48-gun frigate Immaculate, commanded by a well-known martinet. Her spirit fell within her, like the Queen of Sheba's, as she gazed, but trembled to set down foot upon the trim order and the dazzling choring. She might have survived the strict purity of all things, the deck lines whiter than Parian marble, the bulwarks brighter than the cheek-piece of a grate, the breeches of the guns like goodly gold, and not a whisker of a rope's end curling the wrong way, if only she could have espied a swab, or a bucket, or a flake of holy-stone, or any indicament of labor done. "Artis est celare artem;" this art was unfathomable.

Matilda was fain to assure herself that the main part of this might be superficial, like a dish-cover polished with the spots on, and she lost her handkerchief on purpose to come back and try a little test-work of her own. This was a piece of unstopped knotting in the panel of a hatchway, a resinous hole that must catch and keep any speck of dust meandering on the wayward will of wind. Her cambric came out as white as it went in!

She surrendered at discretion, and became the prize of Carroway.

Now people at Bridlington Quay declared that the lieutenant, though he might have carried off a prize, was certainly not the prize-master; and they even went so far as to say that "he could scarcely call his soul his own." The matter was no concern of theirs, neither were their conclusions true. In little things the gallant officer, for the sake of discipline and peace, submitted to due authority; and being so much from home, he left all household matters to a firm control. In return for this, he was always thought of first, and the best of everything was kept for him, and Mrs. Carroway quoted him to others as a wonder, though she may not have done so to himself. And so, upon the whole, they got on very well together.

Now on this day, when the lieutenant had exhausted a grumble of unusual intensity, and the fair Geraldine (his eldest child) had obeyed him to the letter, by keeping her mouth full while she warmed a plate for him, it was not long before his usual luck befell the bold Carroway. Rap, rap, came a knock at the side door of his cottage—a knock only too familiar; and he heard the gruff voice of Cadman—"Can I see his honor immediately?"

"No, you can not," replied Mrs. Carroway. "One would think you were all in a league to starve him. No sooner does he get half a mouthful—"

"Geraldine, put it on the hob, my dear, and a basin over it. Matilda, my love, you know my maxim—'Duty first, dinner afterward.' Cadman, I will come with you."

The revenue officer took up his hat (which had less time now than his dinner to get cold) and followed Cadman to the usual place for holding privy councils. This was under the heel of the pier (which was then about half as long as now) at a spot where the outer wall combed over, to break the crest of the surges in the height of a heavy eastern gale. At neap tides, and in moderate weather, this place was dry, with a fine salt smell; and with nothing in front of it but the sea, and nothing behind it but solid stone wall, any one would think that here must be commune sacred, secret, and secluded from eavesdroppers. And yet it was not so, by reason of a very simple reason.

Upon the roadway of the pier, and over against a mooring-post, where the parapet and the pier itself made a needful turn toward the south, there was an equally needful thing, a gully-hole with an iron trap to carry off the rain that fell, or the spray that broke upon the fabric; and the outlet of this gully was in the face of the masonry outside. Carroway, not being gifted with a crooked mind, had never dreamed that this little gut might conduct the pulses of the air, like the Tyrant's Ear, and that the trap at the end might be a trap for him. Yet so it was; and by gently raising the movable iron frame at the top, a well-disposed person might hear every word that was spoken in the snug recess below. Cadman was well aware of this little fact, but left his commander to find it out.

The officer, always thinly clad (both through the state of his wardrobe and his dread of effeminate comfort), settled his bony shoulders against the rough stonework, and his heels upon a groyne, and gave his subordinate a nod, which meant, "Make no fuss, but out with it." Cadman, a short square fellow with crafty eyes, began to do so.

"Captain, I have hit it off at last. Hackerbody put me wrong last time, through the wench he hath a hankering after. This time I got it, and no mistake, as right as if the villain lay asleep 'twixt you and me, and told us all about it with his tongue out; and a good thing for men of large families like me."

"All that I have heard such a number of times," his commander answered, crustily, "that I whistle, as we used to do in a dead calm, Cadman. An old salt like you knows how little comes of that."

"There I don't quite agree with your honor. I have known a hurricane come from whistling. But this time there is no woman about it, and the penny have come down straightforrard. New moon Tuesday next, and Monday we slips first into that snug little cave. He hath a' had his last good run."

"How much is coming this time, Cadman? I am sick and tired of those three caves. It is all old woman's talk of caves, while they are running south, upon the open beach."

"Captain, it is a big venture—the biggest of all the summer, I do believe. Two thousand pounds, if there is a penny, in it. The schooner, and the lugger, and the ketch, all to once, of purpose to send us scattering. But your honor knows what we be after most. No woman in it this time, Sir. The murder has been of the women, all along. When there is no woman, I can see my way. We have got the right pig by the ear this time."

"John Cadman, your manner of speech is rude. You forget that your commanding officer has a wife and family, three-quarters of which are female. You will give me your information without any rude observations as to sex, of which you, as a married man, should be ashamed. A man and his wife are one flesh, Cadman, and therefore you are a woman yourself, and must labor not to disgrace yourself. Now don't look amazed, but consider these things. If you had not been in a flurry, like a woman, you would not have spoiled my dinner so. I will meet you at the outlook at six o'clock. I have business on hand of importance."

