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 THE 
 
 SMUGGLER; 
 
 A TALE. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 "TALES BY THE O'HARA FAMILY," "THE DENOUNCED," Ac, 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 VOL. I 
 
 LONDON: 
 HENRY COLBURN AND RICHARD BENTLEY, 
 
 NEW BURLINGTON STREET. 
 
 1831.
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTLEV, 
 
 Dorset-Street, Fleet-street.
 
 5JiZ$ 
 
 "N 
 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 v> The chief scenes of " The Smuggler" are laid 
 
 ^ in a district of England lately remarkable for 
 
 , peculiar disturbances ; the time of its action is 
 
 J* anterior to those disturbances ; — and — speaking 
 
 5^ in that time — the authors, or their characters 
 
 for them, may occasionally seem to anticipate 
 events which have since happened. It is there- 
 fore necessary to mention that, should such 
 ^ ^' allusions at all appear, they will be found to do 
 ^ so in the First Volume and in the first half of the 
 
 IS Second ; that these portions of the work were in 
 
 > the Publishers'' handxS a year ago — that is, prior 
 
 ^ to the occurrences in question ; and that none 
 
 but verbal corrections or alterations have since 
 -V been made in the MSS. or in the proofs. 
 
 4
 
 IV ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Further ; — to endeavour to explain — (among 
 other similar things) — an invocation of two 
 very celebrated political names in almost the 
 first page, the reader is requested to recollect 
 that, when the words were written, few of us 
 were prepared for those recent and vast public 
 changes, of which the least remarkable feature 
 is that they now may seem to render incon- 
 gruous, as well as old-fashioned, the aspirations 
 of an humble story-teller.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 TO RICHARD GRAVES, ESQ. TEMPLE. 
 
 Hastings, June, 182-. 
 MY DEAR GRAVES, 
 
 It is as I anticipated, even from the 
 vague information, if information I can call it, 
 which I received, or rather gleaned on the 
 subject. They are here, on their way to some 
 very retired, if possible, unknown village or 
 hamlet on the coast, where my father may com- 
 bine the prescribed advantages of sea-air with 
 those of humble living. He had another hope, 
 you know, to save, by his close-drawn system 
 of economy, out of a purse already at its last 
 ebb, as much as would keep his only son one 
 year longer in chambers in the Temple, that so 
 VOL. I. B
 
 2 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 he might complete his terms, and be " called,"'' 
 I will not add " chosen."" But that hope wavers. 
 Dear Graves, I hate your present trade, and 
 mine that was to be, more cordially than ever. 
 My nature, my very interior rises against it ; 
 and how can I help this, all abstract reasonings 
 apart ? To see a father and a sister, both 
 dearly loved, reduced to penury by the mon- 
 strous system of law which it helps to make 
 still more monstrous — cannot I stand excused 
 on such grounds ? After long and scrupulous 
 investigation, you have yourself admitted to me 
 the plain justice of the old man's claims; " the 
 great blessing of the British Constitution,'' a 
 jury, has admitted it — ay, three times over; 
 the defendant did not for a long while en- 
 counter us on " merits,"" until that last trick 
 of a perjured witness and a forged document ; 
 and 3^et, nought availed against the removals 
 of verdicts, the staying of injunctions, the issues, 
 the piecemeal hearings, the useless corrections of 
 unimportant formalities, and oh ! the tender, ten- 
 der conscience which tremblingly reigns over the 
 Court of Chancery, when a poor and honest man 
 tries his right with a rich scoundrel. My father"'s 
 last available guinea, the last of many thousands, 
 and my father's life, that half of it at least, that
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 3 
 
 vigorous, muscular half, which can be called 
 life in reality, have passed away in the un- 
 meaning, barbarous contention ; and until he can 
 again light on a mine of gold, and again grow 
 young, he must permit his more affluent enemy 
 — robber — to hold the latest technical advan- 
 tage he has gained — no ! bribed his way to — 
 over him, with the pleasing consciousness into 
 the bargain, on the part of the pauper plain- 
 tiff, that the means for his destruction have 
 been drawn from his own unjustly-withheld 
 property. 
 
 The Woolsack ! I was going to call it a 
 great stone round the neck of justice, as, I 
 believe, it has often been unfigurativeJy called ; 
 but I will not — even let it remain what it is, 
 a huge, sweltering mass, flung over the whole 
 frame of the goddess, half smothering her and 
 paralyzing her in every limb. Graves, shall 
 we live to see it unpacked and embowelled, or 
 at least reduced to a rational size ? You are 
 less apt to dream than I am, and yet you 
 calmly say, yes, now and then, while I un- 
 energetically stamp my foot and say. No. Rea- 
 son or necessity, you argue, must reach it some 
 day, and soon, along with a good many other 
 things ; but still I answer, so much, so wholly, 
 
 B 2
 
 4 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 in this nation of anomalies, do measures depend 
 on men — I mean on one or two men, whoever 
 they may happen to be for the time — that 
 until some two such as Brougham and Peel 
 coalesce to attack it, the great shame of British 
 jurisprudence must continue pretty nearly what 
 it is. But Brougham and Peel sit on opposite 
 benches. Spirit of sense and philanthropy, 
 and of prudence, inspire their very selves, and 
 doom us not to wait for the eclipsing achieve- 
 ments of any two, or three, or four of their 
 successors ! 
 
 " A harangue, Mutford," you observe, with 
 your quiet and somewhat (denied by you, dear 
 Dick, in acts as well as words,) supercilious 
 smile. No matter — let it pass; and now I 
 proceed to tell you, minutely, according to 
 agreement, what befell me since you bid me 
 good-by at Charing-cross. 
 
 I had scarce descended from the top of the 
 coach here at the inn where it stopped, when 
 I saw my father and sister coming up the 
 street. They had been walking on the parade. 
 He stepped very feebly and leaned on Bessy's 
 arm ; and though it was but some months 
 since I had seen him before, he appeared sadly 
 changed for the worse. This observation
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 5 
 
 thrilled through me. Pitying his feebleness. I 
 refrained from approaching him in the street, 
 but stepped behind the open door of the inn 
 hall, to allow him and my sister to enter, as I 
 thought. They passed the inn, however ; I 
 followed them at a distance through meaner 
 streets of the town, and traced them into an- 
 other inn, of an appearance much more homely 
 than that at which I was about to take up my 
 temporary residence. Again I felt a shock, 
 although I ought to have been prepared for 
 the little event. 
 
 After they had entered the house, I walked 
 into a little sanded side-parlour, and writing a 
 line to Bessy, desired the unwashed man who 
 personated a waiter, to give it unperceived into 
 her hands. The goose began to look virtuous 
 and sceptical, and disinclined : " the young lady 
 is my sister," I added, and so beguiled him of 
 his rising hope of half-a-crown. 
 
 Bessy soon came down to me; was greatly 
 surprised and delighted, and after some neces- 
 sary questions and answers, and many persua- 
 sions against my project, and in favour of a 
 speedy return to the Temple without approach- 
 ing my father, which my despotic words and 
 manner overruled, went up stairs to prepare the
 
 6 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 invalid for seeing me. At her reappearance, 
 with red eyes and a pale face, I accompanied 
 her into his presence. 
 
 Under any possible circumstances — that is, 
 possible between him and me — I am sure my 
 father and I should always meet cordially. We 
 did so on the present occasion. There was, 
 however, a slight degree of bland self-possession 
 in his eyes, words, and manner, after our saluta- 
 tions, which told me what I had to reckon on ; 
 indeed, what I had anticipated. It did not 
 much affect me — my mind was made up ; my 
 purpose taken, — for good, I hoped ; I did not 
 fear that he could, or should, or ought to be 
 very angry with me ; and besides, strange and 
 almost idle as the thought was, I liked to con- 
 template for a moment the perfect air of a 
 gentleman which such a mood never fails to 
 impart to my father : an air somewhat ancient, 
 to be sure, and cut by the present generation ; 
 it is, however, true old English of the best 
 polish, and I shall not quarrel with the inge- 
 nious youth of my own day if they surpass it, 
 after leaving; it behind them. 
 
 Knowing his way, as, after many long years 
 of living together, I ought to do — I did not 
 apprehend an immediate " discussion," as he is
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 7 
 
 used to call it. Dinner, a very frugal, fish one, 
 was served, and I sat down to it, quite as natu- 
 rally as if we had all been in the old eating- 
 room in Yorkshire. I looked round the table 
 for wine ; there was none to be seen. I asked 
 leave to order some. " No, Michael," he said, 
 " not for me ; it is an interdicted luxury in 
 my present state of health ; but I ought not to 
 forget you, so, ring." 
 
 I mentioned my utter carelessness on the 
 matter : and stated — and truly — how long, at a 
 time, I had done without wine from choice, in 
 chambei's, in London. 
 
 " Well," he said, " voluntary temperance is 
 a virtue, at least ;" and I could perceive that 
 he suppressed a long-drawn sigh : *' but, by 
 the wa3', Michael," and he paused ; and I knew 
 well what was to follow his usual " by the way," 
 when, in fact, there had been no way, or a 
 very narrow one, to the contemplated change 
 of topic. 
 
 " Yes, dear father," I answered. 
 
 '• It was not exactly my intention to have 
 acquainted you with my present journey, for 
 a time at least : pray, how did you come to 
 hear of it .?" 
 
 I told him how, as I have told you. Graves.
 
 8 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " And you have left London purposely to 
 see Bessy and me, here ?"" 
 
 Certainly so, I replied ; though perhaps I 
 had not been altogether forgetful of how avail- 
 able would be the ground I should tread, to 
 the progress and finishing of " my Harold ;" 
 and I thought this a good stroke, in time, 
 because it hinted at what I was determined he 
 should more fully know, before our conference 
 ended. 
 
 My father shook his head, and observed, 
 " I should have been better pleased, Michael, 
 if you had remembered how available is the 
 other ground which you have left, to your Vesey 
 junior." 
 
 " Dear father, no ground can now be any 
 thing to me but that to which I am called by 
 my duty," I resumed. He raised up his large 
 and languid eyes, and fixed them upon me with 
 an overpowering expression. 
 
 And — " Your duty, Michael !" he asked, 
 " what do you mean by that ?" 
 
 " 'Tis a pedantic word," I said, " and I 
 recall it ; but let me supply another — my heart 
 — if that one is not even more pedantic ;" and 
 here, Graves, my strength of countenance fail-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 9 
 
 ing me, I was compelled to rest my forehead 
 on one hand, while I extended the other to him. 
 Bessy cried. I knew he looked at her, though 
 I could not see him ; ay, and looked at her 
 reprehensively, too : however, he took my hand 
 for a moment, pressed it, and when he spoke 
 again, his voice was not as firm as it had 
 been. 
 
 " Tell me, in a few words, what you have 
 really got into your head, Michael." 
 
 " I will, father," I answered, assuming an 
 even, though by no means light tone; and while 
 speaking, I caught myself fiddling with a fork. 
 " I have got into my head that, with a pittance 
 scarce able to support you and Bessy here, for 
 a year, you cannot afford, and I ought not to 
 accept, another year's allowance for my cham- 
 bers and my dinners in the Temple ; that, on 
 the contrary, I ought to exert myself to sup- 
 port myself txX least, if my efforts serve no better 
 end ; and that I can make the trial to more ad- 
 vantage, — that is, more economically — by your 
 side, wherever you are, sharing the same roof 
 with you, than I could, living expensively and 
 separately away from you, in London." 
 
 " Your impulses are natural, Michael ; I 
 
 B 5
 
 10 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 need not flatter you by calling them any thing 
 else," he said, looking towards the fire; " that 
 is not the point, however." 
 
 " It is, it is ! let me so far interrupt you — " 
 I urged warmly ; " it is the point. If I act 
 naturally upon the present occasion, I do not, 
 cannot act badly ; but a contrary mode of 
 action would not be natural, therefore might, 
 would be bad ; and noiv, how will you counsel 
 me ?" 
 
 " Well pleaded, for an unfledged barrister,"" 
 he said, faintly smiling ; but his features grew 
 deeply serious as he continued. " Listen to 
 me, Michael, attentively ; weigh my reasons ; 
 I can only reason with you ; you are of the 
 years of manhood, and your own master ; per- 
 haps at any time I should not care to play the 
 despot. But listen. By your scheme, you in- 
 contestibly give up a good ; the attaining a- 
 honourable and, with industry, a — we must use 
 the word, — a money-making profession, within 
 a year." 
 
 " Yes, father ; but one that does not ensure 
 money to a practitioner within the next year, 
 or the next, or the next, no matter how intense 
 may be his industry. Besides, it is not now- 
 proposed to abandon it altogether ; and you
 
 'the smuggler. ^ 11 
 
 know I am at liberty to resume my steps to- 
 wards it, even after pausing and turning aside 
 on the road." 
 
 " I grant you the last point, Michael. Per- 
 haps much of that which went before it. There 
 is certainly a chance that for many years tlie 
 most industrious young barrister may not get 
 into practice ; still there is a chance that he 
 may. And here our question narrows itself, 
 and is easily disposed of. Will you stand as 
 good a chance of making money during the 
 year, or the years, which you propose spending 
 away from your law-studies, as you would 
 walking Westminster Hall, with your wig on 
 your head, this day twelvemonths, and after- 
 wards .''" 
 
 " Unquestionably," said I. 
 
 " Prove tliat," said my father. 
 
 " Why, dear father, I have submitted some 
 of the proof already." 
 
 " How ? when ? Your Harold .?" 
 
 " Yes, my Harold ; and attempts of the same 
 kind." 
 
 " Ah !" was his only remark, as he drew his 
 chair nearer to the fire. 
 
 " But you do not yet know the real chances 
 in my favour," 1 resumed, now inspired, I
 
 12 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 suppose, by a combination of parental as well 
 as of filial feelings ; the one towards my dra- 
 matic brat, the other for my natural father. 
 
 " Well, well ; reckon them for me, Michael."" 
 
 " First, the stage is at present very much in 
 want of a genuine English tragedy." 
 
 " Granted/"* said he, ingenuously. 
 
 " Next, good judges give me the greatest 
 encouragement to finish Harold." 
 
 " Good judges .? Who.?" 
 
 " Dick Graves, for one."" 
 
 " Michael, you always think to stop my 
 mouth, blind my eyes, and awe my reason with 
 Dick Graves. But go on. I believe you have 
 touched my heart with him. Go on. I do, 
 however, admit that he may — ought to be one, 
 at least, of your good judges. Though I have 
 never seen him, you have favoured me now and 
 then with portions of his letters at secondhand ; 
 and letters hint a good deal of a man. He 
 loves you, I suppose, and he has a cool and a 
 strong judgment, I am sure, to say nothing of 
 a perfected education. Go on." 
 
 " To save your objections, possibly, to others 
 whom you do not know, dear father, I will step 
 with you at once into the manager's room, at 
 one of the great theatres.""
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 13 
 
 " And Harold has actually been there ?"" 
 
 " He has, even in his present dishabille." 
 
 " And what did the manager say ?" 
 
 " That he had no doubt of being able to 
 accept my tragedy when it should be com- 
 pleted.'' 
 
 " Indeed ?" asked my father musingly. 
 
 " And have it acted, Michael?" demanded 
 Bessy, her large humid black eyes, and her 
 brunette cheeks glowing at the prospect of the 
 literary fame of the family. 
 
 " To be sure, my dear," I answered ; " act- 
 ing a play is only a step of course after it has 
 once been accepted." 
 
 " And, Michael," demanded my father, after 
 his dry pause, " what may one expect to gain 
 by a tolerably successful tragedy ?" 
 
 " For a really successful one, about five hun- 
 dred pounds," I replied. 
 
 " I did not ask you concerning a really suc- 
 cessful one, Michael." 
 
 " Well, then, for a tolerably successful one, 
 perhaps half the money." 
 
 " And how much time has Harold cost you ?" 
 
 " Say, six months, dear father, off and on ; 
 but I could do my best at a tragedy in less time, 
 supposing literature my sole pursuit, for an
 
 14 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 interval ; bsides writing other things for the 
 periodicals and annuals." 
 
 " Where is ' Harold' at present, Michael ? 
 Have you brought him to Hastings with you ?" 
 
 " Here he is," I answered ; pulling the manu- 
 script out of my pocket. 
 
 " Well taken care of, I see. Will you read 
 me a line or two of him .'^" 
 
 " With pleasure, dear father, my best scene ; 
 or, perhaps, as the evening is early, and — " 
 
 " No ; not a whole scene, Michael : I have 
 not sufficient dramatic skill to judge of the fit- 
 ness of the tragedy for the stage, in its arrange- 
 ment ; but I think I am competent to form an 
 opinion of its claims to poetry ; so read to me 
 a single speech, as much detached from what 
 the people are doing as is possible ; meantime, 
 let it please yourself." 
 
 Accordingly, somewhat chilled by my father's 
 apathy, I selected in an instant, the speech you 
 have approved, dear Graves : — 
 
 " Onward I must ! but how, or where, or wherefore. 
 Is more than mystery : no loves shall hallow 
 The bitter hardships of a dreary day ; 
 
 and when I wake 
 
 To wander in the cold wild blasts of morn, 
 Glory will bend no radiant smile upon me,
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 15 
 
 To sun the sleeping darkness of my soul. — 
 But I must wander still, without a wish 
 To win me happiness — my goal ungain'd, 
 Because unknown — the chances yet to come 
 Unreckon'd, and all future hope shut up. 
 Like infancy, unchristened, in the grave!" 
 
 " Beautiful !" cried Bessy, shedding some 
 tears of sisterly delight, mostly, I believe, be- 
 cause she had been listening to a speech out of 
 a tragedy written by me. My father only 
 nodded his head at the end of each line, as if 
 merely to make sure of the prosody ; and some 
 moments elapsed before he asked : — 
 
 " And so, Michael, you are determined on 
 your new scheme ?''"' 
 
 "■ I promise you this, dear father," said I, 
 anxious to gain my point rapidly and gracious- 
 ly ; " if literature yield me nothing the first 
 year, I will have done with it for ever, and in 
 all things do as you advise and direct me, after- 
 wards. Meantime, do not refuse me the op- 
 portunity of taking my chance for fame, and 
 for its results, so necessary, and so immediately 
 necessary to my prospects." 
 