With these words Carroway hastened home, leaving Cadman to mutter his wrath, and then to growl it, when his officer was out of ear-shot.

"Never a day, nor an hour a'most, without he insulteth of me. A woman, indeed! Well, his wife may be a man, but what call hath he to speak of mine so? John Cadman a woman, and one flesh with his wife! Pretty news that would be for my missus!"



CHAPTER XIV

SERIOUS CHARGES

"Stephen, if it was anybody else, you would listen to me in a moment," said Mrs. Anerley to her lord, a few days after that little interview in the Bempton Lane; "for instance, if it was poor Willie, how long would you be in believing it? But because it is Mary, you say 'pooh! pooh!' And I may as well talk to the old cracked churn."

"First time of all my born days," the farmer answered, with a pleasant smile, "that ever I was resembled to a churn. But a man's wife ought to know best about un."

"Stephen, it is not the churn—I mean you; and you never should attempt to ride off in that sort of way. I tell you Mary hath a mischief on her mind; and you never ought to bring up old churns to me. As long as I can carry almost anything in mind, I have been considered to be full of common-sense. And what should I use it upon, Captain Anerley, without it was my own daughter?"

The farmer was always conquered when she called him "Captain Anerley." He took it to point at him as a pretender, a coxcomb fond of titles, a would-be officer who took good care to hold aloof from fighting. And he knew in his heart that he loved to be called "Captain Anerley" by every one who meant it.

"My dear," he said, in a tone of submission, and with a look that grieved her, "the knowledge of such things is with you. I can not enter into young maids' minds, any more than command a company."

"Stephen, you could do both, if you chose, better than ten of eleven who do it. For, Stephen, you have a very tender mind, and are not at all like a churn, my dear. That was my manner of speech, you ought to know, because from my youngest days I had a crowd of imagination. You remember that, Stephen, don't you?"

"I remember, Sophy, that in the old time you never resembled me to a churn, let alone a cracked one. You used to christen me a pillar, and a tree, and a rock, and a polished corner; but there, what's the odds, when a man has done his duty? The names of him makes no difference."

"'Twist you and me, my dear," she said, "nothing can make any difference. We know one another too well for that. You are all that I ever used to call you, before I knew better about you, and when I used to dwell upon your hair and your smile. You know what I used to say of them, now, Stephen?"

"Most complimentary—highly complimentary! Another young woman brought me word of it, and it made me stick firm when my mind was doubtful."

"And glad you ought to be that you did stick firm. And you have the Lord to thank for it, as well as your own sense. But no time to talk of our old times now. They are coming up again, with those younkers, I'm afraid. Willie is like a Church; and Jack—no chance of him getting the chance of it; but Mary, your darling of the lot, our Mary—her mind is unsettled, and a worry coming over her; the same as with me when I saw you first."

"It is the Lord that directs those things," the farmer answered, steadfastly; "and Mary hath the sense of her mother, I believe. That it is maketh me so fond on her. If the young maid hath taken a fancy, it will pass, without a bit of substance to settle on. Why, how many fancies had you, Sophy, before you had the good luck to clap eyes on me?"

"That is neither here nor there," his wife replied, audaciously; "how many times have you asked such questions, which are no concern of yours? You could not expect me, before ever I saw you, not to have any eyes or ears. I had plenty to say for myself; and I was not plain; and I acted accordingly."

Master Anerley thought about this, because he had heard it and thought of it many times before. He hated to think about anything new, having never known any good come of it; and his thoughts would rather flow than fly, even in the fugitive brevity of youth. And now, in his settled way, his practice was to tread thought deeper into thought, as a man in deep snow keeps the track of his own boots, or as a child writes ink on pencil in his earliest copy-books. "You acted according," he said; "and Mary might act according to you, mother."

"How can you talk so, Stephen? That would be a different thing altogether. Young girls are not a bit like what they used to be in my time. No steadiness, no diligence, no duty to their parents. Gadding about is all they think of, and light-headed chatter, and saucy ribbons."

"May be so with some of them. But I never see none of that in Mary."

"Mary is a good girl, and well brought up," her mother could not help admitting, "and fond of her home, and industrious. But for all that, she must be looked after sharply. And who can look after a child like her mother? I can tell you one thing, Master Stephen: your daughter Mary has more will of her own than the rest of your family all put together, including even your own good wife."

"Prodigious!" cried the farmer, while he rubbed his hands and laughed—"prodigious, and a man might say impossible. A young lass like Mary, such a coaxing little poppet, as tender as a lambkin, and as soft as wool!"

"Flannel won't only run one way; no more won't Mary," said her mother. "I know her better a long sight than you do; and I say if ever Mary sets her heart on any one, have him she will, be he cowboy, thief, or chimney-sweep. So now you know what to expect, Master Anerley."

Stephen Anerley never made light of his wife's opinions in those few cases wherein they differed from his own. She agreed with him so generally that in common fairness he thought very highly of her wisdom, and the present subject was one upon which she had an especial right to be heard.

"Sophy," he said, as he set up his coat to be off to a cutting of clover on the hill—for no reaping would begin yet for another month—"the things you have said shall abide in my mind. Only you be a-watching of the little wench. Harry Tanfield is the man I would choose for her of all others. But I never would force any husband on a lass; though stern would I be to force a bad one off, or one in an unfit walk of life. No inkle in your mind who it is, or wouldst have told me?"

"Well, I may, or I may not. I never like to speak promiscuous. You have the first right to know what I think. But I beg you to let me be a while. Not even to you, Steve, would I say it, without more to go upon than there is yet. I might do the lass a great wrong in my surmising; and then you would visit my mistake on me, for she is the apple of your eye, no doubt."

"There is never such another maid in all York County, nor in England, to my thinking."

"She is my daughter as well as yours, and I would be the last to make cheap of her. I will not say another word until I know. But if I am right—which the Lord forbid—we shall both be ashamed of her, Stephen."

"The Lord forbid! The Lord forbid! Amen. I will not hear another word." The farmer snatched up his hat, and made off with a haste unusual for him, while his wife sat down, and crossed her arms, and began to think rather bitterly. For, without any dream of such a possibility, she was jealous sometimes of her own child. Presently the farmer rushed back again, triumphant with a new idea. His eyes were sparkling, and his step full of spring, and a brisk smile shone upon his strong and ruddy face.

"What a pair of stupes we must be to go on so!" he cried, with a couple of bright guineas in his hand. "Mary hath not had a new frock even, going on now for a year and a half. Sophy, it is enough to turn a maid into thinking of any sort of mischief. Take you these and make everything right. I was saving them up for her birthday, but maybe another will turn up by that. My dear, you take them, and never be afeared."

"Stephen, you may leave them, if you like. I shall not be in any haste to let them go. Either give them to the lass yourself, or leave it to me purely. She shall not have a sixpence, unless it is deserved."

"Of course I leave it in your hands, wife. I never come between you and your children. But young folk go piping always after money now; and even our Mary might be turning sad without it."

He hastened off again, without hearing any more; for he knew that some hours of strong labor were before him, and to meet them with a heavy heart would be almost a new thing for him. Some time ago he had begun to hold the plough of heaviness, through the difficult looseness of Willie's staple, and the sudden maritime slope of Jack; yet he held on steadily through all this, with the strength of homely courage. But if in the pride of his heart, his Mary, he should find no better than a crooked furrow, then truly the labor of his latter days would be the dull round of a mill horse.

Now Mary, in total ignorance of that council held concerning her, and even of her mother's bad suspicions, chanced to come in at the front porch door soon after her father set off to his meadows by way of the back yard. Having been hard at work among her flowers, she was come to get a cupful of milk for herself, and the cheery content and general goodwill encouraged by the gardener's gentle craft were smiling on her rosy lips and sparkling in her eyes. Her dress was as plain as plain could be—a lavender twill cut and fitted by herself—and there was not an ornament about her that came from any other hand than Nature's. But simple grace of movement and light elegance of figure, fair curves of gentle face and loving kindness of expression, gladdened with the hope of youth—what did these want with smart dresses, golden brooches, and two guineas? Her mother almost thought of this when she called Mary into the little parlor. And the two guineas lay upon the table.

"Mary, can you spare a little time to talk with me? You seem wonderfully busy, as usual."

"Mother, will you never make allowance for my flowers? They depend upon the weather, and they must have things accordingly."

"Very well; let them think about what they want next, while you sit down a while and talk with me."

The girl was vexed; for to listen to a lecture, already manifest in her mother's eyes, was a far less agreeable job than gardening. And the lecture would have done as well by candle-light, which seldom can be said of any gardening. However, she took off her hat, and sat down, without the least sign of impatience, and without any token of guilt, as her mother saw, and yet stupidly proceeded just the same.

"Mary," she began, with a gaze of stern discretion, which the girl met steadfastly and pleasantly, "you know that I am your own mother, and bound to look after you well, while you are so very young; for though you are sensible some ways, Mary, in years and in experience what are you but a child? Of the traps of the world and the wickedness of people you can have no knowledge. You always think the best of everybody; which is a very proper thing to do, and what I have always brought you up to, and never would dream of discouraging. And with such examples as your father and your mother, you must be perverse to do otherwise. Still, it is my duty to warn you, Mary—and you are getting old enough to want it—that the world is not made up of fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, and good uncles. There are always bad folk who go prowling about like wolves in—wolves in—what is it—"

"Sheep's clothing," the maiden suggested, with a smile, and then dropped her eyes maliciously.

"How dare you be pert, miss, correcting your own mother? Do I ever catch you reading of your Bible? But you seem to know so much about it, perhaps you have met some of them?"

"How can I tell, mother, when you won't tell me?"

"I tell you, indeed! It is your place to tell me, I think. And what is more, I insist at once upon knowing all about it. What makes you go on in the way that you are doing? Do you take me for a drumledore, you foolish child? On Tuesday afternoon I saw you sewing with a double thread. Your father had potato-eyes upon his plate on Sunday; and which way did I see you trying to hang up a dish-cover? But that is nothing; fifty things you go wandering about in; and always out, on some pretense, as if the roof you were born under was not big enough for you. And then your eyes—I have seen your eyes flash up, as if you were fighting; and the bosom of your Sunday frock was loose in church two buttons; it was not hot at all to speak of, and there was a wasp next pew. All these things make me unhappy, Mary. My darling, tell me what it is."