 " More so to Bessy's and mine, Michael," he 
 interrupted : " but I understand you, my dear 
 boy. I suppose you must have your way ;
 
 16* THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 though I wish I could have kept our removal 
 from Yorkshire a secret from you till the year 
 was out, Michael. I suspected something of 
 this kind at your hands. Have you given up 
 your chambers.'^" 
 
 " No ; but Dick Graves promises me a tenant 
 for them, at a profit rent, in consideration of 
 some articles of furniture." 
 
 "^ Dick Graves over again. And you will be 
 able to put up with much humbler lodgings 
 somewhere or other — I do not know where yet 
 — but in great retirement — will you, Michael ? 
 with Bessy and me ?" 
 
 He looked at me, his eyes moist, and I could 
 only stammer out some very unintelligible 
 words, half of remonstrance for his question, 
 half of agreeance. 
 
 " Then come with us, in God's name, Mi- 
 chael,*" he added ; now taking my hand of his 
 own accord, as he passed an arm round Bessy. 
 And so, dear Graves, my first point is won, 
 though you thought it would not be, and I bid 
 you adieu, in a hurry, for the present. 
 
 Michael MuTFORD.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 17 
 
 II. 
 
 TO MICHAEL MUTFORD, ESQ., HASTINGS. 
 
 MY DEAR MUTFORD, 
 
 In the disengaged half hour before the 
 breakfast-cloth is taken away, I write a hasty 
 answer to your last. I am pleased to hear that 
 you have carried your first point, under all the 
 circumstances. It would be irrational to argue, 
 that where the necessity v/as so strong, you 
 were not called upon to make the sacrifice. 
 You know well I am no advocate for a blind 
 self-devotion or abasement of the child to the 
 father. The slavish homage that some parents 
 exact from their off'spring is treason against the 
 law of nature : yet I am not sure that the 
 selfish indifference of some children, too, to the 
 immediate causers, of their being, the anxious 
 fosterers of their infantine weakness and child- 
 ish wants, is not quite as much against that law. 
 True, as I have often conceded to " indepen- 
 dent" youths of my acquaintance, we owe our 
 fathers no thanks merely for our existence : no, 
 nor for bringing us up, giving us meat, drink, 
 clothing, a fire to warm us in winter, a bed to 
 sleep on ; the stipendiary sovereign of Bow-
 
 18 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Street or of Marlborough-street, would have 
 compelled our parents to have so far obliged us. 
 He could not, however, have forced them to 
 have done more : but have they not done more? 
 And for that more are we not bound, in the 
 name of nature — of our own nature — of man's 
 nature — of common generosity, to hold our- 
 selves prepared to make an acknowledgment 
 some time or other ? 
 
 This is one of the very coldest ways of putting 
 the question. But even so coldly and so cau- 
 tiously 1 have been constrained to shape it, 
 while arguing with what I regret to call a pre- 
 valent doctrine of the lately risen and the rising 
 generation, else I should not, or would not have 
 been understood. Meagre as are the premises, 
 however, they fully warrant me, dear Mutford, 
 in sanctioning, as a friend, your temporary 
 abandonment of good prospects for the sake of 
 trying to cheer, and perhaps better your father''s 
 present situation : the necessity, I must repeat, 
 is strong. At the same time allow me to say, 
 that I still think you had an alternative in a 
 sincere proffer of friendly assistance : nor can I 
 understand your rooted objection to allow a 
 friend to show he is one, in certainly the least 
 important manifestation of a pure and high
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 19 
 
 feeling. My father happens not to have been 
 plundered of his property by a scoundrel. I 
 happen myself to have the start of you upon 
 the road of professional practice : from these 
 two reasons I am, with my few wants and fully 
 occupied time, superfluously rich ; and wh}^, 
 therefore, could not I, as well as you, or any 
 one for you, arrange about your chambers, and 
 your other little matters, for a year or so ? But 
 I write these plain words of common sense in 
 vain : at least, I fear I do. Our repeated and 
 futile conversations on the subject give me few 
 present hopes. If, however, you should for- 
 tunately feel yourself at last more open to con- 
 viction — I will say, to the clear-sightedness of 
 manly friendship — come back to town, and se- 
 cure your father's and your sister's comforts, 
 and your own professional peace, within a few 
 months. 
 
 I forgive your exaggerated declamation 
 against us, poor barristers. You have cause to 
 rail at one of our courts, at least ; and, by as- 
 sociation, at ourselves. But, only by associa- 
 tion. We had no hand in framing the consti- 
 tution of any court in which we practice. As 
 to the rest — our helping to make the monster 
 " more monstrous," that we need not do. Not
 
 20 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 one of us. Neither he who has been called, 
 nor he who is to be. If some among us do so, 
 others of us cannot help them. But we can do 
 better. We can resolve, and practically ar- 
 range not to imitate them. Nay, we can do 
 better and better still. We can contrive, upon 
 all fitting occasions — we, the initiated familiars 
 of the monster, the keepers of the beast — to 
 interpose between him and his humour on the 
 gaping crowd who will pay their pence to come 
 and see the show. 
 
 Are you not answered? Own that you are. 
 And so, no more angry abuse of your future 
 trade. For, a barrister you must be, Mutford. 
 You have many of the chief qualifications for 
 success as one ; and for such a one as will leave 
 your death-bed conscience free of the sins you 
 suppose us all compelled to : ay, and for such 
 a one as — (you surly and not-to-be compliment- 
 ed person) — will aid to rescvie us from that 
 very charge. To be sure, you are (at present) 
 much of an enthusiast, and too much (notwith- 
 standing " Harold," to whom all the success he 
 really merits) of a rhimester ; furthermore, I 
 have now and then thought there was about 
 you or in you, of late, a something or other 
 which . Excuse the sudden break. The
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 21 
 
 last favoured client of my father's introduction, 
 
 Lord P , (for whom, because he is a friend, 
 
 I am supposed to be able to think clearer, and 
 advise better than I could do for a stranger I) 
 has come in, with some new light on his very 
 blank case, and he waits till I shall have finish- 
 ed this, to uncloud himself, and shower radiance 
 upon obscurity. So, farewell, after I complete 
 the interrupted sentence. " About you, or in 
 you, something or other which," — " which" — 
 and here I stop again of my own accord. In 
 short, Mutford, do, in your next, what I often 
 asked you to do for me. Sit down before a 
 good mirror — your past — and sketch a front 
 face of yourself. Let the costume and accom- 
 paniments be your present. I do not want to 
 know you : otherwise could we have got up 
 between us a good copy of David and Jona- 
 than, or any two such names, divine or profane; 
 or, recollecting Macpherson, gothic ? no ; I do 
 not want to know you ; but I do want to know 
 
 if I do.—" Now, Lord P ." 
 
 Richard Graves. 
 
 On the reverse, suppose an outline, in profile, 
 your future — truly, thoughtfully, from the 
 heart, as you see, or think you see it ; and, my
 
 22 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 dear Mutford, as you feel I have a right, yea, 
 a right, to contemplate it along with you ? Can- 
 didly, Michael, what is your master passion ? 
 your ungrasped idol of worship ? Love, worldly 
 success, (in place or fame,) or fortune ? Do, I 
 pray you, begin the sketches. R. G. 
 
 III. 
 
 TO RICHARD GRAVES, ESQ. 
 
 Fudge, dear Dick ! who is sentimental 
 now, and mouthy, and fanciful, and solemnly 
 nonsensical? Who talks tropes and long sen- 
 tences, now ? What have you been dreaming of, 
 about me? Yes, I suppose you have noticed 
 something exceedingly mysterious whenever I 
 had my periodical fit of tooth-ache, or upon 
 some such memorable occasion. But, man, I 
 am no model for a reserved and moody hero ; 
 I, as well as you, live in too old a world for 
 that. My past, my present, and my future ! 
 why, in common sense's name, what does any 
 youth of three-and-twenty live for, but to laugh 
 at his past, enjoy and make the best of his pre- 
 sent, and always dream of being rich, if nothing 
 else, in his future ? Dick, you have hitherto 
 been fining me, sixpence at a time, for my
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 23 
 
 absurdity ; pay your fine of nine-pence for this 
 letter, on account of your own. 
 
 Michael Mutford. 
 
 IV. 
 
 TO MICHAEL MUTFORD, ESQ. 
 
 I AM going to be more absurd, Michael, 
 if such is your word ; or more sentimental, or 
 mouthy, or long-sentenced. I ask you on the 
 faith and value of our friendship for each other, 
 on your regard for truth, and in the name of 
 your father, your sister, and your God, to 
 answer my last letter seriously. 
 
 Richard Graves. 
 
 TO RICHARD GRAVES, ESQ. 
 
 Graves, you have terrribly shaken me; 
 even my body trembles along with my spirit, 
 and 'tis literally true that I cannot firmly guide 
 the pen with which I write to you. Yet I 
 snatch it up ; — in what impulse .'' — a mixed 
 one, I believe, — a great yearning to answer the 
 call of your great friendship mingles with the 
 natural thirst for unloading a " stuffed bosom."
 
 24 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 At any rate you sltall be answered. You, the 
 only second human being, and now the only 
 one — always excepting my father and my sister 
 — who have loved me, and let me love. And 
 have I dealt ungenerously with you by hiding 
 hitherto the story I am about to tell? No, I 
 hope not. My character I never hid, never 
 vamped up, never imposed upon you. My sor- 
 rows only I did ; by and by you may say my 
 crimes also, and so stand upon a ground for 
 reproach. But we shall see whether I have not 
 been more sinned against than sinning. God 
 sees and judges the question already. 
 
 Yes, Graves, I sit down to my mirror. In it 
 I see a youth of twenty, (I am not yet twenty- 
 three,) his features open and spirited, though 
 scarce comely ; hope and truth in his eye, smiles 
 on his lips ; slight and short in stature, but 
 upright, agile-limbed, and every muscle stamped 
 with the power of bounding motion. Not yet, 
 oh, not yet have his lids drooped, and his mouth 
 curved downward, and his cheeks flattened and 
 faded almost into ugliness; not yet have his 
 shoulders stooped, nor yet has his chest round- 
 ed, not yet have his limbs looked listless. Let 
 a brief narrative enable you to trace the change 
 that has come over him.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 25 
 
 You know that when home in Yorkshire from 
 college to see my father, I was a professed 
 walker. You know that I often broke the 
 bounds even of our great county, and rambled 
 over Northumberland, sometimes using the pen- 
 cil, sometimes the pen. There, at twenty, in a 
 mountain-hut, I saw the being foredoomed to be 
 my fate — my life's atmosphere, climate, if not 
 the meter-out of the limit, the very act of life 
 itself. She was very young. Often and often 
 I visited her, till passion became downright in- 
 fatuation. You smile, Graves, in your quiet, 
 equal way, at the notion of having so quickly 
 learned the common-place cause of my — my 
 vrhatever it is which you say you have noticed 
 in me. I fell in love, you predicate, at twenty, 
 with a little hill-goddess, and my father would 
 not hear of the matter, and so I am pursued, 
 or I am pleased to fancy myself pursued, by a 
 gentle melancholy. Not quite thus, however, 
 dear Graves; not quite thus. She is dead. 
 Dead, and gone from me in her first youth ; 
 while my bones, my very bones thrill to the 
 thought of hers rotting in her grave ; while my 
 heart swells with love to the foul earth that 
 once was her heart. That is something not so 
 common-place. Dead ! Dead, more than two 
 
 VOL. I. c
 
 26 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 years. Next — uot in her grave alone. A drop 
 of my blood, frozen before its time — frozen, in- 
 deed, almost ere it flowed, — a crumble of the 
 clod which makes my mortal identity, helped 
 to fill that grave with her. I saw them, coarse 
 and vulgar, and office-hardened, and tyrant 
 savages, as they were — I saw them lay the little 
 creature on her bosom, and fold her arms over 
 it, before both were hurried from my sight for 
 ever. Hurried I do not know whither. They 
 have left me without a guide or clue to the spot 
 in which they flung her and it. Perhaps they 
 had their own reasons for their brutal silence. 
 Perhaps, at a nod and a bribe from some agent 
 of some studious man, mother earth has been 
 rifled of her children. But I wander and tire 
 you. To complete this long sentence. Dead 
 — how dead ? Graves, that, that question in- 
 volves the least common-place, though, I fear, 
 not the least every-day, answer of all. You do 
 not understand my distinction between the two 
 words common-place and every-day. I will 
 explain to you as well as I can. 
 
 I need not say that she — {she — the pronoun 
 is enough, — let her name share her grave, her 
 nameless grave, ay, and the mysterious sleep 
 of the nameless little infant, there massed with
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 27 
 
 her dust long ago) — I need not say that her 
 lot in life was humble, very humble; but her 
 natural capacity, her organization of mind was 
 of a high order, and I resolved within myself 
 to educate her, and when she should have 
 become intelligent and a woman (for as yet I 
 could scarce call her more than child), I hoped 
 to win my father's consent to our union. No, 
 Graves, as I am a man, as I hope to see her 
 again and confront her with a brow of truth, 
 never for one instant did I indulge a bad and 
 cowardly thought towards that unhappy young 
 creature — never. But, on the contrary, I 
 formed my plan of becoming her tutor, and 
 acted upon it with a glowing, a smiling pure- 
 ness and joy of heart which was worthy of 
 a man ; ay, and my delicious task proceeded 
 as if under a blessing, and a 3'ear passed over 
 us, and my lips had scarce disturbed the first 
 bloom on hers. Then, one mad, one accursed 
 instant, unforeseen, undreamt of, nay, unplan- 
 ned the instant before, and I destroyed her. 
 
 That my crime would be followed by its own 
 evidence I could not know for many months. 
 Having fled from her in wild remorse, a term 
 at college and a sojourn with my father, kept 
 us some time separated. When I saw her 
 
 C 2
 
 28 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 again, her appearance was horror to my eyes ; 
 but I resolved to stay by her side till she 
 should be a mother. My father might con- 
 jecture what he liked about my absence ; ay, 
 and feel what he liked, deeply as I loved him — 
 this I resolved. Oh ! that I had now, now at 
 least, made him my confidant ! 
 
 Let me be brief, very brief, as I promised 
 you I would be. I had been long expected in 
 the Northumberland cottage by more than one 
 or two persons. At the first symptoms of her 
 shame, the majesty of parish law aroused itself 
 against her ; its administrators called on her 
 to divulge the name of the father of her coming 
 child, and, more in simplicity than any other 
 feeling, she gave that by which I had an- 
 nounced myself the first evening I crossed her 
 father's threshold, and had since borne in the 
 neighbourhood — I need not add that it was not 
 my real name. Well, I came again to see her, 
 and to ray consternation, — for I had not con- 
 sidered the subject, — I was scarce seated at her 
 side when I received a summons to appear 
 before a magistrate the next morning. My 
 blood shrank from a public investigation : I 
 trembled at the thought of its reaching the 
 ears of my sick and impoverished and honoured
 
 THE SiMUGGLER, 29 
 
 father. I hurried out into the fields to think, 
 and if possible, arrange a compromise with the 
 offended guardians of population. There was 
 enough money in my pocket to appease their 
 utmost wrath — (you know there was, Graves, 
 for, though now you kindly upbraid me with 
 not calling on you, it was of you I borrowed 
 it) — I resolved to walk down to the neighbour- 
 ing village and see what I could do amongst 
 them. 
 
 I took a very lonely path — the night fell 
 upon me — I was attacked by three strange 
 men, knocked down, cruelly beaten, and robbed 
 of every shilling I possessed. These fellows 
 were doubtless members of a gang of petty 
 
 thieves, who infested the town of and 
 
 its vicinity ; and so my treaty with the parish 
 rulers was at an end, and I crawled back to 
 the cottage, scarce able to crawl, and wholly 
 despairing at heart. 
 
 I was too ill to obey the summons next 
 morning ; in fact, I slept, after a sleepless and 
 painful night, at the hour prescribed for my 
 attendance on the awful magistrate. Men came 
 to seek me, and shook me rudely, where I lay 
 undressed upon a straw pallet, she watching and 
 crying over me. I told them my situation, and
 
 30 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 prayed them to let me rest till I could receive 
 money in a letter lo replace that which I had 
 lost. They scouted my proposal, swearing out 
 their disbelief of the story of my having been 
 robbed, calling me an impostor and bo better 
 than a rogue myself, and commanding me to 
 get up and go with them ; doubtless, my very 
 humble pedestrian dress of fustian, and my 
 bruised features and the soil on my person, 
 caught from the damp earth where the thieves 
 had flung me down, gained me few good 
 opinions in the minds of my visitors. 
 
 Their base insults oufjht not to have affected 
 me ; but in my weak and feverish state they 
 did, and I resented them in intemperate lan- 
 guage. Little mercy was now shown to me ; in 
 few moments I was dragged from my straw to 
 the magistrate, raving and struggling, with her 
 shrieks in my ears. Placed before the tempo- 
 rary arbiter of my fate, my indignation and my 
 fever remained unabated, and I continued to 
 play the fool. He was, perhaps, a person of 
 some feeling, and under his own roof might 
 have shown me some — that is, in any room of 
 his house excepting only his magisterial audience 
 room. But when I refused to answer upon 
 oath to the name I bore in Northumberland ;
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 31 
 
 in fact, refused to give any name, I found at 
 his hands as little charity as I had found at 
 those of his meanest creatures ; perhaps ray 
 personal appearance again added to the un- 
 favourable impressions against me, as much 
 as did my candid and vehement admissions 
 of being for the time pennyless. It is quite 
 true, Graves, that in less than half an hour, I 
 found myself in the parish workhouse, doomed 
 to be a prisoner until I could satisfy the autho- 
 rities, in a specified sum, for the — the lying-in 
 of my victim, and the future maintenance of her 
 child. 
 
 The vs'indow of my prison-chamber over- 
 looked the entrance into the house of misery. 
 In about half an hour after I was left alone, I 
 heard shrieks and groans without, and saw her 
 borne towards the door by the same man who 
 had dragged me before the magistrate. She 
 entered under one roof with me, and her moans 
 and cries became more audible. I grew frantic; 
 I thumped at the door of the small apartment, 
 stamped on the floor, and roared for some one 
 to come to me. In his own good time my 
 jailor appeared : to my rapid and furious ques- 
 tions he sneeringly answered, that " the young 
 woman, though her labour was beforehand,
 
 32 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 would soon make me a father;" and he with- 
 drew, heedless of my entreaties, now offered 
 in a feehle voice and with streaming eyes, to be 
 admitted to see her, or allowed to stand at the 
 door of her chamber and speak to her. Her 
 cries subsided after I had listened to them for 
 hours ; or I could catch but the weakest mean- 
 ings of exhaustion. Many people hurried 
 through the house, and a little one-horse chaise 
 stopped at the entrance door, and I knew it 
 was the apothecary-surgeon I saw step out of 
 it. In a few minutes she began to scream 
 again, and at last I heard one great shriek, 
 and then the stillness of the night in which I 
 was at that moment sitting, closed around me. 
 
 I will not trouble you with my feelings, 
 drawn from my forebodings, while I was still 
 left in that wretched room alone, and unnoticed, 
 although a prisoner. It might be about ten 
 o'clock at night when I was again visited. And 
 then I was made certain ; and at last, yielding to 
 the supplications, and to the rage, by turns, of 
 almost madness, they allowed me to pass into 
 her chamber. 
 
 An old woman accompanied me to the door ; 
 there gave me a rush-light, for, previously, the 
 apartment had been in utter darkness, and left
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 33 
 
 me to enter alone. I shut the creakino; door 
 gently, as if I could have disturbed any one, 
 raised the meagre light above my head, and 
 looked around. I saw a bed, decently disposed, 
 but nothing else, till I stole on tiptoe to its 
 side, and then I saw the two corpses. Again 
 there is no use in alluding to what I suffered. 
 I will tell you, Graves, only some peculiar 
 portions of my solitary reflections that night, 
 sitting by that bed. 
 
 The still-born infant, my infant, and mine 
 at twenty years of age, lay on my knees, while 
 one of its mother's hands was clasped in one of 
 its father's. I had drawn a deal table close to 
 me, and put the rush-light upon it, so that all 
 the rays the wretched taper could lend, fell 
 upon the baby's face. Hours had passed. I 
 had no more tears to shed ; or, more truly, they 
 could not come ; the heavy pain of unexhaust- 
 ed anguish stuck in my breast and throat : and 
 thus I gazed and gazed upon my child, until — 
 it was a strange and some may think an un- 
 feeling fancy — until — at last expressing a long 
 though fitful reverie — I demanded of myself 
 — why should I mourn for this little creature ? 
 Let me mourn for the dead alone, — its mother, 
 here at my side, — but not for it, the unborn, 
 
 c5
 
 34 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 ay, unborn, although dehvered of the womb — 
 the unbreathed, the little spirit which has never 
 been of this world, and hardly ever abstracted 
 from a higher one. And then, Graves, I felt 
 deep awe fall upon me, arresting for a time 
 even my anguish, — deep awe, wonder, un- 
 certainty, mystery. No, it was not death, 
 though so like it. Death comes when life goes; 
 life lived in this life. But the beauteous little 
 out-turned lips I looked on, had never moved 
 or fluttered with an earthly breath: the little 
 silken eyelids had never been upraised to ad- 
 mit a ray of our sun's light ; the little un- 
 seen, unknown eyes they curtained, had never 
 beheld an earthly object — the Httle ears heard 
 an earthly sound — the little limbs felt an earthly 
 touch. I held not, upon my knees, the mortal 
 relics of a human being. And what held I, 
 then ? The machine prepared for the reception 
 and impulses, and powers of that being ; or, 
 half-prepared, and now re-ordained never, in 
 this life at least, never to be used, never acted 
 upon. Or, in my passing view, did I gaze on 
 any thing more real, with regard to breathing 
 existence, than might be a sculptor's marble 
 copy of those limbs and features ? Yes ! and 
 I trembled. Yes! for that tuould be a copy.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 35 
 
 And a copy of what master hand ! and marble 
 — and here on my knee was another material ! 
 And I should not think of surface merely, but 
 of the wondrous structure, through its lena;th 
 and depth, through and through, of that ma- 
 terial ! I felt ray breath come short. The 
 nerves and blood now thrilled along my head 
 at the thought of touching, fresh from God's 
 formation, a receptacle, an habitation for mortal 
 life, which had not yet, and never could be, 
 endowed with that life. To nurse the corpse of 
 my infant, my dead infant, would not have been 
 strange, however agonizing, — strange to me as 
 a man, a living man ; but to nurse this little — 
 WHAT ? Oh, again and again I said to myself, 
 " Yes, there, upon the face, so still, so unused, 
 and yet so wise and powerful" — (Graves, sage- 
 ness and power were awfully conveyed by the 
 baby's features) — " there is the expression of 
 flesh and blood, and bone and muscle, prepared 
 for the action upon them of a spirit of good 
 and greatness, but of flesh and blood, and bone 
 and muscle, which yet have not received that 
 action !" 
 
 Make some excuses, dear Graves, as well for 
 this ramble itself, as for its extravagances, in- 
 coherences, and inconsequential assumptions.
 
 36 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 and attribute all its errors rather to my shaken 
 and, perhaps, raving frame of mind at the mo- 
 ment, than to the shghtest wish, then or now, 
 of disturbing a single dogma, and many axioms, 
 revealed and scientific. To continue ; or, I 
 should say, conclude. 
 
 And yet, how little more have I to add. The 
 village carpenter, rudely pushing into the room 
 with a deal coffin on his shoulders, aroused me, 
 about midnight, from my reveries, such as they 
 were. But before the man flung open the door, 
 my rushhght had burnt out; long before, I 
 think ; although still I sat by the bed, her 
 hand in mine, and her infant on my lap. Find- 
 ing himself in darkness, with the lifeless bodies, 
 and perhaps hearing me stir, or breathe, or 
 groan, he cast aside his load, and stumbled 
 down stairs. Presently he returned with three 
 or four others, men and women, and it was then 
 I saw them lay the baby on its mother's bosom, 
 and fold her arms round it. After that I just 
 had enough presence of mind and strength left, 
 to write a line to you, dear Graves, requesting 
 another loan of money, in my travelling name, 
 and then they did what they liked with me, too. 
 
 I was told that many days had elapsed when 
 I next had sense to address them. Many more
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 37 
 
 were required to restore me to health, or rather 
 to the power of moving. Your answer reached 
 me in good time. I paid the sums they de- 
 manded of me, was free, and wandered home to 
 my father and sister. My long absence, and 
 my wretched appearance gave both good grounds 
 for anxious inquiries. I truly stated that a 
 fever had overtaken me in Northumberland ; 
 but more they did not learn, more they do not 
 at present know. 
 
 Well, Graves, what has this made me ? you 
 have seen what, so far as regards my intercourse 
 with the world and my friends ; therefore I need 
 not answer : but I suppose your " something or 
 other," is now explained. But within.? Deso- 
 late, Graves, desolate and fear-stricken ; and 
 yet evil and savage, too. How am I to make 
 you understand ? I apprehend 'tis not in my 
 power to do so ; but I will give you one abid- 
 ing thought, or sensation of my bosom, apart 
 from its mere griefs. I never lay down my 
 head to sleep at night, I never awake in the 
 morning, without being conscious of a stifled but 
 dense rage against man. Unceasingly I whis- 
 per when I am alone, "neither she nor I had 
 mercy at their hands !" And then this prepos- 
 session takes many shapes, at different times.
 
 38 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 some of them doubtless (though I had rather say 
 perhaps) unjust and visionary. For example, 
 I occasionally feel the dislike of the poor man 
 against the rich, so common as I have assured 
 you, throughout England at present, although 
 indulged by persons more absolutely inferior in 
 society than I am. I believe that that one occur- 
 rence of tyranny towards me in Northumberland, 
 where I was a stranger and pennyless, inspires, 
 and ever must inspire the morbid feeling, Alas, 
 Graves, a source of humiliation and degradation 
 which I can never vent in revenge — pardon me 
 the word, in self-assertion — has its influence 
 upon me. And could the fretting and irritation 
 of my previous life, on account of the disap- 
 pointments and wrongs of my father, I may 
 add, myself, have prepared me for being so 
 affected by the outrage ? Another impression 
 has been indirectly made, which I cannot help 
 permitting to sink deep. You know it, from 
 our conversations together, and you have seen 
 it in the form of a mere reasoning theory, 
 though now I fear you will suspect it of per- 
 sonal prejudice ; you may be wrong, however. 
 It is not because a man's observation of public 
 Injustice is first aroused by his individual ex- 
 perience of it, that he is unfitted to become its
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 39 
 
 denouncer on broad general grounds. There- 
 fore, even with the knowledge you now have of 
 me, I again tell you that I consider our present 
 state of parish laws a curse to our country, and 
 before you again appear as their advocate, you 
 must live more out of London. And it is not 
 merely to the instance of their administration 
 which affects myself, but to their whole influ- 
 ence and working that I now address my de- 
 nouncement. I will not " utterly overpower 
 you*" by renewing here my doubts of the wis- 
 dom, the justice, or the mercy of other laws made 
 by the rich against the poor ; but I must say 
 that I would not arm a gang of ruffian game- 
 preservers against a gang of hungry or needy, 
 or even ruffian (for the word involves its own 
 argument) poachers, for all the pheasants that 
 ever flew, and all the hares that ever ran ;* no, 
 nor arm a cutter, nor a crew of men-of-war's 
 men against a smuggling lugger for the purpose 
 of paying annually (if it were possible by such 
 means) the whole thirty-something millions 
 of interest of the national debt. And now. 
 Graves, do not accuse me of a mistake ; the 
 
 * For none of the peculiarly-constituted opinions of 
 Mutford do his faithful editors deem themselves account- 
 able.
 
 40 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 revenue laws are not levelled against the poor 
 exclusively : I know that very well ; and yet, 
 I denounce tliern too, as deeply pernicious to 
 the morals and the happiness of England. 
 
 But I am to be a barrister ? of course all 
 laws here spoken of, apart, when I put the 
 question. AVe shall see, dear Graves. I must 
 be any thing for money — any thing, at least, 
 which will not lose me your friendship : and 
 here comes in the last sketch you asked for — 
 my future. But no, I cannot catch a feature. 
 Every trait is so vague and visionary, that the 
 very recollection (if nothing else) of my old 
 objection to painters trying to define the inde- 
 finable^ (ghost, dreams, and all ideal creatures 
 for instance,) incapacitates me; or. Graves, the 
 object is so fearful, as well as so shapeless, that 
 my hand trembles too much for a single touch. 
 
 " My master-passion ?" Graves, I do believe 
 I have none. " Love ?" That is answered. 
 Till I cease to dream every night of her and 
 of her baby, as I saw them, and as I have 
 faintly imaged them to you, the answer must 
 hold good. " Place, fame, fortune .''" No. I 
 have said, indeed, that I wish (to use my poor 
 father's words) to make money. But I wish it 
 not for itself, or for ?72j/self. " Fame.'''" As
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 41 
 
 money's hand-maid. No chord in my breast 
 throbs to the thought of newspaper paragraphs, 
 and invitations to the tables or the evening 
 parties of collectors of rare beasts. " Place ?'''' 
 Graves, a chord now does answer ! But it has 
 been a broken chord, is but newly knotted to- 
 gether, and it answers in ajar! yes. Graves, 
 *' Place !" For whom ? again, not for myself; 
 or if so, not that I may smile in it, and be 
 happy, and at rest. No, Graves ! but that 
 from it, I may 
 
 Folly, folly. 
 
 We leave this town to-morrow, and I am 
 glad of it. My walks out by the sea with my 
 father and Bessy, or alone, do me no good. 
 The brilliant crowd that begin to gather in so 
 fashionable a " watering-place," seem to me to 
 look hard, and unfeelingly, and insolently, upon 
 us as we pass them, upon our humbled brows 
 and air, and — poor attire. " Worse and worse," 
 you exclaim, — " morbid to absurdity." Well, 
 well, I can at least make you believe that you 
 are valued and loved by 
 
 Your affectionate friend, 
 Michael Mutford. 
 
 Lest my father's uncertain health should 
 delay our intended journey, direct your next.
 
 42 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 if you write soon, to the post-office here. I will 
 give them instructions to forward it, in case of 
 need. 
 
 VI. 
 
 TO MICHAEL MUTFORD, ESQ. 
 
 Your hand, my dear fellow, and let me 
 shake it cordially, (or as cordially as we Bri- 
 tons are said to do,) and thank you for your 
 confidence. I am now sure that I can make a 
 friend. 
 
 You have suffered, indeed, dear Mutford, 
 terribly, pitiably, for your years ; but I will 
 avoid this topic at present, if not for ever. I 
 cannot hope to say any thing to soothe you 
 upon a recollection so poignant ; you do not 
 expect that I can or ought. Once more, thank 
 you heartily, that 's all. 
 
 But I may venture to assure you that tinie 
 will bring you great if not primitive peace of 
 heart and clearness of mind, much as the one 
 continues to be wrung, and the other, — excuse 
 me, — clouded. If I was not convinced of this 
 I should indeed mourn for you, and deeply, as 
 for one — I mean as for an esteemed friend — half- 
 lost to me for ever. For, indeed, Mutford, you
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 43 
 
 do give way at present to impressions sufficient 
 to destroy you. Morbid, — ay, morbid, — and 
 you see it yourself; your own nature feels 
 and resists already the ungenerous pressure 
 which would bear it down. I am very glad you 
 did not finish that sentence about " place." 
 Not that I do not finish it for you ; not that I 
 am not able to comprehend the loose though 
 angry and dark views in which your temporary 
 affliction would tempt you to aspire to power. 
 But, once again, dear Michael, believe me, you 
 will change. I long to see you grasp your 
 thunder-bolts, only that I may admire how 
 peacefully you will allow them to repose at 
 your feet. We have not all wronged you, nor 
 warped laws already enough warped, nor abused 
 a little day of local power to tyrannize over you 
 and crush you. And even for our sakes, who 
 have not done these things, you will forgive the 
 few who have. Nay, Michael, you will forgive 
 in spite of you. You are constructed more for 
 loving than for hating ; mind, I do not mean to 
 say you hate— that is, at present ; though I do 
 meanj that if you could cherish (which you can- 
 not) your prepossessions for some years more, 
 ay, and in the softening and warming sunshine 
 of success, then you would hate.
 
 44 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 As to my feelings at learning from yourself 
 this hidden, ay, " master-passion," though you 
 deny it, they were very distressing, Mutford, 
 at first ; more distressing, if possible, than the 
 melancholy events which caused it. I shut my 
 eyes over your letter, and shuddered, not at you, 
 but for you. But that passed away when I 
 thought of you — of your mind and heart ; and 
 my next transition was to surprise that such a ' 
 heap of bitterness could have so long lain co- 
 vered from my eye by your alternate good- 
 humour and pleasantry ; I admit, indeed, that 
 the latter partook of caustic, still it was what I 
 call it. And my surprise heightened when I 
 assured myself that this had happened without 
 an effort on your part to make a show of falla- 
 cious characteristics to your friend. You are 
 a new leaf to me in my puzzle-book of human 
 nature, Michael. 
 
 One part of your letter I like, or at any rate, 
 a part of the part. Whether or no you are 
 quite right regarding the state of the laws you 
 speak of, your view interests me, as it must 
 every body ; and as you are going to live in the 
 country again, ay, and at the coast too, it is 
 evident that you must be well situated for ac- 
 quiring the best argument on the subject, one
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 45 
 
 way or another — experience. And now do me 
 a kindness. A journal, a regular journal is a 
 very old-fashioned thing, yet if you would write 
 something of the kind for me, during your resi- 
 dence out of London, and send it in parts up to 
 town, each part in the shape of a parcel by the 
 stage, I would feel gratified. Very far am I 
 from wishing to rob " Harold " of a single half 
 hour ; but I suspect you will have a little time 
 every day to spare from him. In this manner 
 we can be almost together still ; and I own that 
 I expect improvement and amusement from 
 your sketches, almost to an extent equal to the 
 pleasure it must give me to hear constantly 
 from you and about you. You will use your 
 eyes, I know ; make as many road-side and cot- 
 tage friends as you can ; oversee the overseer, 
 watch the beadle, and — difficult as is the task — 
 tithe the parson for me : and I can tell you, 
 without much flattery, that you have a knack 
 of making others comprehend what you see or 
 hear, whether you use the tongue or the pen. 
 Of course I may depend on having one or two 
 of your clients, the poachers : and, if it is pos- 
 sible, capture me a real smuggler ; none of your 
 timid land-receivers, but a fine romantic vaga- 
 bond of the waters, who absolutely chops about
 
 46 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 the Channel in his own lugger, and runs in his 
 goods of a dark night upon a perilous coast, in 
 defiance of revenue-cutters and men-of-war's 
 men. In short, a primitive law-breaker and 
 rover, with all the impress of adventui'e and 
 character upon him. 
 
 Very seriously, your repeated harangues on 
 parish laws, and other laws, together with my own 
 growing experience at second hand, (through 
 the medium of trials on circuit, I mean,) of 
 their true operation upon the mind, and, as you 
 say, the happiness of the country, make me 
 anxious to grow wiser in your favourite branch 
 of knowledge : and so, Mutford, the journal — 
 the journal — and adieu ! — 
 
 But no — my eye catches the last sentence of 
 your letter, and I will not conclude without 
 asking you, in the name of common sense, good 
 feeling, and your own frame and order of mind, 
 how can you write such mighty absurdity? 
 What ! good folks, who lounge or ride at the 
 sea's edge, in Hastinjis — Mr. and Mrs. and Miss 
 Cheese, from the city, most likely, or, at best, 
 some sapless ofl-lirauches of title — echos of 
 aristocracy — they cast expressive looks upon 
 Michael Mutford ! My dear Michael, I have 
 heard you say, in poetical mood, that a muddy
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 47 
 
 stream reflects, in its own way, the freshest 
 green grass, and the brightest coloured flower 
 upon its banks. You will want confidence in 
 yourself, and then you go on to endow every 
 one else with your own doubt of you — every one 
 else, good simple soul, being as innocent of the 
 malignity you attribute, as you are of the 
 slightest real cause for the want of nerve you 
 hint about. My dear Mutford, I will not, can- 
 not give you quarter the next time you sport 
 with me in such a manner. At present I am 
 severe — I know I am ; but am I not, too, 
 
 Richard Graves? 
 