Mary listened with great amazement to this catalogue of crimes. At the time of their commission she had never even thought of them, although she was vexed with herself when she saw one eye—for in verity that was all—of a potato upon her father's plate. Now she blushed when she heard of the buttons of her frock—which was only done because of tightness, and showed how long she must have worn it; but as to the double thread, she was sure that nothing of that sort could have happened.

"Why, mother dear," she said, quite softly, coming up in her coaxing way, which nobody could resist, because it was true and gentle lovingness, "you know a hundred times more than I do. I have never known of any of the sad mistakes you speak of, except about the potato-eye, and then I had a round-pointed knife. But I want to make no excuses, mother; and there is nothing the matter with me. Tell me what you mean about the wolves."

"My child," said her mother, whose face she was kissing, while they both went on with talking, "it is no good trying to get over me. Either you have something on your mind, or you have not—which is it?"

"Mother, what can I have on my mind? I have never hurt any one, and never mean to do it. Every one is kind to me, and everybody likes me, and of course I like them all again. And I always have plenty to do, in and out, as you take very good care, dear mother. My father loves me, and so do you, a great deal more than I deserve, perhaps. I am happy in a Sunday frock that wants more stuff to button; and I have only one trouble in all the world. When I think of the other girls I see—"

"Never mind them, my dear. What is your one trouble?"

"Mother, as if you could help knowing! About my dear brother Jack, of course. Jack was so wonderfully good to me! I would walk on my hands and knees all the way to York to get a single glimpse of him."

"You would never get as far as the rick-yard hedge. You children talk such nonsense. Jack ran away of his own free-will, and out of downright contrariness. He has repented of it only once, I dare say, and that has been ever since he did it, and every time he thought of it. I wish he was home again, with all my heart, for I can not bear to lose my children. And Jack was as good a boy as need be, when he got everything his own way. Mary, is that your only trouble? Stand where I can see you plainly, and tell me every word the truth. Put your hair back from your eyes now, like the catechism."

"If I were saying fifty catechisms, what more could I do than speak the truth?" Mary asked this with some little vexation, while she stood up proudly before her mother, and clasped her hands behind her back. "I have told you everything I know, except one little thing, which I am not sure about."

"What little thing, if you please? and how can you help being sure about it, positive as you are about everything?"

"Mother, I mean that I have not been sure whether I ought to tell you; and I meant to tell my father first, when there could be no mischief."

"Mary, I can scarcely believe my ears. To tell your father before your mother, and not even him until nothing could be done to stop it, which you call 'mischief!' I insist upon knowing at once what it is. I have felt that you were hiding something. How very unlike you, how unlike a child of mine!"

"You need not disturb yourself, mother dear. It is nothing of any importance to me, though to other people it might be. And that is the reason why I kept it to myself."

"Oh, we shall come to something by-and-by! One would really think you were older than your mother. Now, miss, if you please, let us judge of your discretion. What is it that you have been hiding so long?"

Mary's face grew crimson now, but with anger rather than with shame; she had never thought twice about Robin Lyth with anything warmer than pity, but this was the very way to drive her into dwelling in a mischievous manner upon him.

"What I have been hiding," she said, most distinctly, and steadfastly looking at her mother, "is only that I have had two talks with the great free-trader Robin Lyth."

"That arrant smuggler! That leader of all outlaws! You have been meeting him on the sly!"

"Certainly not. But I met him once by chance; and then, as a matter of business, I was forced to meet him again, dear mother."

"These things are too much for me," Mrs. Anerley said, decisively. "When matters have come to such a pass, I must beg your dear father to see to them."

"Very well, mother; I would rather have it so. May I go now and make an end of my gardening?"

"Certainly—as soon as you have made an end of me, as you must quite have laid your plans to do. I have seen too much to be astonished any more. But to think that a child of mine, my one and only daughter, who looks as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, should be hand in glove with the wickedest smuggler of the age, the rogue everybody shoots at—but can not hit him, because he was born to be hanged—-the by-name, the by-word, the by-blow, Robin Lyth!" Mrs. Anerley covered her face with both hands.

"How would you like your own second cousin," said Mary, plucking up her spirit, "your own second cousin, Mistress Cockscroft, to hear you speak so of the man that supports them at the risk of his life, every hour of it? He may be doing wrong—it is not for me to say—but he does it very well, and he does it nobly. And what did you show me in your drawer, dear mother? And what did you wear when that very cruel man, Captain Carroway, came here to dine on Sunday?"

"You wicked, undutiful child! Go away! I wish to have nothing more to say to you."

"No, I will not go away," cried Mary, with her resolute spirit in her eyes and brow; "when false and cruel charges are brought against me, I have the right to speak, and I will use it. I am not hand in glove with Robin Lyth, or any other Robin. I think a little more of myself than that. If I have done any wrong, I will meet it, and be sorry, and submit to any punishment. I ought to have told you before, perhaps; that is the worst you can say of it. But I never attached much importance to it; and when a man is hunted so, was I to join his enemies? I have only seen him twice: the first time by purest accident, and the second time to give him back a piece of his own property. And I took my brother with me; but he ran away, as usual."