 VII. 
 TO RICHARD GRAVES, ESQ., HASTINGS. 
 
 DEAR GRAVES, 
 
 As I had half foreboded, my father felt 
 disinclined for his journey the day before yes- 
 terday ; but (and as your last reaches me,) we 
 are this moment about to leave Hastings. I 
 will keep the journal for you with pleasure, and 
 it shall contain every thing I see or hear of, 
 worth communicating, together with my own 
 thoughts on passing events ; or, at least, as 
 many or as much of them as, from experience,
 
 48 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 I can be very sure will be quite pleasing to 
 
 you. 
 
 I have walked to Battle Abbey, Pevensey 
 
 Castle, and over every other spot desirable for 
 
 " Harold's" sake. Farewell ! Bessy calls me to 
 
 lead my father down stairs. Ever yours faith- 
 
 fully, 
 
 Michael Mutford. 
 
 Direct still to the Hastings' Post-Office. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 TO MICHAEL MUTFORD, ESQ. 
 
 No, my dear Mutford, this must not be be- 
 tween us. I ask your pardon, at once, for any 
 and every word that may have hurt you. I 
 will implore you, if you make it necessary, to 
 forgive me — fully, unreservedly, obliviously 
 forgive me, so that our wide-open-hearted con- 
 fidence in each other may stand as it did before 
 my last letter. And then you must write to me 
 for your last, and after having drawn your pen 
 through a certain sentence of it, and added a 
 postscript three times as long as itself, let me 
 have it again. The words I mean, I have un- 
 derlined, though I am sure you would have 
 detected them without any such emphatic mark-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 49 
 
 insr : for I know you will think of me on the 
 road, although you have begun your journey in 
 some anger with your friend. Once more for- 
 give me. I, the unscarred, and the more for- 
 tunate, though the least deserving — I ought to 
 have had more respect for any evidence of the 
 sorrows you have long suffered. R. G. 
 
 IX. 
 
 TO RICHARD GRAVES, ESQ. 
 
 (postscript to my last.) 
 Forgive 3^0M, dear Dick, the nonsensical 
 pettishness, I have written above, — (meaning my 
 last short epistle, which I enclose, the sinning 
 words expunged as you wish.*) I am, — to be 
 sure I am, — now and then, a poor maudlin 
 fellow, but the disease must be routed out of 
 me ; ay, and by myself too. And I will neither 
 take up the scourge against it, nor reason 
 with it ; I will point my finger at it, laugh at it, 
 and run away from it. 'Tis not worth scorn, 
 or trampling under my foot, or it should have 
 plenty of both. So, come and join me in my 
 laugh, and forget. 
 
 * These appear to have been, — " Or, at least, as many 
 or as much of them as from experience I can be ver sure 
 will be quite pleasing to you." 
 
 VOL, I. D
 
 50 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 And yet, Graves, I would not for a good 
 portion of this fair world think so poorly of my- 
 self a second time, as your manly and generous 
 treatment of me has caused me to think on the 
 present, or rather, the past occasion. How very, 
 very little you have made me ! — excuse me, — 
 how very, very little I have made myself. Ay, 
 and there 's the very rub. Graves. I have iiot 
 — for the last few years — I have not a con- 
 fidence in myself, such as I see others have in 
 themselves. I cannot impress others as they 
 impress me. Every day — the slightest occur- 
 rences of every day — bring me proofs of this 
 fact. I knoio I am not valued by men as I 
 value them ; that is, as I respect, or rather, 
 fear them. I wish I could be hated ! that 
 would restore me to my own good opinion. 
 But this, you will say, — and perhaps truly, — is 
 only the old thing over again. Let us cut it, 
 then, for ever ; or until I require, undesignedly 
 and unhappily, your forbearance and your 
 teachings once more, and then do not spare me. 
 And yet, before we quite pass to another sub- 
 ject, I ivill say, that hitherto, — I mean lately, — 
 you cannot have guessed how that wretched, 
 hypochondriac doubt of my own place among 
 my fellows has been rusting over my heart, and
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 51 
 
 eating into it. And I remember none of it in 
 the constitution of my boyhood. I was a bold, 
 sturdy, boxing boy, and thought no one better 
 than Michael Mutford, except his father. 
 Graves, it fell upon me in Northumberland. 
 I have been crushed, dear Dick ; and though 
 the world knows it not, and must never know 
 it, I seem to read in all their eyes that they do; 
 their cold, reserved, watchful, estranged e3^es. 
 You ask me to give you an instance of the 
 way in which I think I fail to impress myself. 
 Graves, in ten thousand ways, in almost every 
 way ; and, I repeat, at almost every moment, 
 and with every one I meet; my equals, 
 my inferiors, 'tis all the same. Shame and 
 wretchedness to avow it ! I am convinced that 
 the man who sat by my side down from Has- 
 tings, almost the very last individual I have 
 held passing intercourse with, bears himself up 
 better than I do, is more an object, a figure in 
 the world. Such is my horrible character or 
 delusion. But you require some instance that 
 you can recognise ; that has passed under your 
 own eye. You have noticed the unevenness of 
 my general manner ; you have hinted your know- 
 ledge of it to me — so you do ; at one time, — 
 indeed, at most times, — inclined to be pleasant 
 
 D 2
 
 52 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 and good-humoured, then suddenly cast down 
 and silent. I speak of myself when in your 
 presence with others; alone with you, I believe 
 I am usually what is called a good-humoured 
 companion. Well ; there has not been a single 
 change in me, from open-hearted to reserved 
 and silent, observed by you, for which I had 
 not a specific cause, or have not thought I had. 
 I will take the very last evening I spent with 
 you. Your supper-table was surrounded by 
 rich men, all except me. 1 did not care for 
 them at first, and we chatted and laughed plea- 
 santly some time. One of my favourite theories 
 started up ; you engaged me on it ; Ave argued 
 vigorously ; while I was haranguing my last ha- 
 rangue, I caught young M raising his eye- 
 brows at a friend across the table. I was dumb 
 for the night ; you wondered why ; now you 
 know why. You know it, and you smile a 
 piteous though a most friendly and affectionate 
 smile over my accursed weakness. Yet I tell 
 you the truth. And these are the things, dear 
 Graves, that turn in upon me, and rankle, and 
 rankle : and I must give you to understand that 
 never does one of them so fix its contemptible 
 spider-fang in my mind but it calls up the one 
 agonizing recollection of past suffering, and in-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 53 
 
 suit, and degrading wrong ; and so, for ever 
 
 and ever, I fear and doubt. 
 
 But now, in good earnest, farewell for ever to 
 
 this most hideous topic. I owed the present 
 
 confidence (such as it is !) to your last good, 
 
 kind, tear-starting letter; yes, dear friend, it 
 
 softened, and, I nope, bettered me. I do not 
 
 mean, however, to persecute you in this way 
 
 any more. And if you shall feel assured that 
 
 these confessions call for your observation, I 
 
 pray you spare it, — now, at least, — now and for 
 
 a long while. Let me try to take myself in 
 
 hand, unassisted, for a season. I write this 
 
 from the place where my father thinks it likely 
 
 we shall fix our temporary abode, though I 
 
 diflPer from him. Do not answer me till I send 
 
 you another letter replying to certain passages 
 
 of one of yours about poachers and smugglers. 
 
 Meantime, believe me the very same I have 
 
 been to you, 
 
 M. M. 
 
 X. 
 
 TO RICHARD GRAVES, ESQ. 
 
 Such a bold smuggler, my dear Graves, 
 as you seem to hope for, I cannot promise to 
 catch for you. A beautiful ideal has got into
 
 54 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 your head, unconsciously made up of the Cor- 
 sair and his kind, if not by Harriett Lee's mag- 
 nificent young tiger, the model, perhaps — (nay, 
 / am sure,) — for Byron's whole family of he- 
 roes. England is too old for a single character 
 of the description you want. It is only on 
 thinly-populated coasts and among fresh people, 
 that he can be found. Our island is too well 
 stocked for him ; and ages of the experience of 
 strong feelings have worn out, ages ago, the very 
 elements of his nature, even amongst the lower 
 orders. Not a man in England at present 
 could so much as gesticulate like him. Nay, 
 not a lugger's crew on the coast would work a 
 cargo under his command ; they would think 
 him an ass, and put their tongues in their 
 cheeks at him, particularly if it were hinted 
 that he brought to his trade a single motive 
 more romantic than that of gain. 
 
 No; you must be content with a man, when- 
 ever and wherever I may meet him for you, as 
 like other men as is possible, or, at least, like 
 all others who share his social rank, and brave 
 perils every day for existence and profit ; a cou- 
 rageous and skilful mackarel-fisher, for instance. 
 There shall be " no sneering devil in his look," 
 no melodramatic frown upon his brow, nothing
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 55 
 
 picturesque in his dress, nothing impressive or 
 striking in his walk or mien; nothing about 
 him, in fact, to single him out from the mono- 
 tony of manner which has seized upon man, 
 woman, and child in England ; to single him 
 out as a smuggler, I mean ; not forgetting, of 
 course, that he must still have his own peculiar 
 characteristics for the notice of those who know 
 him well. 
 
 And if you can be content with such a hero, 
 of such a one I have already heard, though our 
 personal acquaintance is to follow, I hope- 
 have patience, and you shall learn how. But 
 do not let this preparation inspire you with ex- 
 pectations of a romantic incident. Our journey 
 to this little watering-place was triste enough. 
 'Tis a cold, rainy, foggy June, and nothing 
 could well be less interesting than the road after 
 our second day's progress from Hastings ; now 
 winding a little inland through a flat country, 
 now running over the still flatter sand and shin- 
 gles, within view of the bleak sea ; mist our at- 
 mosphere in every change. The sole objects of 
 attraction were the martello-towers ; but even 
 they occurred so often, and were so persevering- 
 ly alike, that the sixth or seventh tired, and left 
 no patience for the twenty-ninth or thirty-first.
 
 56 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Individuals or groups of their garrisons, too, 
 seen now and then trailing a little barrel of 
 fresh water from a remote spring, and all doing 
 it so exactly in the same way, and all looking 
 so like one man, multiplied through a diamond- 
 cut glass, that at last I turned away my head 
 from them, although they were almost the only 
 living creatures we met for some time between 
 village and village. 
 
 Upon the second evening we came in view of 
 our proposed place of residence ; and I had no 
 sooner seen it, partially, and from a distance, 
 than I had an omen it would not long be the 
 place for us. A little row of narrow, tall, red- 
 brick houses were cutting in chill shadow 
 against the dull-coloured sea ; their prim chim- 
 neys gadding up into the air, without emitting 
 many puffs of smoke. Evidently they had been 
 built by a few speculating individuals, to try 
 and give the little retired place the air of a 
 respectable bathing-town, and, except for a few 
 months of summer and autumn, remained unin- 
 habited, or but insufficiently so; and hence the 
 want of warm vapour from their cheerless 
 hearths, for visitors had not yet arrived. 
 
 We approached the village over a sandy, 
 pebbly flat, where the sea must have once and
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 57 
 
 not very lonor ago reached, — it was not now 
 fifty yards from our wheels, — and entered the 
 main, the only street — a very, very uncom- 
 fortable one to look upon. You now saw the 
 flimsy texture of the red-brick houses, and their 
 paltry lording it over the few aboriginal cot- 
 tages left to group with them or confront them. 
 The three bathing-machines stood desolately on 
 the shingles behind them ; fishermen idled at 
 the brink of their element ; women leaned over 
 the half-doors of their huckster's shops ; the 
 butcher and his shop seemed empty both, and 
 gave little promise of London roast-beef; and 
 the paddling and gabbling of the children at a 
 ditch, opposite to the middle of the aristocra- 
 tic row of houses, could not enliven the wide, 
 unpaved, almost uninhabited street, or rather 
 road. After all, however, you must remember 
 that I made my observations through two me- 
 diums, — the misty, rayless evening, and the 
 mood which it helped to fix me in. Doubtless, 
 a fine day and the arrival of gay visitors will 
 wonderfully change the face even of the red 
 bricks. And you must not suppose that it is 
 the want of small bustle in this little place which 
 makes me think it will not suit us as a residence; 
 no, — but something like the contrary, — the pro- 
 
 D 5
 
 58 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 mise it holds out of an influx of just the kind of 
 wandering idlers whose ways, whose selves, and 
 whose ijijiuence upon prices, we are compelled 
 for the present to shun ; and whom we were 
 led to believe we'could shun by coming here; 
 for the good folk of Hastings, thinking and 
 speaking, of course, in recollection of their own 
 brilliant town, assured us it was the most retired 
 bathing-spot in England. 
 
 But ahght with us at the inn. The young 
 landlady received us alone, at the wide-open 
 door of a large yellow-washed building, ushered 
 us into a spacious hall, and then up-stairs into a 
 sitting-room the whole length of her caravansary, 
 half-carpeted, half-furnished, and having an end 
 bow-window looking down upon the shivering 
 sea, and, — as if itself were not enough, — sup- 
 plied with a huge telescope, to afford us at our 
 leisure as much as ever we liked of the waste of 
 waters. We objected to a room so spacious 
 and chilly of a cold evening, although one in 
 June. Our proprietress assured us most faith- 
 fully that every other sitting-apartment was 
 occupied ; but a fire could be lighted in a mo- 
 ment, and we would soon find that the ball- 
 room of the Anchor was most comfortable. 
 
 Hitherto no waiter had appeared ; but as she
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 59 
 
 was about to leave us, an old man entered whom 
 I had observed running after the coach, so soon 
 as it showed a tendency to the Anchor, and he 
 was the waiter ; not permanently established in 
 the house, indeed — that could not be afforded, 
 at least till visitors should begin to crowd in 
 for the summer ; but living with his wife in a 
 little cottage, into which great four-posted beds 
 had been dragged, as I afterwards learned, for 
 the purpose of enabling lY, too, to hang out " in 
 the season" a label of " apartments furnished." 
 
 He approached us down the long ball-room, 
 looking very grave and interested, rubbing his 
 hands, bowing, and bidding us welcome to the 
 Anchor. He seemed to value himself upon his 
 manners, as highly ornamental as well as neces- 
 sary to his important situation. He began to 
 make neat speeches in praise of the place we 
 had come to visit. When we inquired about 
 dinner he was eloquent, — alas ! with the usual 
 curse of eloquence, loss of time, — in praise of 
 the abundance and excellence of every viand 
 (and that was every possible one,) — within our 
 reach and at our service; and, in fact, although 
 very amusing, we found him for that occasion 
 very tiresome. 
 
 He proved more tolerable after dinner. Hav-
 
 60 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 ing talked almost all the time he was waiting 
 on us without being attended to, the old man's 
 tongue at last made some impression on our 
 ears while his fish and mutton were digesting. 
 And now, listen you also, Graves ! In the 
 middle of one of his politest observations, I in- 
 terrupted him with, " And have you plenty of 
 smugglers here !" 
 
 The question, as well as the uncouth sudden- 
 ness of it, seemed to shock him ; he stopped the 
 gentle rubbing of his hands, bowed, did not raise 
 his chin from his breast again, mumbled some- 
 thing unintelligible, and then stood silent. I 
 repeated my inquiry in a more measured man- 
 ner ; he answered by an elaborate encomium on 
 the morality of his native place. When close 
 pressed, he admitted, that, so convenient to the 
 sea, and the French coast so near, and brandy 
 and other things so dear by reason of the King's 
 duty, it was but natural to suppose that a smug- 
 gler might be found ; for his own part, however, 
 he could not be expected to know any thing on 
 the subject ; his very situation as waiter to the 
 Anchor, where no brandy but the most lawful 
 brandy, and the very best, was to be had, inca- 
 pacitated him from making an observation ; and
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 61 
 
 saying all this, and much more, he retired at 
 my emphatic " Oh, very well." 
 
 I expected him back again, however, and 
 back, indeed, he came. No one had rung for 
 him, no one wanted him, he had no business of 
 his own in the dreary ball-room ; still he gently 
 turned the handle of the door, slid in his spare 
 limbs, clad in knee-breeches and blay-thread 
 stockings, and pretended to arrange nothing at 
 all on a side-table. We took no notice, but 
 ■only smiled at each other ; he hemmed once or 
 twice, still we accosted him not. He demanded 
 most respectfully if he could serve or oblige us 
 in any way, and at length yielding to his late 
 solitary wishes for gossip, indulged in the 
 kitchen or elsewhere after last leaving the 
 room, he came nearer, and in an accommodating 
 low voice said, " I have been making some in- 
 quiries since, gentlemen." 
 
 I tolerantly encouraged him to unburden 
 himself, and after much preparation, he gave us 
 to understand, that, although none but loyal 
 brandy was to be had in the Anchor, at the 
 loyal price of course, he entertained few doubts 
 of our being able to procure a much cheaper 
 liquor, and some thought, almost as good, after
 
 62 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 we should have been settled in a house, or in 
 lodgings, according as we deemed fit ; such, at 
 least, was the information he had just obtained 
 at a friend's, in the street, nigh at hand ; and as 
 to the matter of lodgings, there was a very 
 honest woman lived quite close by the Anchor, 
 and she had furnished apartments to let, the 
 nicest and tidiest, certainly, if not the most 
 fashionable, in the neighboui'hood ; just such 
 as would suit a small respectable family, who 
 might wish to live to themselves ; (the old 
 gabbler's penetration ! and I winced under it, 
 Graves, fool that I was ;) and it was still hght- 
 some enough for looking at her lodgings, and 
 he would be happy to show us the way, if we 
 pleased ; and it occurred to him that this very 
 respectable, elderly woman, knew as much, if 
 not more, .than he did, about making the proper 
 inquiries concerning good and cheap brandy ; 
 and all he would take the liberty of requesting 
 at our hands was, that we would not hint to the 
 mistress of the Anchor his interference on the 
 subject ; indeed, he would also feel obliged if 
 we omitted to mention his services in directing 
 us to a lodging ; inasmuch as our present good 
 landlady might imagine he had rather impro-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 63 
 
 perly neglected the interests of her establish- 
 ment, in both instances, to say nothing of his 
 acting immorally, against the law of the land : 
 and—" 
 
 He ceased at last, and I saw he had not 
 uttered a word of what I expected. Nay, his 
 brandy anecdotes and suggestions vexed me, 
 not only because they were uncalled for, but 
 because he so easily took it as granted that we 
 were just the sort of people to aid — and in so 
 humble an instance — his smuo^gling friends in 
 cheating the King : however, we had ordered 
 no wine at, or after dinner. I was about to say 
 something reprehensive to him, when my father 
 anticipated me, telling the old fellow that no one 
 had asked him to declare bv what means we 
 might succeed in taking off his hands, or off 
 those of his friends, part of their last stock of 
 smuggled spirits. 
 