"Of course, of course. Every one to blame but you, miss. However, we shall see what your father has to say. You have very nearly taken all my breath away; but I shall expect the whole sky to tumble in upon us if Captain Anerley approves of Robin Lyth as a sweetheart for his daughter."

"I never thought of Captain Lyth; and Captain Lyth never thought of me. But I can tell you one thing, mother—if you wanted to make me think of him, you could not do it better than by speaking so unjustly."

"After that perhaps you will go back to your flowers. I have heard that they grow very fine ones in Holland. Perhaps you have got some smuggled tulips, my dear."

Mary did not condescend to answer, but said to herself, as she went to work again, "Tulips in August! That is like the rest of it. However, I am not going to be put out, when I feel that I have not done a single bit of harm." And she tried to be happy with her flowers, but could not enter into them as before.

Mistress Anerley was as good as her word, at the very first opportunity. Her husband returned from the clover-stack tired and hungry, and angry with a man who had taken too much beer, and ran at him with a pitchfork; angry also with his own son Willie for not being anywhere in the way to help. He did not complain; and his wife knew at once that he ought to have done so, to obtain relief. She perceived that her own discourse about their daughter was still on his mind, and would require working off before any more was said about it. And she felt as sure as if she saw it that in his severity against poor Willie—for not doing things that were beneath him—her master would take Mary's folly as a joke, and fall upon her brother, who was so much older, for not going on to protect and guide her. So she kept till after supper-time her mouthful of bad tidings.

And when the farmer heard it all, as he did before going to sleep that night, he had smoked three pipes of tobacco, and was calm; he had sipped (for once in a way) a little Hollands, and was hopeful. And though he said nothing about it, he felt that without any order of his, or so much as the faintest desire to be told of it, neither of these petty comforts would bear to be rudely examined of its duty. He hoped for the best, and he believed the best, and if the king was cheated, why, his loyal subject was the same, and the women were their masters.

"Have no fear, no fear," he muttered back through the closing gate of sleep; "Mary knows her business—business—" and he buzzed it off into a snore.

In the morning, however, he took a stronger and more serious view of the case, pronouncing that Mary was only a young lass, and no one could ever tell about young lasses. And he quite fell into his wife's suggestion, that the maid could be spared till harvest-time, of which (even with the best of weather) there was little chance now for another six weeks, the season being late and backward. So it was resolved between them both that the girl should go on the following day for a visit to her uncle Popplewell, some miles the other side of Filey. No invitation was required; for Mr. and Mrs. Popplewell, a snug and comfortable pair, were only too glad to have their niece, and had often wanted to have her altogether; but the farmer would never hear of that.



CHAPTER XV

CAUGHT AT LAST

While these little things were doing thus, the coast from the mouth of the Tees to that of Humber, and even the inland parts, were in a great stir of talk and work about events impending. It must not be thought that Flamborough, although it was Robin's dwelling-place—so far as he had any—was the principal scene of his operations, or the stronghold of his enterprise. On the contrary, his liking was for quiet coves near Scarborough, or even to the north of Whitby, when the wind and tide were suitable. And for this there were many reasons which are not of any moment now.

One of them showed fine feeling and much delicacy on his part. He knew that Flamborough was a place of extraordinary honesty, where every one of his buttons had been safe, and would have been so forever; and strictly as he believed in the virtue of his own free importation, it was impossible for him not to learn that certain people thought otherwise, or acted as if they did so. From the troubles which such doubts might cause, he strove to keep the natives free.

Flamburians scarcely understood this largeness of good-will to them. Their instincts told them that free trade was every Briton's privilege; and they had the finest set of donkeys on the coast for landing it. But none the more did any of them care to make a movement toward it. They were satisfied with their own old way—to cast the net their father cast, and bait the hook as it was baited on their good grandfather's thumb.

Yet even Flamborough knew that now a mighty enterprise was in hand. It was said, without any contradiction, that young Captain Robin had laid a wager of one hundred guineas with the worshipful mayor of Scarborough and the commandant of the castle, that before the new moon he would land on Yorkshire coast, without firing pistol or drawing steel, free goods to the value of two thousand pounds, and carry them inland safely. And Flamborough believed that he would do it.

Dr. Upround's house stood well, as rectories generally contrive to do. No place in Flamborough parish could hope to swindle the wind of its vested right, or to embezzle much treasure of the sun, but the parsonage made a good effort to do both, and sometimes for three days together got the credit of succeeding. And the dwellers therein, who felt the edge of the difference outside their own walls, not only said but thoroughly believed that they lived in a little Goshen.

For the house was well settled in a wrinkle of the hill expanding southward, and encouraging the noon. From the windows a pleasant glimpse might be obtained of the broad and tranquil anchorage, peopled with white or black, according as the sails went up or down; for the rectory stood to the southward of the point, as the rest of Flamborough surely must have stood, if built by any other race than armadillos. But to see all those vessels, and be sure what they were doing, the proper place was a little snug "gazebo," chosen and made by the doctor himself, near the crest of the gully he inhabited.