 At this he looked overwhelmed, and had 
 rudeness been in his nature, had his thin and 
 meagre nerves been able to entertain it, doubt- 
 less he would have vindicated himself to our 
 annoyance. As it was, his pale, drawn, sallow 
 features, expressed only consternation, and his 
 denials of my father's charge were confined to
 
 64 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 tones and language which, in a similar position, 
 real innocence might envy. 
 
 " Yes, however,"" I insisted, " and the honest 
 woman, whose lodgings you praise so highly, is 
 your wife ?" 
 
 He was within a respiration of denying this 
 too ; but, suddenly checking himself, gravely, 
 and with an air of timid self-assertion, admitted 
 the fact ; adding, that although he had said a 
 few words in praise of Mrs. Moffit's apartments, 
 we would find others say more — more indeed, 
 than befitted the lips of a near connexion of 
 her's ; and, besides, we could form our own 
 opinions on the matter, by just stepping over to 
 her house — (he did not call it his house, nor had 
 he, ever since his detection, called the lodgings 
 his,) only permitting him to acquaint her with 
 our intention beforehand, — that is, he meant that 
 he should prefer leaving the Anchor a few 
 moments before us, if it were but to avoid his 
 mistress's observation — a shrewd, though excel- 
 lent young lady. 
 
 I was amused, as also was my father, at his 
 own consummate, though mere village shrewd- 
 ness, so obvious through his last discourses ; 
 its intermixture with his then timidity and far- 
 cical suavity of manner, (the latter supposed,
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 65 
 
 doubtless, to be admirable, and very like the gen- 
 tility of head London waiters, not one of whom 
 he had ever seen,) was really fresh and entertain- 
 ing. My father assured him, however, that Mrs. 
 Moffit could not be visited till morning, although 
 her and her apartments should then have the 
 preference of a first observation ; and I again 
 abruptly changed the conversation by saying, 
 
 " But unless you gratify our curiosity with a 
 good account of the most popular smuggler 
 captain on your coast, never shall Mrs. MofRt 
 be visited at all." 
 
 Certainly, to the very best of his ability, it 
 was his place and business to give all the in- 
 formation he could to any guests at the 
 Anchor ; not meaning to say that upon the 
 present topic he was as much at liberty to speak, 
 or indeed as well-informed, as upon others he 
 might be found to be ; gentlemen would learn, 
 upon inquiry, that during his life of sixty-five 
 years, spent in that neighbourhood, Richard 
 Moffit was believed to be a moral, inoffensive 
 man ; yet, some whispers of what we were 
 pleased to be curious to learn, he could not 
 have avoided hearing: his conversation out of 
 doors, this evening, since we had arrived at the 
 Anchor, farther enabled him to oblige us : and.
 
 66 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 in fact, the most celebrated owner and captain 
 of a lugger, about, was one Lilly- AViiite. 
 
 ^' A singular name," I remarked : " was it 
 his real name ?" 
 
 Yes ; my informant was quite sure that his 
 name was White. 
 
 " Ay," I said, " but the other name, ' Lilly,' 
 was that feigned, or real ?" 
 
 AVhy, he protested, he should think so ; he 
 saw no reason for supposing that it was not. 
 
 " It was a very unusual one, however; were 
 there any other persons who bore it, in his 
 native place ?" 
 
 Not one ; — stop ; he would think ; no, not 
 one that he could bring to mind. 
 
 " It seems a nick-name," I resumed : " Is he 
 a very fair-complexioned man ?" 
 
 Either the aim of this question was guessed 
 at by my simple old friend, or he could really 
 give me no information. He had never seen 
 Lilly-White, he said, so was no judge of his 
 complexion. 
 
 " Nor heard him described ?" 
 
 '^ No ; not in particular." Now I began to 
 suspect Mr. Moffit of an apathetic ignorance on 
 all subjects not immediately connected with his 
 calling, or callings, — a trait of mind much more
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 67 
 
 common among the lower orders in England 
 than among those of any other civilized coun- 
 try. With a strange association for a motive 
 to the particular kind of question, and a wish 
 to gauge his standard of intellect for a motive to 
 the question at all, I marched him to the bow- 
 window at the end of the ball-room, and asked 
 him how he called the smooth, raised ground 
 which ran under it, immediately over the shin- 
 gles of the sea ? " The Parade," he replied 
 (every little hamlet bathing-place must now 
 have its " Parade," after Brighton). 
 
 " And why was it called the Parade V I 
 asked again. 
 
 He looked baffled, and most seriously at 
 fault ; I pressed my question ; and at length he 
 declared he did not know, unless it might be 
 because Mr. Brotherly kept his circulating 
 library on it. I was satisfied as to the state of 
 his mental energy, and brought to mind, with 
 some laughter, the circumstance which had 
 suggested my rather irrelevant question. By 
 chance, I once inquired of a native of Seven 
 Oaks, Kent, why a certain smooth field outside 
 his httle town, went by the name of " The 
 Vine :" — " because they plays cricket on it," 
 was his answer. And ever since, when I am
 
 68 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 prone to find out the powers of reasoning from 
 cause to effect of one of my insulated country- 
 men, I propose a query touching the appella- 
 tion of some spot or object of his native place, 
 as, on the present occasion I did. But return 
 we to Lilly-White. 
 
 " Could I be informed on what account he 
 was held to be the most celebrated smuggling 
 hero of his coast ?" 
 
 " Certainly. He had the greatest success of 
 any, and was the richest." 
 
 " How rich, for example ?"" 
 
 It was hard to say ; but very rich. He had 
 built some houses for visitors, in the season, 
 and purchased others ; and his brother lived in 
 a large farm-house, in a little lonesome village, 
 at some distance, taking care of his daughters 
 for him, and perhaps other things ; and there 
 was a larp-e farm attached to the house, which 
 the brother farmed, — on his own account, he 
 pretended ; and he also let it be believed, that 
 house and all were his ; but this was well 
 known to be only a make-believe of Lilly's, who 
 had his own reasons for not being set down as a 
 wealthy man. 
 
 " Lilly-White, then, could not have sus-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 69 
 
 tained many losses in his unlawful and perilous 
 trade ?" 
 
 " Some losses, certainly. He had been ' Ex- 
 chequered,' to a large amount, for contraband 
 articles found in his farm-house, and even 
 in his pockets ; but his savings allowed him to 
 pay the fines, and still be rich ; nor could these ac- 
 cidental losses be said to have sullied his general 
 character for success and good fortune in his 
 profession ; for though his lugger ran in a cargo 
 almost every two months, some point or other 
 along the cliff, and though a cutter was always 
 watching her at sea, and double guards of men- 
 of-war's men ashore, she had never been sur- 
 prised, nor ' never lost a tub.' " 
 
 " Had she ever been chased ?" 
 
 My old acquaintance looked disturbed, but 
 answered collectedly, " not that any one knew 
 of."" I gave him his own time, and he continued 
 to hint, in a whisper, that two things, however, 
 two rather " oudacious things," were suspected 
 of Lilly-White. It was conjectured that he 
 was not far from the lugger which ran in and 
 landed, and safely disposed of a cargo, in the 
 middle of the noon-day, last Good Friday, near 
 Hastings, while the blockade men were drawn
 
 TO THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 off the coast, and in the town at Divine service ; 
 and, lately, his friends feared that if those who 
 fired at a King's vessel, during a hot chase, in 
 the middle of the Channel, and for whose dis-^ 
 covery large rewards had been offered, if they 
 could be brought to justice, Lilly-White might 
 be brought to trouble. My at last communi- 
 cative Mr. Moffit ended his anecdotes for the 
 night, by allowing me to understand that every 
 second-rate, or second-hand smuggler in the 
 village, and about it, men and women, were all 
 customers of Lilly, and to some extent or other 
 confidants ; that he could summon, at a beck, 
 three hundred, or if necessary, double that 
 number, from far and near, to aid him in 
 " working a cargo," any fine dark night in the 
 year, at any point he might fix upon ; that he 
 cared no more for the coast-blockade, than he 
 used to care for the riding-officers, who, before 
 the close of the war, preceded them in the pre- 
 ventive service ; that 
 
 " But how does he make so light of them, 
 and of their good pistols and cutlasses ?" I in- 
 terrupted. 
 
 " Bags and carts some, Sir, and 'tis thought, 
 though I, for one, will never believe the story
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 71 
 
 of the King's sworn men — bribes others," an- 
 swered Mr. Moffit. 
 
 " Bass them ?" I asked in considerable sur- 
 prise. And the head waiter of the Anchor was 
 about to satisfy me, when its mistress suddenly 
 opened the ball-room door, and called him 
 angrily away ; and I have not since had an op- 
 portunity of requesting him to resume his 
 lecture. 
 
 But here, as I promised you, dear Graves, 
 you have a first and faint sketch of the most 
 romantic smuggling captain on this coast. And 
 he turns out to be of the kind I warned you to 
 expect ; a rich fellow, using only the common- 
 place aids of cunning and prudence to ensure 
 success in his ventures; with a comfortable, 
 common-place house to live in, when his leisure 
 or his plans allow or induce him to prefer the 
 land to the sea, for a residence ; and with his 
 children, and doubtless, their housewifely, re- 
 spectable mother dwelling therein : but, by the 
 way, I should like to know more of his esta- 
 blishment; whether it is orderly, and within 
 order and law ; whether that housewifely, re- 
 spectable lady is married or single, and so forth. 
 For though I can never bring myself to regard
 
 72 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 smuggling with the full legal horror in which 
 some people contemplate it, I admit my great 
 doubts that it assists in keeping a man moral in 
 other respects. Indeed, how can it ? it is the 
 breach of a law, though not a divine one ; and 
 with the uneducated, or the half-educated, the 
 breach of one law leads to — seems to sanction — 
 the breach of another ; and these, in a country 
 where the institutions of God are (if I do not 
 say conjirmed, what can I say .'') confirmed by 
 Act of Parhament, it is easy stepping from law 
 to law, till the most important and sacred are 
 trampled under foot. This is loosely argued, 
 for the present. Perhaps I may link my chain 
 closer, another time. Now take it as you can 
 get it ; and good by, dear Graves, for a day or 
 two. My long epistle goes to you by coach, 
 
 for it is the beginning of the Journal. 
 
 M. M. 
 
 XI. 
 
 TO RICHARD GRAVES, ESQ. 
 
 For my month's silence, and leaving unan- 
 swered many of your friendly and anxious let- 
 ters, dear Graves, what excuse can I make ? 
 I will attempt none, if I am not able to give you
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 73 
 
 reasons, instead. First, then, " Harold." He 
 chose to take full possession of my mind, imme- 
 diately after my last dispatch, and — I have 
 finished him, and he is in the manager's hands 
 by this time. Secondly, unless had I sat down 
 to write to you about nothing, during the half- 
 hours or hours he left me at leisure, there was 
 absolutely no use writing to you at alL Next, I 
 was mightily listless and lazy, during all those 
 hours and half hours; and lastly, dear Graves 
 — for I am to give you my confidence — uneasi- 
 ness of mind, if I had a minute to spare from 
 laziness — at once incapacitated and made me un- 
 willing to address you. Yes, I tvill mention to 
 you, that my father's circumstances cause me, 
 every day, increased disquietude. I have dis- 
 covered by chance that he is even poorer than 
 he owned to me. Strange to say, he had made 
 Bessy more of a confidant than me, and her 
 secret fits of crying, in which I more than 
 once surprised her, tempted enquiries at my 
 hands that her gentle and yielding character 
 could not long resist. 
 
 But, " Harold" finished and dispatched, my 
 heart is lighter. So far, I have done as I 
 ought ; and hope — or something like it, in me, 
 though, alack ! not hke early hope — whispers 
 
 VOL. L E
 
 74 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 good results. While my effort was only pro- 
 gressive, you may imagine the kind of uneasi- 
 ness I have spoken of, when you also recollect 
 my discovery, arrived at through Bessy. 
 
 And so, I am scribbling to you again, and at 
 last. And about what at last? any thing, as 
 you shall see. 
 
 Notwithstanding my gloomy description of 
 our arrival here, I must now inform you that, 
 with one or two exceptions, it is a very charm- 
 ing little place to live in. I may say, without 
 any exception, that it is a charming place to 
 walk in. Try a sea-walk. Immediately outside 
 the village the land begins to rise, from the 
 shingles, and you ascend gradually till your 
 path is by the brink of sheer precipices of a 
 great heigiit. A little inland, arises the barren, 
 lumpy, blackish summit of the most consider- 
 able point on the coast, for many miles. Gain 
 this windy, and almost uninhabited eminence, 
 and before you, and falling again, leap after 
 leap into the sea, the cliffs curve away to an 
 immense distance, their white sides livelily con- 
 trasting with the green sward that runs flat to 
 their edges. You quite look down upon their 
 whole broken and jumping line, and they, and 
 the seemingly glassy sea, against whose light
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 75. 
 
 surface they are painted, have a map-like ap- 
 pearance, upon a huge and — I don't know how 
 or why — an awful scale. Turn to your right. 
 The graduated mountain upon the top of which 
 you stand, slopes inland from you, in spacious 
 and majestic undulations, beginning to be cul- 
 tivated at about its second-last slip beyond 
 your vision ; forming immense valleys, flats, , 
 and convex sweeps ; and within, or upon some 
 of these, dwindled to spots in distance, cows 
 and sheep are grazing. Still you are in perfect, 
 almost primitive solitude, with a feeling of your 
 position oppressing and yet exciting you ; a jum- 
 bled consciousness of vast extent, great height, 
 savageness, natural convulsion, and the strength 
 of the struggles of the tempest with the ocean. 
 
 Almost uninhabited I have called this solitary 
 region. It would be wholly so, but for the 
 signal-house upon it, in which a few men-of- 
 war's men perform, night and day, their appor- 
 tioned duty against smuggling. And 3'et I do 
 not know if their single little bleak dwelling 
 much intrudes upon the whole character of the 
 scene. Does a single edifice of any kind ever 
 do so, in an extensive and peculiar solitude ? 
 Perhaps not, but rather the reverse. It makes 
 you whisper, " how lonely !" and thus distinctly 
 
 E 2
 
 76 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 is expressed your sense of the master-impres- 
 sion. The solitude overpowers the rival idea of 
 inhabitation, by its tremendous contrast. Nor, 
 as I strolled near the group of men who bur- 
 nished their weapons, or walked as sentinels, 
 outside the signal-house, did their appearance 
 seem to be unsuitable to their situation ; on the 
 contrary, as half- stripped of their not un-brigand 
 attire, they eyed me in the reserved and sullen 
 silence and scrutiny which their service teaches 
 them to assume, 1 felt that the figures well be- 
 came the scenery. During all my walks, in- 
 deed, by the coast, these blockade-men have 
 interested me. They seem so isolated, each 
 upon his prescribed promenade over the smooth 
 sand or the rough shingles ; so cut off fi-om 
 commerce and sympathy with their kind, 
 though, near to and at the village, little crovv'ds 
 pass them or stand almost at their elbows, talk- 
 ing, and laughing and gabbling as thej/ must not 
 do ; and their imposed silence, and the sense of 
 their duty and predicament gives such an unna- 
 turally passionless or stern character to their 
 features — often young and comely- — and they 
 stand so prepared, fi'om morning to night, with 
 cutlass and pistols, brow and eye, to enact their 
 fierce duty upon all of a smuggling cast of face.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 77 
 
 who seem to approach them too nearly. Poor 
 fellows ! along with this curse of loneliness, and 
 the temptations to absolute misanthropy which 
 it ^includes, theirs must be a miserable service 
 during the long, moonless, and howling nights 
 of winter. Sometimes they fall over the cliffs, 
 and are drowned or dashed to pieces, when the 
 swelling of the sea compels them to keep watch 
 on the path of the high land. 
 
 But we are still upon the mountain's top, and 
 as yet you have but looked before you, and to 
 your left down upon the cliffs and the sea, and 
 to your right to the point at which the barren 
 land disappears from you at a dip towards the 
 mountain's yet unexplored base. Glance far- 
 ther to the right ; another considerable eminence, 
 with an unseen but richly cultivated valley be- 
 tween, confronts the height on which you are, 
 and its summit is barren, too, and a little 
 craggy, though upon its noble breast are clumps 
 of fine trees surrounding stately or elegant man- 
 sions, and waving fields of green and yellow, 
 cottages, gardens, and the commencement of a 
 village, of the continuation of which an inter- 
 posing curve of land deprives you. Turn your 
 back to the savage sea, after having ventured to 
 peep down upon it from the verge of the point's
 
 78 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Steepest and most abrupt precipice — (feeling 
 somewhat impatient, by the way, of the mate- 
 rial of which the precipice and its grand ybrms 
 of rocks are made, — chalk, chalk, soft, crum- 
 bly chalk, that belies in some degree the first 
 general impressions of stupendous solidity — and 
 its colour, too, making you smile at the notion 
 of the entire line of cliff having been white- 
 washed) — turn your back upon the sea, and 
 then upon the signal-house, and then upon the 
 whole desolate scenery you have been studying, 
 and descend inland towards the haunts of men. 
 Before you have half travelled your path, very 
 gorgeous is the view that comes upon you, of 
 a continuation of the coast in the direction op- 
 posite to that towards which you have previ- 
 ously turned your face. Your eye bounds like 
 a bird over the dots of the houses of the little 
 village whence commenced your walk, and flies 
 zig-zag with the land by the sea's edge to other 
 villages, other points, and others and others still, 
 for thirty miles or more, the last dreamy line 
 mixed up with the rich white curling masses of 
 the noon-day clouds; and round martello tow- 
 ers, or round redoubts of much greater compass, 
 serve for resting-places at every flight, as it 
 were, of vision ; some glowing white against the
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 79 
 
 sunless sea ; some, in their turn, shadowed by a 
 cloud, while the sea laughs brilliantly behind 
 them. And fail not to observe the ceaseless 
 ' play of light and shade, of delicate shadow 
 or positive obscuration, or bursting, straggling 
 rays, or unobstructed sunshine, upon the fields of 
 waters themselves ; here, making them as green 
 as grass in winter, and seemingly opaque and 
 solid, there dying them deep blue or sullen 
 brown, and there party-colouring them like a 
 prism, and there sweeping them with dazzling 
 lustre. And see, now and then, close by the 
 land, and at such a distance as to cheat your 
 glance of all motion, the veiled waters partake 
 of the colour of the sand, or of the meadows, or 
 of the marshes adjacent to them, and, under the 
 magic influence of light and shadow, all, — all, 
 solid and fluid, — seems a flat of wild mountain 
 moor, or of stagnant fen, chequered with a thou- 
 sand vague tints and expressions. 
 