Here upon a genial summer day—when it came, as it sometimes dared to do—was the finest little nook upon the Yorkshire coast for watching what Virgil calls "the sail-winged sea." Not that a man could see round the Head, unless his own were gifted with very crooked eyes; but without doing that (which would only have disturbed the tranquillity of his prospect) there was plenty to engage him in the peaceful spread of comparatively waveless waters. Here might he see long vessels rolling, not with great misery, but just enough to make him feel happy in the firmness of his bench, and little jolly-boats it was more jolly to be out of, and faraway heads giving genial bobs, and sea-legs straddled in predicaments desirable rather for study than for practice. All was highly picturesque and nice, and charming for the critic who had never got to do it.

"Now, papa, you must come this very moment," cried Miss Janetta Upround, the daughter of the house, and indeed the only daughter, with a gush of excitement, rushing into the study of this deeply read divine; "there is something doing that I can not understand. You must bring up the spy-glass at once and explain. I am sure that there is something very wrong."

"In the parish, my dear?" the rector asked, with a feeble attempt at malice, for he did not want to be disturbed just now, and for weeks he had tried (with very poor success) to make Janetta useful; for she had no gift in that way.

"No, not in the parish at all, papa, unless it runs out under water, as I am certain it ought to do, and make every one of those ships pay tithe. If the law was worth anything, they would have to do it. They get all the good out of our situation, and they save whole thousands of pounds at a time, and they never pay a penny, nor even hoist a flag, unless the day is fine, and the flag wants drying. But come along, papa, now. I really can not wait; and they will have done it all without us."

"Janetta, take the glass and get the focus. I will come presently, presently. In about two minutes—by the time that you are ready."

"Very well, papa. It is very good of you. I see quite clearly what you want to do; and I hope you will do it. But you promise not to play another game now?"

"My dear, I will promise that with pleasure. Only do please be off about your business."

The rector was a most inveterate and insatiable chess-player. In the household, rather than by it, he was, as a matter of lofty belief, supposed to be deeply engaged with theology, or magisterial questions of almost equal depth, or (to put it at the lowest) parochial affairs, the while he was solidly and seriously engaged in getting up the sound defense to some Continental gambit. And this, not only to satisfy himself upon some point of theory, but from a nearer and dearer point of view—for he never did like to be beaten.

At present he was laboring to discover the proper defense to a new and slashing form of the Algaier gambit, by means of which Robin Lyth had won every game in which he had the move, upon their last encounter. The great free-trader, while a boy, had shown an especial aptitude for chess, and even as a child he had seemed to know the men when first, by some accident, he saw them. The rector being struck by this exception to the ways of childhood—whose manner it is to take chess-men for "dollies," or roll them about like nine-pins—at once included in the education of "Izunsabe," which he took upon himself, a course of elemental doctrine in the one true game. And the boy fought his way up at such a pace that he jumped from odds of queen and rook to pawn and two moves in less than two years. And now he could almost give odds to his tutor, though he never presumed to offer them; and trading as he did with enlightened merchants of large Continental sea-ports, who had plenty of time on their hands and played well, he imported new openings of a dash and freedom which swallowed the ground up under the feet of the steady-going players, who had never seen a book upon their favorite subject. Of course it was competent to all these to decline such fiery onslaught; but chivalry and the true love of analysis (which without may none play chess) compelled the acceptance of the challenge, even with a trembling forecast of the taste of dust.

"Never mind," said Dr. Upround, as he rose and stretched himself, a good straight man of threescore years, with silver hair that shone like silk; "it has not come to me yet; but it must, with a little more perseverance. At Cambridge I beat everybody; and who is this uncircumcised—at least, I beg his pardon, for I did myself baptize him—but who is Robin Lyth, to mate his pastor and his master? All these gambits are like a night attack. If once met properly and expelled, you are in the very heart of the enemy's camp. He has left his own watch-fires to rush at yours. The next game I play, I shall be sure to beat him."

Fully convinced of this great truth, he took a strong oak staff and hastened to obey his daughter. Miss Janetta Upround had not only learned by nature, but also had been carefully taught by her parents, and by every one, how to get her own way always, and to be thanked for taking it. But she had such a happy nature, full of kindness and good-will, that other people's wishes always seemed to flow into her own, instead of being swept aside. Over her father her government was in no sort constitutional, nor even a quiet despotism sweetened with liberal illusions, but as pure a piece of autocracy as the Continent could itself contain, in the time of this first Napoleon.

"Papa, what a time you have been, to be sure!" she exclaimed, as the doctor came gradually up, probing his way in perfect leisure, and fragrant still of that gambit; "one would think that your parish was on dry land altogether, while the better half of it, as they call themselves—though the women are in righteousness the better half a hundredfold—"

"My dear, do try to talk with some little sense of arithmetic, if no other. A hundredfold the half would be the unit multiplied by fifty. Not to mention that there can be no better half—"

"Yes, there can, papa, ever so many; and you may see one in mamma every day. Now you put one eye to this glass, and the half is better than the whole. With both, you see nothing; with one, you see better, fifty times better, than with both before. Don't talk of arithmetic after that. It is algebra now, and quod demonstrandum."

"To reason with the less worthy gender is degeneration of reason. What would they have said in the Senate-house, Janetta? However, I will obey your orders. What am I to look at?"

"A tall and very extraordinary man, striking his arms out, thus and thus. I never saw any one looking so excited; and he flourishes a long sword now and again, as if he would like to cut everybody's head off. There he has been going from ship to ship, for an hour or more, with a long white boat, and a lot of men jumping after him. Every one seems to be scared of him, and he stumps along the deck just as if he were on springs, and one spring longer than the other. You see that heavy brig outside the rest, painted with ten port-holes; well, she began to make sail and run away, but he fired a gun—quite a real cannon—and she had to come back again and drop her colors. Oh, is it some very great admiral, papa? Perhaps Lord Nelson himself; I would go and be seasick for three days to see Lord Nelson. Papa, it must be Lord Nelson."

"My dear, Lord Nelson is a little, short man, with a very brisk walk, and one arm gone. Now let me see who this can be. Whereabout is he now, Janetta?"

"Do you see that clumsy-looking schooner, papa, just behind a pilot-boat? He is just in front of her foremast—making such a fuss—"

"What eyes you have got, my child! You see better without the glass than I do with it.—Oh, now I have him! Why, I might have guessed. Of course it is that very active man and vigilant officer Lieutenant Carroway."

"Captain Carroway from Bridlington, papa? Why, what can he be doing with such authority? I have often heard of him, but I thought he was only a coast-guard."

"He is, as you say, showing great authority, and, I fear, using very bad language, for which he is quite celebrated. However, the telescope refuses to repeat it, for which it is much to be commended. But every allowance must be made for a man who has to deal with a wholly uncultivated race, and not of natural piety, like ours."

"Well, papa, I doubt if ours have too much, though you always make the best of them. But let me look again, please; and do tell me what he can be doing there."

"You know that the revenue officers must take the law into their own hands sometimes. There have lately been certain rumors of some contraband proceedings on the Yorkshire coast. Not in Flamborough parish, of course, and perhaps—probably, I may say—a long way off—-"

"Papa dear, will you never confess that free trade prevails and flourishes greatly even under your own dear nose?"

"Facts do not warrant me in any such assertion. If the fact were so, it must have been brought officially before me. I decline to listen to uncharitable rumors. But however that matter may be, there are officers on the spot to deal with it. My commission as a justice of the peace gives me no cognizance of offenses—if such there are—upon the high seas. Ah! you see something particular; my dear, what is it?"

"Captain Carroway has found something, or somebody, of great importance. He has got a man by the collar, and he is absolutely dancing with delight. Ah! there he goes, dragging him along the deck as if he were a cod-fish or a conger. And now, I declare, he is lashing his arms and legs with a great thick rope. Papa, is that legal, without even a warrant?"

"I can hardly say how far his powers may extend, and he is just the man to extend them farther. I only hope not to be involved in the matter. Maritime law is not my province."

"But, papa, it is much within three miles of the shore, if that has got anything to do with it. My goodness me! They are all coming here; I am almost sure that they will apply to you. Yes, two boat-loads of people, racing to get their oars out, and to be here first. Where are your spectacles, dear papa? You had better go and get up the law before they come. You will scarcely have time, they are coming so fast—a white boat and a black boat. The prisoner is in the white boat, and the officer has got him by the collar still. The men in the white boat will want to commit him, and the men in the black boat are his friends, no doubt, coming for a habeas corpus—"

"My dear, what nonsense you do talk! What has a simple justice of the peace—"

"Never mind that, papa; my facts are sound—sounder than yours about smuggling, I fear. But do hurry in, and get up the law. I will go and lock both gates, to give you more time."

"Do nothing of the kind, Janetta. A magistrate should be accessible always; and how can I get up the law, without knowing what it is to be about—or even a clerk to help me? And perhaps they are not coming here at all. They may be only landing their prisoner."

"If that were it, they would not be coming so, but rowing toward the proper place, Bridlington Quay, where their station-house is. Papa, you are in for it, and I am getting eager. May I come and hear all about it? I should be a great support to you, you know. And they would tell the truth so much better!"

"Janetta, what are you dreaming of? It may even be a case of secrecy."

"Secrecy, papa, with two boat-loads of men and about thirty ships involved in it! Oh, do let me hear all about it!"

"Whatever it may be, your presence is not required, and would be improper. Unless I should happen to want a book; and in that case I might ring for you."

"Oh, do, papa, do! No one else can ever find them. Promise me now that you will want a book. If I am not there, there will be no justice done. I wish you severely to reprimand, whatever the facts of the case may be, and even to punish, if you can, that tall, lame, violent, ferocious man, for dragging the poor fellow about like that, and cutting him with ropes, when completely needless, and when he was quite at his mercy. It is my opinion that the other man does not deserve one bit of it; and whatever the law may be, papa, your duty is to strain it benevolently, and question every syllable upon the stronger side."

"Perhaps I had better resign, my dear, upon condition that you shall be appointed in the stead of me. It might be a popular measure, and would secure universal justice."

"Papa, I would do justice to myself—which is a thing you never do. But here, they are landing; and they hoist him out as if he were a sack, or a thing without a joint. They could scarcely be harder with a man compelled to be hanged to-morrow morning."

"Condemned is what you mean, Janetta. You never will understand the use of words. What a nice magistrate you would make!"

"There can be no more correct expression. Would any man be hanged if he were not compelled? Papa, you say the most illegal things sometimes. Now please to go in and get up your legal points. Let me go and meet those people for you. I will keep them waiting till you are quite ready."