 Descend your hilly path, and so close all your 
 spa-views. Ten minutes now bring you into a 
 highly-cultivated country, apparently as much 
 inland as if the coast were forty miles off". Here 
 you feel no sharp air, hear no dash or roar of 
 waves, or rumbling and clattering of the shingles 
 after their receding ; and I need not add, that
 
 80 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 the waves themselves are completely hid from 
 your view. Wind your way homewards. By 
 short cuts, through teeming and almost ready 
 fields of bright-surfaced wheat or silken-surfaced 
 barley, you will soon gain a village, after pass- 
 ing two or three less considerable ones, which, 
 foi the present, you are bound to call — home. It 
 is about half a mile from the village at the sea- 
 side, which I described to you, under the influ- 
 ence of a bad evening, as our resting-place upon 
 our first arrival here; both are connected, as 
 well by pleasant paths, inside " hedge-row elms," 
 as by a good road ; and all around me, as I at 
 present write, smile seclusion and cultivation, 
 and embowering trees, before whose screen curls 
 up the common-place but always delightful blue 
 smoke of the cottage or the farm-house ; and 
 still I catch not a glimpse of the sea, nor an 
 echo of his chafings, although a run of a few 
 minutes would enable me to plunge into his 
 cooling bosom, or glide in a pleasure-skiff over 
 his surface. 
 
 After all, then, we have not adopted jMr. 
 Moffit's recommendation of a lodging, nor, in 
 fact, have settled down at all in any of his 
 red-brick houses? On this point I have a 
 few words to say, dear Graves, which, if they
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 81 
 
 give you no information, may amuse you. At 
 some of my words, indeed, I know you will 
 scarce smile ; perhaps you may even feel dis- 
 posed, in spite of yourself, to shrug your shoul- 
 ders or yawn at the details of petty misery to 
 which a want of affluence exposes one in purse- 
 proud England. But, no matter, the rigmarole 
 journal must be filled. 
 
 We sallied out the morning after our arrival 
 to Mrs. Moffit's lodgings. At a glance we saw 
 they would not do. Rooms of the smallest size 
 papered with different patterns, stufled with 
 second-hand, nay, I promise you, fourth, or 
 fifth, or tenth-hand articles of massive old- 
 fashioned furniture, and approached by a little 
 straight stair-case not much more than two feet 
 wide. In the dog-days, or even less ardent 
 weather, one might as well go lodge in an oven. 
 And yet I saw that my father balanced between 
 the prospect of inconvenience and the hope of 
 low rent, until, having spoken of terms to Mrs. 
 Moflit, that good housekeeper mentioned a 
 weekly sum which drove him quickly out of her 
 house ; it was on a par with vvhat people de- 
 mand of you in London in the season. 
 
 We then looked at other apartments. The 
 same exorbitant rent was insisted upon in many 
 
 E 5
 
 82 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 instances ; and we found that so far from escap- 
 ing extortion in this little out of the world place, 
 — as regarded lodgings, at least, — we did not 
 stand a chance of comfortable accommodation for 
 double the money which our circumstances en- 
 abled us to offer. Now, good Graves, there must 
 be something unnatural and artificial, ay, and un- 
 enduring, too, in the habits of living of a com- 
 munity, who, one with another, cannot afford to 
 sell the conveniences of life at less than treble, 
 quadruple their value. 
 
 At last we entered the house of a poor woman 
 whose demand came near our means of paying 
 her. It was even one of the red-brick edifices, 
 but one of the last and the humblest of the row. 
 Boasting two stories, its walls were not more 
 than nine inches thick ; its staircase rivalled 
 Mrs. Moffit''s, or the steps down to the cabin of a 
 packet-boat, for narrowness and straightness ; 
 and when you walked across one of its rooms, 
 the whole building and every thing in it shook 
 and clattered, so as to startle you. The pro- 
 prietress was a comely, tidy, poorly-dressed, 
 anxious, frightened-looking woman. A crowd 
 of beautiful children followed her, gawkislily, 
 and at a distance, while she exhibited her apart- 
 ments ; and she had left two more, the " great
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 83 
 
 girls," to take care of her little shop of odds 
 and ends, below stairs. We all liked her ; nay, 
 as we afterwards found, pitied her, without 
 knowing why ; and as soon as she mentioned 
 her " guinea and a half a week," we were her 
 tenants. This was a guinea less than Mrs 
 Moffit had spoken of, and we wondered why 
 our landlady demanded, for better lodgings 
 than those cherished by that lady, so compara- 
 tively small a sum. The cause soon became ap- 
 parent to us. 
 
 Her husband was a village roue, of the least 
 agreeable stamp. He had spent, in that ren- 
 dezvous of idleness and vice, so ostentatiously 
 placarded, at the present day, in every village 
 of England — " The Tap," — as well as in other 
 places, and with other than its companions, all 
 their little property ; he would not, though a 
 good artisan, work at his trade to earn a shilling 
 for her, her children, or himself ; so soon as he 
 thought the little till in her little shop contained 
 a few shillings of savings, he was in the lordly 
 habit of breaking it open, if she refused him the 
 key^ — after first blackening her eye : from all 
 these circumstances, the spirit-crushed woman 
 hourly feared that utter poverty and starvation 
 would close round her little family ; and hence,
 
 84 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 in precipitate anxiety to let her lodgings, that 
 so she might secure a weekly sum, or part of it 
 for them, she had descended from the uncon- 
 scionable terms insisted on by her less neces- 
 sitous neighbours. 
 
 We have since regretted that we did not at 
 first become aware of the cause of the cheapness 
 of our lodgings ; for, much as the poor woman 
 commanded pity, we certainly should not, in 
 that case, have taken them. And we waited 
 but few proofs of the character of her husband ; 
 (the fellow would pass for a gentleman, by 
 the way — dress dandily, and follow his plea- 
 sures, at his leisure — nay, I have seen him go a 
 shooting, with a double-barrelled gun in his 
 hand, and a setter at his heels — do you find 
 nothing artificial and unenduring here, again, 
 Graves .'*) the screams of his wife and children, 
 as he beat her and them, and knocked some 
 pieces of furniture against the wall, on two 
 occasions, and his coming home from the tap, 
 or elsewhere, at daylight, upon one occasion, 
 was enough for us, and sent us to look after 
 a new home. 
 
 These are some of the matters. Graves, that 
 I doubted would read very pleasant to you. I 
 do not write them in a feelins: a whit more
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 85 
 
 agreeable than any they may inspire in you ; no, 
 nor experience them, either. You know my 
 former course of life, and can so assure your- 
 self. You have visited us in the good old 
 family-house, in Yorkshire. Nothing paltry sur- 
 rounded us there; nor, during our two years'* 
 residence in France, upon still decreasing means, 
 were things so bad. The French, whatever be 
 their other sins in our eyes, certainly have not 
 the English knack of asking and compelling 
 you to pay three or four times too much for a 
 roof to shelter you, and food and drink to nou- 
 rish you ; — at least not out of the metropolis, 
 and the larger towns. In fact, we contrived to 
 pass for richish people in France. See us now, 
 for the first time, struggling against a descent 
 into almost abject humility. See my poor fa- 
 ther, and my dear little sister, exposed, after 
 all their experience of elegant comfort, to know 
 that there is such a scoundrel in the world as 
 the husband of the poor woman I have been 
 speaking of. And so, judge if I recount these 
 incidents with ease of mind. However, were I 
 alone in our present poverty, I think I could 
 compound with its disagreeable haps, for the 
 observation it gains me of new and hitherto un- 
 known or only surmised traits of the mind, and
 
 86 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 of moral and social habits of that great bulk and 
 great stay of every people, the middle and the 
 lower orders. And as you have led me to sur- 
 mise that you would listen to me, in a smiilar 
 view I will continue our lodging-hunting ad- 
 ventures. 
 
 At any possible sacrifice, it was now resolved 
 that we would have a house to ourselves, in 
 future; no matter how small, or otherwise in- 
 convenient, provided our means could compass 
 it, we were determined never again to run the 
 risk of being under one roof with people whom 
 we did not know and could not be sure of. 
 Accordingly, Bessy and I, leaving my father 
 reposing in bed, went out to look about us. 
 
 It struck me that house-rent would be more 
 moderate out of the pale of the red-brick sea- 
 side houses ; we therefore walked a little way 
 along the road which leads from them to the 
 village where we at present sojourn. At one 
 side of the way were many ready-furnished 
 abodes. We knocked at the doors of two or 
 three, of an appearance such as we once thought 
 humble, but, to my consternation — if you ima- 
 gine consternation with a smile on its lip — 
 four, five, and seven guineas a week were asked 
 for them. At length we met a little detached
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 87 
 
 square, newly-built cottage, having little gar- 
 dens, just laid out, and of course, bare and 
 unverdant, before and behind it ; and, experi- 
 ence-taught, pulled the little bell-handle at its 
 gate, in a kind of resigned despair of our lot. 
 Our summons was answered by a very tall, 
 athletic, straight-backed, striding, handsome- 
 featured, powerful-eyed, disagreeable-looking 
 woman, of forty, or thereabout ; she was the 
 wife of the proprietor. We found him in the 
 little parlour of the cottage ; answering in sta- 
 ture to his spouse, but gaunt, wasted, and suf- 
 fering under the continuation of whatever dis- 
 ease had caused his emaciated and skin-dried 
 appearance. He sat in an easy-chair, on pil- 
 lows. His salutation of us was not civil, but I 
 excused or rather passed it by, on account of 
 his indisposition. Nor had his wife been less 
 uncouth when she met us at the gate : her sex 
 was her privilege, however, and I bowed very 
 low, — you will guess how^ — to a woman, who, 
 by her dress and manners, did not even pretend 
 to gentility of station. But, resolve me, Graves, 
 — What do our good compatriots, of any rank 
 or sex, gain by this ? 
 
 A few words arranged our business. For 
 two guineas a week the comfortable-looking
 
 88 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 cottage became ours. The old man boastingly, 
 though in short sentences, engaged to give us 
 possession at an hour's notice, as he had lately 
 been amusing himself building a second cottage, 
 not quite so spacious as this one, at the bottom 
 of his back-garden, and he and his wife could 
 step over, there, in a moment. By this, and 
 other surprisingly short speeches, I appre- 
 hended that he half wished to give us, in a 
 surly manner, a proper idea of how easy his 
 circumstances were, and what an independent 
 person he was ; the common foible, often, too 
 often so expressed, of men of his class. I 
 looked at him, and listened to him curiously, 
 and before we wished him a good morning, 
 asked a few questions, the better to make him 
 out. 
 
 A musket, a sabre, and a pair of great horse- 
 pistols hung over the parlour chimney. I sur- 
 mised that the neighbourhood must not be over 
 quiet and honest, since such a formidable array 
 of self-defence seemed to be thought necessary. 
 I was quite mistaken, he said : it was as quiet 
 a neighbourhood as any in England. But, 
 although I paused, he would not gratify me by 
 saying any more. Thus, I was compelled to
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 89 
 
 conjecture other things; and at last he informed 
 me — letting out the words gruffly, and in a 
 hurry, and turning away his head as if I had 
 greatly offended him — that the arms had be- 
 longed to him upon two occasions ; once, when 
 he was an infantry yeoman, and at another 
 time, when he was sergeant of a corps of yeo- 
 men-dragoons. His wife, thinking, perhaps, 
 that enough had not been said to exhibit her 
 husband's and her own importance in the world, 
 added, as she began to lay the cloth for dinner, 
 that Mr. Wiggins had gone into the yeomen, 
 
 twice, while in my Lord 's establishment ; 
 
 and he had spent his life so far till a year ago 
 under that nobleman''s roof, who was very 
 much attached to him ; " the same what he 
 was indeed to herself ;" for she, too, had earned 
 her bread, and secured part of their present in- 
 dependence, in the same family ; and it was 
 *' my lord," who had given Mr. Wiggins, rent- 
 free, the ground they were then standing on, 
 and leave to draw gravel, from the common, to 
 help to build the cottage — and a good many 
 other benefactions. And such were the foun- 
 dations of the consequence of Mr. and Mrs. 
 Wiggins : and for these reasons they could
 
 90 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 not afford to be civil to any one under a lord — 
 they who, during their whole lives, had lived in 
 the same house with one. 
 
 Graves, never, if you can avoid it, become 
 the tenant of a man who has realized, some 
 how or other, an " independence" in a great 
 man's family : never do business of any kind 
 with him. The polish of the servants' hall 
 has fitted him to be a very silly member of 
 society, when at last he emerges into the 
 world, towards every human being of a rank 
 less, in his eyes, than that of his peerless 
 patron. I do not fear that the state of the 
 connexion between master and servant, in our 
 country, will supply you with many instances 
 of a long period of servitude, in one family, at 
 length rewarded by a competence in old age, 
 and therefore I have few fears of your being 
 often exposed to the temptation of erring 
 against my advice. Some such individual as 
 I at present introduce to you, you may, how- 
 ever, happen to meet ; and therefore I cry out 
 again, take no house, nor cottage, nor tenement 
 of any kind from him. 
 
 But, most especially, if be retires out of your 
 new habitation, to go reside only in " a second
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 91 
 
 cottage, not quite so spacious, at the bottom of 
 the back-garden," — be not his tenant, for an 
 hour. 
 
 The prying, gadding, intruding, gossiping 
 habits of the amazonian Mrs. Wiggins, first 
 disturbed our quiet. She used to stride across 
 the garden, in the mornings, before we were up 
 — (oh, these dehghtful facts !) — and enter our 
 premises, to scold our one maid servant. She 
 received a polite hint to stay at home. Then, 
 forth issued her gigantic husband — in down- 
 right truth (almost) a giant's skeleton, clothed 
 — and, dragging his limbs after him, by our 
 fine hall door with two steps, he addressed him- 
 self to us, in through an open window. My fa- 
 ther was shocked — Bessy frightened, and, as 
 usual, set a-crying. I went out to remonstrate. 
 The old man, trembling with offended dignity, 
 rage and feebleness, called me names, raised 
 his crutch over my head, and defied me to 
 remove him from where he stood. So, I could 
 only return into the cottage, shut the door, and 
 close the window. 
 
 But something was to be done. My father 
 proposed an application to a magistrate, in order 
 that we might be legally protected against the
 
 92 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 nuisance of the half-mad old invalid. And 
 this has been the chief aim of my lodging- 
 house anecdotes, Graves — this magistrate. Be- 
 fore we come to him, however, let me go on 
 a moment with the worthy Wigginses ; for their 
 goings-on, after this scene, have made me smile, 
 and may produce merriment on your face also. 
 
 You need not be told that it was a conviction 
 of our poverty, gathered by the domestic obser- 
 vation of our landlady, which prompted this vi- 
 vacity on the part of her spouse. And as we 
 had not the grace to seek their neighbourly 
 acquaintance — ay. Graves, 'tis come to that 
 with us — we were set down for poor, proud 
 pretenders, and now it became necessary to 
 humble us by an assumption of the legitimate 
 superiority of wealth — that is of their notions 
 of wealth and consideration in the world, as 
 you shall see. 
 
 A few hours after his visit to our parlour- 
 window, Mr. Wiggins appeared in his gardens, 
 dressed like any gentleman : I could imagine 
 the exhortations of his amiable wife, as she pro- 
 duced his best suit, and assisted him to put it 
 on : " ?Y was a better one than their Jin e ge?itle- 
 men tenants had between them, at any rate^
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 93 
 
 The vapouring old man had also in his hand, to 
 my surprise, a riding whip. My curiosity 
 aroused, I so placed myself as to watch the 
 operations of his spouse, at the back of the 
 premises, while he thus took the air, in quite a 
 brilliant way, in the front garden, and again 
 and again close by our windows. I saw her 
 vanish, more than once, into a little clumsily- 
 built shed — I am sure she had contrived it with 
 her own strong hands, shoulders and loins, for 
 no regular workman could have imagined or 
 reared such a piece of architecture. By and 
 by she appeared at the door, or hole, of this sty, 
 and after looking watchfully around her, drew 
 out by the bridle a little rough-coated cob, 
 whom all her curry-combing and brushing could 
 not bring to a decent polish, and led him 
 through her back gate, to a lane. Wiggins, 
 obeying a signal, quickly joined her ; and in a 
 few moments we had him on the cob''s back, 
 trotting up and down the road [before the 
 cottage, shaking like a bag of bones, from one 
 side of his old saddle to the other, and doubtless 
 undergoing, poor wretch, a poignant penance, 
 but still trying to grace his steed's back, and to 
 gnaw the ivory handle of his whip, with an air —
 
 94 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 all in exultation over the stand-offish beggars 
 that could command no such display of horse- 
 manship. And 
 
 Now for our magistrate : — magistrate — my 
 pen seems to grate, writing the word, as if it 
 had caught up some sand in its nib. " Tush !" 
 Well, Graves, yes ; tush, i say, also. 
 
 A lord, no less : that is, I believe, a Viscount ; 
 Lord Lintern (I hope I do honour to the ortho- 
 graphy of his title), and, as I think I have 
 heard some one say, of new creation, and not 
 very long settled on his lately-purchased estate, 
 in this neighbourhood. 
 
 Bessy, after much persuasion from her father 
 as well as me, agreed to accompany me, as a 
 necessary witness. We did not find the noble 
 magistrate at home, and so were obliged to leave 
 our names, and promise to call again. This 
 small fact has little to do with the matter in 
 hand, you say : " why not take me into the 
 audience-room, at once ; no matter how often 
 you called, before you penetrated so far.''" For 
 reasons, Richard; our second magistrate dislikes 
 me as much, if not more, than did our first, 
 though he has not sinned so deeply against me, 
 and I willingly postpone re-visiting him, not-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 95 
 
 withstanding that he and all connected with 
 him, (so far as I know him and them) interests, 
 almost excites me ; — and next, the fact of not 
 finding him at home, when we called first, has 
 added to my intimacy with another individual, 
 whom I like much better, and whom, in recol- 
 lection of some of yolir instructions, I will in- 
 troduce beforehand to your philosophical ob- 
 servation. 
 