"My dear, you will go to your room, and try to learn a little patience. You begin to be too pat with your own opinions, which in a young lady is ungraceful. There, you need not cry, my darling, because your opinions are always sensible, and I value them very highly; but still you must bear in mind that you are but a girl."

"And behave accordingly, as they say. Nobody can do more so. But though I am only a girl, papa, can you put your hand upon a better one?"

"Certainly not, my dear; for going down hill, I can always depend on you."

Suiting the action to the word, Dr. Upround, whose feet were a little touched with gout, came down from his outlook to his kitchen-garden, and thence through the shrubbery back to his own study, where, with a little sigh, he put away his chess-men, and heartily hoped that it might not be his favorite adversary who was coming before him to be sent to jail. For although the good rector had a warm regard, and even affection, for Robin Lyth, as a waif cast into his care, and then a pupil wonderfully apt (which breeds love in the teacher), and after that a most gallant and highly distinguished young parishioner—with all this it was a difficulty for him to be ignorant that the law was adverse. More than once he had striven hard to lead the youth into some better path of life, and had even induced him to "follow the sea" for a short time in the merchant service. But the force of nature and of circumstances had very soon prevailed again, and Robin returned to his old pursuits with larger experience, and seamanship improved.

A violent ringing at the gate bell, followed by equal urgency upon the front door, apprised the kind magistrate of a sharp call on his faculties, and perhaps a most unpleasant one. "The poor boy!" he said to himself—"poor boy! From Carroway's excitement I greatly fear that it is indeed poor Robin. How many a grand game have we had! His new variety of that fine gambit scarcely beginning to be analyzed; and if I commit him to the meeting next week, when shall we ever meet again? It will seem as if I did it because he won three games; and I certainly was a little vexed with him. However, I must be stern, stern, stern. Show them in, Betsy; I am quite prepared."

A noise, and a sound of strong language in the hall, and a dragging of something on the oil-cloth, led up to the entry of a dozen rough men, pushed on by at least another dozen.

"You will have the manners to take off your hats," said the magistrate, with all his dignity; "not from any undue deference to me, but common respect to his Majesty."

"Off with your covers, you sons of"—something, shouted a loud voice; and then the lieutenant, with his blade still drawn, stood before them.

"Sheathe your sword, Sir," said Dr. Upround, in a voice which amazed the officer.

"I beg your Worship's pardon," he began, with his grim face flushing purple, but his sword laid where it should have been; "but if you knew half of the worry I have had, you would not care to rebuke me. Cadman, have you got him by the neck? Keep your knuckles into him, while I make my deposition."

"Cast that man free, I receive no depositions with a man half strangled before me."

The men of the coast-guard glanced at their commander, and receiving a surly nod, obeyed. But the prisoner could not stand as yet; he gasped for breath, and some one set him on a chair.

"Your Worship, this is a mere matter of form," said Carroway, still keeping eyes on his prey; "if I had my own way, I would not trouble you at all, and I believe it to be quite needless. For this man is an outlaw felon, and not entitled to any grace of law; but I must obey my orders."

"Certainly you must, Lieutenant Carroway, even though you are better acquainted with the law. You are ready to be sworn? Take this book, and follow me."

This being done, the worthy magistrate prepared to write down what the gallant officer might say, which, in brief, came to this, that having orders to seize Robin Lyth wherever he might find him, and having sure knowledge that said Robin was on board of a certain schooner vessel, the Elizabeth, of Goole, the which he had laden with goods liable to duty, he, Charles Carroway, had gently laid hands on him, and brought him to the nearest justice of the peace, to obtain an order of commitment.

All this, at fifty times the length here given, Lieutenant Carroway deposed on oath, while his Worship, for want of a clerk, set it down in his own very neat handwriting. But several very coaly-looking men, who could scarcely be taught to keep silence, observed that the magistrate smiled once or twice; and this made them wait a bit, and wink at one another.

"Very clear indeed, Lieutenant Carroway," said Dr. Upround, with spectacles on nose. "Good Sir, have the kindness to sign your deposition. It may become my duty to commit the prisoner, upon identification. Of that I must have evidence, confirmatory evidence. But first we will hear what he has to say. Robin Lyth, stand forward."

"Me no Robin Lyth, Sar; no Robin man or woman," cried the captive, trying very hard to stand; "me only a poor Francais, make liberty to what you call—row, row, sweem, sweem, sail, sail, from la belle France; for why, for why, there is no import to nobody."

"Your Worship, he is always going on about imports," Cadman said, respectfully; "that is enough to show who he is."

"You may trust me to know him," cried Lieutenant Carroway. "My fine fellow, no more of that stuff! He can pass himself off for any countryman whatever. He knows all their jabber, Sir, better than his own. Put a cork between his teeth, Hackerbody. I never did see such a noisy rogue. He is Robin Lyth all over."

"I'll be blest if he is, nor under nayther," cried the biggest of the coaly men; "this here froggy come out of a Chaise and Mary as had run up from Dunkirk. I know Robin Lyth as well as our own figure-head. But what good to try reason with that there revenue hofficer?"

At this, all his friends set a good laugh up, and wanted to give him a cheer for such a speech; but that being hushed, they were satisfied with condemning his organs of sight and their own quite fairly.