 Lord Lintern dwelt some miles from us. 
 Bessy could not, or her father would not per- 
 mit her, to walk so far this (at last) hot weather. 
 "A fly" was our resource; and I sallied forth 
 to the little stand of these public vehicles which 
 during the season are to be found even in the 
 little village at the sea-side, here, drawn up, 
 waiting for customers, with all the importance 
 of a long line of town hackney-coaches. I hoped 
 I might chance to find disengaged one in which 
 my father and Bessy had once or twice before 
 taken an airing ; for its proprietor, who was also 
 its " whip," had upon these occasions amused 
 us. And fortune favoured my hope ; I had no 
 sooner come in view of the stand than Master 
 Fox, jumping up in his seat, caught my eye and 
 hailed me, and, at an answering signal, gallop-
 
 96 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 ed forward to where I stood his ill-matched 
 pair of steeds ; one, a black poney, stone-blind, 
 broken-kneed, ^and very old ; the other, a soiled- 
 brown beast, some two hands higher, of tender 
 age, but, short as had been his time in harness, 
 showing little of the spirit of youth in his one 
 eye, or in any of his motions. 
 
 Master Fox is a short individual of, as he 
 told me, forty-one and upwards, and the lord 
 of a tallisli stout wife, and seven offspring — 
 although, drawing conclusions from his appear- 
 ance, and the whole expression of his face and 
 manner, I had as lief consider him a hardship- 
 thinned (though not tamed) and hardship- wrin- 
 kled, youngish man or lad, of — I know not what 
 age, now that I push myself on the point. You 
 sometimes meet in his station of life, do you not, 
 human creatures whose age is thus puzzling? 
 Going by his features and hands, my only visible 
 guides to his proportions, au riaturel, I should 
 further conclude that he is as lean and wiry as 
 he is short — indeed, much more so ; yet his 
 loose blue body-coat, obviously the gift of some 
 patron of larger dimensions, with its tarnished 
 yellow buttons straddling wide, far below the 
 small of his back, might leave the question 
 
 ; 
 
 I
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 97 
 
 doubtful to unstudious eyes. No matter for all 
 that ; he is the nimblest, the merriest, and the 
 most gesticulating and smirking of the sons of 
 white Albion whom it has yet been my chance 
 to encounter. He jumps up and down his seat 
 on his fly, to help you into it or out of it, or to 
 fix a buckle of his harness, or to save his steeds 
 up-hill, with the agility and goodwill (for the 
 exercise) of an amiable monkey. And he will 
 turn sideways to you upon the road, and chatter 
 alternately to you and to " Polly, missis," (the 
 blind pony,) and " Harrit, miss,"" (the animal 
 of loftier stature,) and answer you as gravely 
 as he can when you demand local information, 
 and volunteer a pleasant anecdote, and grin 
 heartily at it, in a way that would be French if 
 it attempted a little more politeness and self- 
 importance ; or Irish if — if it were : and I am 
 of opinion that an Irishman himself could scarce 
 get better out of that dilemma of the want of an 
 antithesis. And do not infer from any thing 
 I have said, that there is a particle of folly in 
 the mental composition of " Mas'r Fox." Look 
 at his clever thoug-h snub nose, and at his sharo 
 little grey eyes, even when they are laughing, 
 and at the corners of his bony-lipped mouth, 
 even when his teeth are fully exposed, and you 
 VOL. I. F
 
 98 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 will suspect no such thing of him. Weigh, too, 
 the whole of his unusual system of being amus- 
 ing, — (after first permitting it, as I did,) — and 
 you may find that one half of it costs him 
 nothing, inasmuch as it is constitution ; and 
 that, perhaps, he slily hopes to make something 
 by the other half. But this is playing Roche- 
 foucauld. I like my fly-proprietor, notwith- 
 standing all my shrewd observations of him ; I 
 like, — apart from his merits already touched 
 upon, — his industry, his never-ceasing industry; 
 his downright energy (without fuss in it) in the 
 knack of squeezing meat, and drink, and clothes, 
 and fire, and house-rent, and taxes, out of every 
 thing and person he encounters, for himself, and 
 his portly wife, (whom he is so proud of, though, 
 I fear, not exquisitely faithful to,) and his seven 
 little Foxes. For he is not fly-charioteer merely. 
 You meet him carting, or working in the fields, 
 or flj'ing on an errand, or making or mending 
 shoes, — (he served his time to the trade,) — at 
 the rear of his huckster''s shop on the skirts of the 
 village, whenever he knows he can judiciously- 
 let his fly and its steeds stand idle under their 
 little shed. I like him for all this; and for 
 whipping up and spanking in style past his 
 wife's door, and nodding and smirking to her
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 99 
 
 upon all occasions when he can boast a good 
 load of company ; and, above all, I like him for 
 his deeply religious turn and notions, and the 
 improving conversations they engender between 
 us. And, now, is not Master Fox better than 
 a magistrate ? I laugh with him till the water 
 comes into my eyes. 
 
 But, well. It was he, I think, who first in- 
 formed me that Lord Lintern was almost a new 
 comer in the neighbourhood, as we proceeded 
 for the first time to the magistrate''s residence. 
 Other hints of his character were mentioned by 
 Master Fox, as we returned homeward without 
 seeing him ; and I comprehended as much as 
 that he was not cordially beloved, that there 
 was a lack of domestic peace and happiness in 
 his fine mansion ; and " that he was all for din- 
 ner-parties, and evening-parties, and wine-par- 
 ties, — sabbath-days and all, — with some people 
 what ought to show him and others a different 
 example." 
 
 The last severe though vague insinuation 
 roused my curiosity, and I asked a question. 
 
 " Mind your steps, Polly, missis," chirped 
 Master Fox, by way of answer, in the first in- 
 stance ; " See, Sir, yonder 's one of the new 
 chapels as I spoke about." 
 
 F 2
 
 100 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " I know," said I ; " I was there last Sun- 
 day." And so I was; for you need not be 
 told, Graves, I study in the tabernacles too. 
 
 •' And the preacher, Sir ? That man has a 
 real gift ; he began in the marshes outside the 
 village. Sir ; and though he had only a round 
 frock on then, I 11 tell you something about 
 that, Sir : we had a young gentleman here, in 
 the season, as good as out of his time for going 
 into the establishment, — you understand. Sir, 
 one of his Majesty^s sarv'nts, — but I be blessed 
 if he heard Mr. Boakes more than two sabbaths 
 when he cum round some't righter, and we 
 have him in Lonnon now. Sir, in a chapel of his 
 own. I say, Harrit, miss !" (chirping.) 
 
 " That tells much, indeed, for your country 
 preacher," I said ; " I '11 go hear him again to- 
 morroAv," — (it was to be Sunday,) — " provided 
 we shall have time to spare after our second 
 ride to Lord Lintern." 
 
 " You left word you would call again to- 
 morrow. Sir .f*" asked Master Fox, gravely. 
 
 " Yes ; and I engage you now for the ride." 
 
 " Thank you, Sir, much obleeged ; but — I 
 beg your pardon — how will that be .'*" 
 
 " How will what be ?" 
 
 " On my own account I mean. Sir ; beg your
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 101 
 
 pardon ; but they are strict with us, as they 
 ought to be, you know, — Harrit ! leave that 
 stone alone, will you ? — and once before, Sir, 
 that I drove out a lady and gentleman on 
 that day, they spoke some't of asking me to 
 withdraw my name from the books; — though 
 I be blessed. Sir, if 'twarn't a real case of ne- 
 cessity, — and so, you see, — 'morrow, Jane !" — 
 a pretty and not very bashful girl passed us, and 
 I detected a right friendly glance between her 
 and the speaker, — " and so, you see. Sir, though 
 I be thankful, as I ought to be, for any gentle- 
 man's custom, I — but what d' you think your- 
 self. Sir ? It 's lawful business, I'm blowed if 
 it bayn't, ain't it ? and business as can't be put 
 off to another day ; and I gains my bread by 
 
 the fly, and " 
 
 And, in fact, notwithstanding his bodings 
 that the religious community to whom he had 
 attached himself would expunge his name 
 *' from the books," he promised to call for 
 us at our house the next day ; and I knew 
 I might wait till then for a more satisfactory 
 answer to the question which " Mas'r" Fox 
 had put off by " Mind your steps, Polly, 
 
 missis." 
 
 *#**#*
 
 102 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " I be blessed alive, Sir," said Master Fox, 
 half-way upon our road, during our second 
 jaunt to Lord Lintern's, " but here comes one 
 of the very men what I'd rather not meet 
 to-day." 
 
 I stood up in the fly, and saw a sad-faced, 
 black-bearded, black-habited person, of about 
 fifty, walking slowly against us, and strewing 
 to either side of the road, at every dozen steps 
 or so, printed papers. 
 
 " He sees me, Sir," continued Fox. 
 
 I perceived, indeed, that the man stopped a 
 little distance from us, bending upon the black- 
 sheep of his flock a thunderstruck look, though 
 there was no frowning nor agitation in it. 
 
 " Well, Polly, missis, — no help for it, — we 
 must live, Polly; and so we must, Harrit, 
 miss ; and so," — gently striking his accomplices 
 in sin, while he chirped sadly " go along I"— 
 " Servant, Mr. Boakes," touching his hat re- 
 spectfully and very consciously, as the preacher 
 passed us still looking expressively at Fox. 
 
 " What are those papers.'"' I asked. 
 
 Master Fox jumped nimbly upon the road, 
 picked up two or three, presented them to me, 
 and, at another bound, regained his seat. I
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 103 
 
 found them to contain most lively and authentic 
 descriptions of the infei-nal sufferings in store 
 for sinners of all kinds, but particularly sabbath- 
 breakers. Their coarse monstrosity and fami- 
 liar details disgusted me, and I could not help 
 feeling that such appeals to the lower orders 
 were calculated to demoralize, rather than to 
 inspire a sympathy with the doctrines of a 
 religion of love. I called to mind the young 
 barber who, the other day, speculatively laid 
 out a halfpenny to purchase one of these road- 
 side tracts as his letter of introduction into the 
 house of the old miser, whom, together with 
 his old female attendant, he had planned to 
 murder, and whom he did murder during 
 church hours of a Sunday. I could not deny, 
 either, that the police-offices in London are 
 often enlightened with the involuntai'y presence 
 of some of the tract-distributors themselves. 
 But, worst of all, thought I, worst of all, is 
 the slanderous portrait of the Deity thus im- 
 posed upon the mere animal apprehensions of 
 the vulgar. 
 
 You will not suppose, however, that I 
 allowed Master Fox to judge of my reveries 
 on the present occasion ; on the contrary, he
 
 104 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 only heard me say, " Do you think that 
 people must be a great deal the better for 
 reading these?" 
 
 "Out and out, Sir; seldom we hear any 
 thing half as much for our good, in the old 
 place, on the sabbath." 
 
 " Probably : and yet the Book of Common 
 Prayer is made up of the most beautiful por- 
 tions of the Bible, and of little else." 
 
 '' Yes, yes. Sir, hke enough ; but turned to 
 their own account, Sir; to their own account, 
 Sir." 
 
 " I know ; but in what particular way ?" 
 " I '11 ask you, Sir, if you please, where do 
 they find the command writ down to send a 
 man into my poor clover-field, and take away 
 many a good breakfast and dinner from Polly 
 and Harrit, here ?" 
 
 Master Fox was begging the question, but 
 I allowed him to chatter on in his own style. 
 
 " Or," he continued, " send me a notice, — 
 and I be blow'd if they ha'n't. Sir, — to pay 
 them tithe out of my little gooseberry-garden ?" 
 " Is that possible ?" 
 
 I was really surprised at the anecdote, and 
 doubtful if the zealous little sectarian did not 
 now seek to prop the case of his grounds of
 
 THE SMUGGLER 105 
 
 jealousy of, as he called them, " his Majesty's 
 sarv^nts," by a bounce. 
 
 " Fact, Sir ; I don't say as much as that 'tis 
 always done, but I know it be done by me ;" 
 — (I interrupt him to say I have ascertained 
 that he spoke truth,) — "and these be the folk, 
 Sir, what gets up into their pulpit, and talks 
 a few cold words for ten good minutes or so, 
 and then steps down again in their loyal livery, 
 with a cambric handkerchief in their hand ;" 
 — (Had the critic ever read Cowper? or rather 
 had the round-frocked preacher, who, doubt- 
 less, drew this picture for him?) — "and the 
 best they say, Sir, finding fault with a poor 
 man for buying a sup of brandy or hollands 
 to give to his poor, dear sick wife, may be, with- 
 out paying more taxes to the King; — hi, hi, 
 Sir ! I could tell you a joke about that, or some- 
 thing like it." 
 
 " Do then," I said ; obviously, some pleasant 
 conceit had put to flight, for the moment, the 
 grave reasoning of the church reformer. 
 
 " 'Tis this. Sir ; Lilly White — have you ever 
 heard tell of Lilly, Sir, since you came down 
 here, among us ?" 
 
 I admitted I had; giving the name of my 
 informant, Mr. Moffit. 
 
 F 5
 
 106 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 "Ah, old Mas'r Moff — I knowed as much, 
 Sir, as that he and you might have had a Httle 
 chat together — for, you see, Sir, you don't 
 let people's tongues lie idle, when you 're 
 within shot of 'em — and it's as like as not 
 that old Moff was about your very best man 
 to tell a story or two of Lilly White" — (I had 
 thought so, as you may remember, Graves) — 
 " howsomever, that bayn't the whip now in 
 hand. Sir ; but here it be : — Dr. Bayley, you 
 see. Sir — Doctor as they calls him — the tithe- 
 parson of our parish ; I '11 not say he 's one of 
 the worst among 'em ; — a quiet, good-natured 
 man, Sir ; of a portly size, and as sleek as a 
 barn-mouse afore threshing-time — he and his 
 saddle-horse, together, Sir — being both of a 
 colour, into the^ bargain, — ay, and as thriving 
 a double-chin. Sir, on the Doctor, as ever 
 you'd wish to see; — I be blessed, after all, but 
 if he was out of sarvice he'd be what I calls 
 a good 'un — but I 'm forgetting the shoe on 
 the last, over again. Well, Sir, whenever he 
 preaches what he thinks is an out-and-outer, do 
 you know 'tis all against smuggling and smug- 
 glers ; in particklar if he sees any of 'em near 
 the pulpit ; and so, Sir, one sabbath-day, seeing 
 Lilly White at hand, the Doctor gave out the
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 107 
 
 best that was in him, and called the smugglers 
 over, at a round rate ; and it happened, after 
 the church prayers and organ-singing, that, 
 passing through the church-yard, he spies 
 Lilly again, standing chatting with a neigh- 
 bour or two ; and ' Lilly, my friend,' says he, 
 ' I hope you '11 be the better of what you heard 
 to-day.' ' To be sure I will, Sir,' answers 
 Lilly ; ' only, to tell the truth, you fright- 
 ened me a bit, one time when you growed so 
 warm.' ' As how, Lilly ?' asks the Doctor. 
 * Why, I be blessed, Sir, if I didn't think you 
 were going to speak about th^m 'ere black silk 
 stockings, what you and I knows something of," 
 says Lilly." 
 
 " A hit of Lilly's, indeed," I observed. 
 
 '' It was Sir, now, warn't it ? but it ain t 
 for not buying the King's brandy, alone, Sir, 
 instead of the free-trader's, that poor people be 
 called over by the parsons ; it be for drinking 
 the King's brandy — or his gin, at least — after 
 buying it, into the bargain. Sir ; as if a poor 
 man, of all men in the world, was never to 
 spend a shilling of his own hard earnings, 
 warming his heart, after a day's work ; or sup- 
 posing he forgot his-self, without meaning it, of 
 an odd time — what then .'' Does nobody never
 
 108 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 do the same thing, over their wines, at six or 
 seven shillings a bottle (and who earns that, I 
 should like to know ?) in their own fine houses, 
 and in their neighbours' fine houses — ay, for 
 that matter "" 
 
 He stopped, with his usual finesse of apostro- 
 phising his beasts ; I continued the sentence for 
 him ; " for that matter, in the very fine house 
 we are going to ?"" 
 
 " You 've said it. Sir," assented Master Fox, 
 nodding round to me, expressively : and so, as 
 I hoped was to be the case, I gained the in- 
 formation he had refused to supply on the 
 former day. 
 
 *' But tell me," I resumed ; " look over these 
 papers, and inform me which of them you like 
 the best." 
 
 A shade of embarrassment crossed Master 
 Fox's brow, as he replied, stooping to lay the 
 whip gently on Miss Harriet's ribs — " you '11 
 look them over for me, won't you. Sir, this 
 time, and I '11 be obleeged to you ?" 
 
 " Oh, you generally get some one to do the 
 same friendly office for you, I dare say .'*" 
 
 He did not contradict me ; and I paused to 
 admire, dear Graves, the critic of the Book of 
 Common Prayer, who could not read. And
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 109 
 
 then I went on to ask myself — is it alone the 
 inspired influence of Mr. Boakes, which has 
 estranged this little fellow from the established 
 order of things, nay, seasoned his opposition 
 with such severe, if not audacious hostility ? 
 and my answer was — No. What then ? No 
 matter, for the present. But, Graves, have 
 you ever contemplated the numbers — I had 
 almost said, the sufficient majority of the people, 
 — take them of every sect, one with another — 
 nay, do not omit even some of no religious sect 
 at all — who are this moment fixed in a warfare 
 (of opinion at least,) against the objects of 
 MasV Fox's animadversion ? Have you ever 
 brought clearly before your mind, that our 
 middle and our lower orders — nay, our abso- 
 lutely illiterate — are those of whom the fewest 
 go to uphold the aristocratic displays of good 
 church-of-Englandisra put forth in the parish 
 churches, throughout the countr}', about once 
 a year — upon Christmas day, for instance ? — 
 and if so, has your mind stopped working on 
 the subject, just after having assured itself of 
 such facts ? I believe not. You have perhaps 
 demanded of the probabilities of human nature 
 some question as — Will dislike and contempt 
 of the religion by law established never tend
 
 110 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 to engender similar sentiments towards other 
 things by law established? Dare to look the 
 truth in the face. Have no such results already 
 followed ? Not that sectarianism has, of itself, 
 put the poor and the struggling into the way of 
 reasoning parallel cases ; not that mere liberty 
 of thinking and acting, on religious points, and 
 nothing else, leads them into the same free- 
 doms, touching matters distinct from saying 
 their prayers. I do not mean so. I suppose, 
 indeed, that— the one great chain of prostra- 
 tion of mind broken — they have been left pre- 
 pared for what followed ; or, if you like, for 
 what is to follow ; but, here also, I fear, they 
 have been sorely tempted. 
 
 " And all this, with a Mas'r Fox for your 
 text-book.?" Nay, Graves. If I here faith- 
 fully report for you, word for word, as well as 
 I can recollect it, the tirade of that eloquent 
 and competent individual, it is — apart from 
 his personal interest — to allow myself an oppor- 
 tunity of telling you, that such are the senti- 
 ments, differently expressed according to the 
 different characters of my instructors, which I 
 have been and am in the habit of hearing daily 
 from almost all of the lower classes. Come 
 among them, and talk to them whenever and
 
 THE SMUGGLER. Ill 
 
 wherever you can, on the roads, in the fields, 
 as well as under their own roof ; gain their trust 
 in you ; or rather wile off their distrust of you 
 as a better-elad and richer man (heaven bless 
 the mark !) and then make your own conclu- 
 sions. Often and often you have denied your 
 assent to the supposition that the really rich — 
 in the church as well as out of it — know little 
 or nothing of the people of England : permit, 
 however, the doubt again to be repeated : and 
 further, permit it to be added, that that want 
 of knowledge is as perilous as it is unlovely. 
 Some delusions, you will say, as well as some 
 neglect, have helped to create and to keep up 
 their ignorance. I grant you. 
 
 But come. Should you not like to see with 
 your eyes, and hear with your ears, a specimen 
 of the men who, as far as they can go, have 
 revolutionized the mind of Mas'r Fox, and 
 hundreds of thousands of his class '^. To be 
 sure you should. Accompany me, then, still 
 passing over our visit to the magistrate, a week 
 after the conversation I have transcribed for 
 you, to Mr. Boakes's new chapel. 
 
 Upon my second return homeward from Lord 
 Lintern's, with Fox, and in sight of that chapel, 
 we met many anxious faces on the road. My
 
 112 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 charioteer, claiming acquaintance with some of 
 them, stopped to make inquiries. A very in- 
 teresting fact, considering our late discussion, 
 was communicated. That morning, an old 
 preacher, much celebrated among Mr. Boakes's 
 sect, had come from a distance, by invitation, 
 to preach a charity sermon. The chapel was 
 crowded. His wife, children, and not a few of 
 their children, sat near the pulpit. He began 
 his sermon, and enwrapt all his hearers. He 
 proceeded a good way in it ; when at a par- 
 ticular text — and, for the occasion, a most 
 remarkable one — he swung suddenly round in 
 the pulpit, fell heavily against its door, burst it 
 open, tumbled headlong down its steps, and 
 was taken up, dead. 
 
 Having heard this melancholy and startling- 
 tale, and resumed our way towards the village, 
 I remarked to Fox, that I supposed the next 
 Sunday would afford an excellent opportunity 
 for hearing his favourite to advantage, inas- 
 much, I concluded, as standing in the same 
 pulpit in which the old preacher had been 
 so awfully struck dead, for the first time after 
 the event, one might expect from Mr. Boakes 
 an animated funeral oration, or at least, a 
 sermon closely connected with the fate of his
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 113 
 
 SO recent predecessor in his ministry. Master 
 Fox agreed with my anticipations, though not 
 spiritedly or convincingly ; however, to the 
 chapel I went, the following Sunday. 
 
 A second time Ave encountered Mr. Boakes, 
 upon the road. He did not now look at us, 
 however, with a reprehensive brow. 
 
 " And why does he not ?" I asked. 
 
 " Because, you see, Sir,^"" answered my friend, 
 " he knows you and I be going to the chapel, 
 to-day, and not on our pleasure, or any busi- 
 ness that would break the sabbath, or to any 
 other chapel but his own ; though, I be blessed, 
 Sir," continued Master Fox, plaintively, " 'tisn't 
 with sabbath breaking he has a right to tax 
 me most." 
 
 " How is that ? I mean, I am sure you 
 seldom or never give him cause," I remark- 
 ed, not knowing at first what to make of this 
 ambiguous declaration, 
 
 " Ah, Sir, we bay n't all out-and-outers, 
 like that 'ere gifted man," he continued, still 
 sadly, and now I began to suspect, somewhat 
 self-accusingly ; for he sighed. 
 
 " Few of us, indeed, can boast exemption 
 from the failings of mortality," I answered ; 
 sighing also.
 
 114 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " 'Tis you, I believe, Sir ; and that's why I 
 say it ain't the sabbath breaking ; Mr. INIut- 
 ford " here he bent round to me, confiden- 
 tially in the extreme, and with great earnestness 
 added, " I be blowed, and as I 'm a living lad, 
 earning my bread, Sir, I do think I have but 
 one fault in me, that stands between me and 
 Mr. Boakes, or any one else, not having ' lively 
 hopes' of Jerry Fox." 
 
 Here I marked some of the conventional 
 words of his brethren, and at the same time 
 remembered the glance which had passed be- 
 tween him and the pretty, bold-looking girl, 
 that day week : I replied quickly, " Courage ; 
 which of us is perfect ? or of whom can we 
 have such perfect hopes as of Mr. Boakes .'* 
 But, that one little faihng apart, what would be 
 your hopes of yourself?" 
 
 " Pretty fairish. Sir," he replied, cheering up, 
 and chirping to ' Polly, missis;' " pretty fairish." 
 
 " Morrow, Jane !" I called out, turning my 
 head quickly, backward. He jerked on his 
 seat, followed my eyes, and when he perceived 
 that no Jane was in view, as, indeed, there had 
 not been, and when he caught my glance and 
 smile at him, I deemed I had never been
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 115 
 
 amused more utterly than by the expression of 
 Mas'r Fox's face, settling itself, after one in- 
 stantaneous struggle, into — 
 
 " I see you take me, Sir, and that my 
 remorse and gravity be lost on you ; ay, 
 and that you be not going to be as hard on 
 me, God bless you ! as Mr. Boakes would be."" 
 
 " But,"'"' I said, changing the subject, " per- 
 haps there was another reason why Mr. Boakes 
 did not get offended with you, just now, for 
 driving your fly : he was driving his wife, I 
 hope — that is, I suppose — I believe," (Mas'r 
 Fox smiled again, with an indescribable " um — 
 well !") " in his own gig-" 
 
 " To be sure, Sir — to chapel ; like me, driv- 
 ing you." 
 
 " But he could walk, and so could we. Had 
 he that gig, pray, when he used to preach, out 
 in the air, in the marshes V 
 
 " No, Sir, nor the wife, either ;"" answered 
 my oracle, beginning to chime in with my vein, 
 though he had not now the courage to look 
 at me. 
 
 " We need not add, nor the chapel, either," 
 I resumed. " Tell me ; what was he then, 
 besides the best preacher you ever heard ?'^
 
 116 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 "• He used to live with a farmer, in the next 
 parish, Sir, before that," said Fox, shyly. 
 
 " And did he get a little money with his 
 wife ?" 
 
 " Oh, Sir, a little, I believe ; and she was a 
 bit older as well as a bit richer than him," he 
 added in a whisper, as we gained the chapel- 
 door. 
 
 It was a small, plain building, stuffed with 
 people, and reeking with heat. There was no 
 seat visible for me, as 1 entered ; but Fox caught 
 the eye of a man who seemed appointed to pre- 
 side over the arrangements, beckoned to him, 
 pointing sideways at me, and I was soon placed 
 within an open area surrounding the pulpit, 
 upon a form shared by other favoured indivi- 
 duals. Every window was thrown up in the 
 vain hope of gaining a breath of cool air, from 
 the sultry and breezeless day which reigned 
 without ; and even a trap-door in the middle of 
 the ceiling of the chapel had been removed for 
 the purpose of ventilation — after a glance at 
 which I learned that Mr. Boakes's hay-loft was 
 overhead ; some whisps of hay having streamed 
 downward inquisitively, at the corners of the 
 black aperture. 
 
 My eyes strayed modestly round the chapel ;
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 117 
 
 it was filled, partly with persons of the hum- 
 blest rank of life, partly with those who hang- 
 loosely on the skirts of the middle orders ; a 
 thriving shop-keeper, and a popular brewer, as 
 I afterwards learned from Master Fox, were 
 the only aristocrats of the congregation : — the 
 majority of their brethren being in attendance 
 at — the parish church ? — no ; but at the chapels 
 of other and more " respectable" sectarians. 
 
 We awaited some time the beginning of the 
 service. At length Mr. Boakes issued through 
 a private door into the area where I sat, lead- 
 ing an elderly female, in deep mourning, by 
 the hand. This was the widow of the old 
 preacher who had died the Sunday before. Her 
 sons and daughters, and some grand-children, 
 also habited in mourning, followed her. She 
 and they were placed on a form before me, by 
 Mr. Boakes, and then that individual slowly- 
 mounted to his pulpit, or reading-desk. I need 
 not tell you that he wore no ecclesiastical trap- 
 pings whatever over his rotund person and 
 broad shoulders ; but it is worth noticing, that 
 a simpering smile glistened, along with its 
 " melting mood," induced by the great heat, 
 over his broad, plump, sallow, black-bearded 
 visage, instead of the profound solemnity, if not
 
 118 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 sorrow, which, considering the occasion, I had 
 simply conjectured would be its expression. 
 But I was to learn more, on this subject. 
 
 I think the service commenced with a hymn, 
 given out by him, and most execrably nose- 
 twanged, before the congregation took it up, 
 by the clerk who sat under the pulpit — a little 
 man of about forty-five, wearing a very inarti- 
 ficial light-brown wig, and a face, with an af- 
 fectation of sectarian village piety upon it, the 
 very caricature of the veriest caricatures I had 
 ever seen of his office. He stood up, while he 
 burlesqued the beautiful simplicity of the verses, 
 holding his neck so stiff, and his nostrils so 
 elevated, and closing his eyes with such im- 
 measurable absurdity, that, were I near him, at 
 a convenient time, I could have snatched that 
 prim wig from its block, and stuffed the 
 wretched sounds down his throat with it, until 
 he should open those calf's eyes, and look 
 natural, even in fright. It was beyond my pos- 
 sible anticipations. Some popular farce-actor, 
 — Liston, I believe, — has been said to have dis- 
 covered his forte, at rather an advanced period 
 of life, by his boys (he was then a schoolmaster) 
 laughing at him, spite of their fears of him, while 
 he declaimed Brutus's harangue upon the death
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 119 
 
 of Caesar. It is then possible, that in the person 
 of this hideous chapel-clerk, we may yet have 
 his rival on the stage. 
 
 But, Mr. Boakes. He sat back in his pulpit 
 during the hymn, one of his gigantic fists rest- 
 ing upon, I presumed, an open Bible, the 
 largest volume, I think, I had ever seen ; and 
 still he simpered : and, Graves, imagine that 
 simper on that face, almost as huge and as black 
 as an ox's. There was silence, and he arose to 
 pray an extempore prayer. I proceed in no le- 
 vity of spirit, dear Richard,- — God knows I do 
 not, — against pious observances and endeavours 
 in any sect, or in any human being; but if I 
 find such a man as is now before me, auda- 
 ciously usurping a place, in the faces of Heaven 
 and of man, for which he must even know he is 
 incalculably unfitted, shall I hesitate — recollect- 
 ing, too, his gig and his wife — to paint his por- 
 trait faithfully ? When I call to mind that, 
 from the place he has thus intruded into, he 
 wields, owing to unfortunate circumstances and 
 facilities, a dangerous power over the happi- 
 ness, the good, the morals and the manners of 
 his humbugged followers, — should I hesitate ? 
 When those who ought to be well acquainted 
 with the original, and are not, may gain some
 
 120 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 hints from my picture — am I not called upon 
 to exhibit it ? And lastly, if a wight like this, 
 ridicules, beyond the powers of easy compre- 
 hension, unless you had been by my side — piety 
 and all appertaining to it — in the name of offend- 
 ed decency, why should I spare him ? 
 
 I do not intend to do so. I write down, 
 plainly, that his extempore prayer was de- 
 liberate insult to its Object ; and what must it 
 have been to the unenlightened and vague minds 
 of his hearers ?— Good language, tolerable com- 
 position, I expected not, and therefore was con- 
 tented to so without. But its clownish confi- 
 dence — its taking-for-grantedness — its ask-and- 
 have spirit — its low and pert familiarity with 
 God — and, above all, its exclusiveness— its mea- 
 suring out of unmeasured and immeasurable 
 love and mercy — ay, to the disciples of Mr. 
 Boakes alone — and the whole delivered with 
 the accompaniments of a still simpering visage, 
 a pair of dull, over-fed, blinking grey eyes, two 
 clumsy arms, now and then extended on terms 
 of " hail-fellow-well-met," and an up-and-down, 
 fire-side conversational tone of voice — none of 
 this did I expect, none of it could I have ex- 
 pected ; and with any of it could I have been 
 contented?
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 121 
 
 He sat down, as much at his ease as if 
 he had bat asked his wife to prepare him 
 something nice for dinner. Singing was re- 
 sumed. He arose a second time to preach : he 
 preached two hours and one quarter — as I am 
 a credible man, he did ; and not till within a 
 few moments of his close, were the slightest 
 allusions made to the event of the previous 
 Sunday, to the families of mourners under his 
 pulpit, — in fact, to the hearts of his congrega- 
 tion. Having the grandest occasion that the 
 haps of human life can present for taming, 
 first, and afterwards filling with hope, the rebel 
 nature of man, he permitted it to pass him by, as 
 if it were unworthy of a moment*'s notice. Can 
 you understand the drift of this — the stolid 
 affectation, or the mistaken etiquette, or the 
 inverted sensibility ? / cannot ; though Master 
 Fox afterwards carelessly told me, in answer to 
 my questions on the point, " 'tis their way. Sir ; 
 they don't like talking of the departed. I be 
 blessed. Sir, if they do." 
 
 But what, then, was Mr. Boakes''s sermon 
 about ? I venture to reply, that with respect to 
 what he intended it to be about, — if you allow 
 his roaming mind an intention, — I don't know ; 
 no, nor any one who heard him, either. A 
 
 VOL. 1. G
 
 122 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 muddy river, (though the comparison is rather 
 old,) always slow, yet always flowing on, and 
 sometimes turbid, even in its sloth, and for ever 
 hiding its own bottom — that would be like it. I 
 bent my mind, nay my heart, to comprehend, 
 and if possible to profit by it ; I did, indeed, 
 Graves, sincerely and humbly ; and it is in the 
 same deliberate candour I add, that if the reli- 
 gious feelings, not to say creeds, of the poorer 
 classes, are to depend upon such teachers as 
 this thriving Boakes, religion will fast disap- 
 pear from the land. 
 
 For, though I disclaim the capability of fol- 
 lowing or fathoming the troubled stream of his 
 eloquence, I was able, now and then, to catch 
 at a bubble or a sti'aw on its surface, which 
 warrants me in making the last assertion. Upon 
 every available occasion he sneered, till his poor 
 hearers sneered again, at the objects of Master 
 Fox's raillery and contempt; and, most cer- 
 tainly, after eradicating from the immatured 
 minds around him, all former guides and stays, 
 he did not even affect to give them any guid- 
 ance or stay, in return. On the contrary, incre- 
 dible as it may appear, he told them in so many 
 words, not to place the slightest reliance on any 
 thing he himself had been saying, or was saying,
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 123 
 
 or might say ; but go home, with independent 
 minds, and read and grow perfect of their own 
 accords. Why did he stay talking in that pul- 
 pit, then, for two hours and a quarter ? What 
 brought him there? or what right had he to his 
 new chapel, new house, and gig — wife I leave 
 out of the question, as an achievement he might 
 have compassed in his round frock, while work- 
 ing in the farmer's fields, even before he issued 
 forth into the marshes. And — go home, with 
 independent minds, and read, and so forth — 
 how many of them ? — or, supposing all could 
 read, at home, and read themselves, each, into 
 independent notions, at home ; why not stay at 
 home ? Notions independent of his, must differ 
 from his; ay, and from those of every one 
 else ; and where would he be then ? In his pul- 
 pit still, if you like ; but with what number of 
 hearers ? The head of beef ! is not his plan 
 (plan!) this; a community of preachers, with- 
 out a listener, each growing hoarse unto his 
 own bare walls; and worse than that, each 
 primed with enough " independence," (Oh, 
 
 the burlesqued word,) to 
 
 But forgive me, dear Graves, I do harangue 
 out of measure. Lay it to the account of con- 
 stitution, if not some other thing ; and do lialf 
 
 n. 9
 
 124 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 admit, in the mean time, that if such a man as 
 Boakes is more an object of smiles than of 
 argument, the cunning zealot may do more 
 harm than even himself can be aware of. Other 
 occasional sentences I carried away with me. 
 At the very moment he inculcated free and 
 unbridled thinking (thinking !) upon every 
 mind — (mind!) — what say you to his doctrine 
 of a " particklar salvation ?" And then, un- 
 der cover of such jumbled cant, as " justify- 
 ing grace," he assured every person who heard 
 him, smiling tranquilly all the time, that, 
 after a certain probation, no man " of God's 
 true church," {his congregation) could do a 
 sin. Acts, indeed, which ^vould be sins in 
 others, he might fall into afterwards, during 
 his sojourn upon earth, in the unglorified 
 livery of the flesh ; but, as sins, they were 
 not counted against /«'/«. And now, I shall 
 say no more, only ask you to calculate the 
 effects of that precious doctrine upon such an 
 audience, after first urging every individual to 
 read for himself, and then leaving all the sole 
 judges of their own arrival at the point of 
 " justifying grace."" 
 
 But I must glance at the only allusions which 
 he vouchsafed to the absorbing topic of interest
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 125 
 
 for the clay. He had drawn a blurred outline 
 of future happiness, attained at a jump out of 
 his spiritualized state in this life ; and thus, I 
 think, he continued, — (do not forget his voice, 
 face, and action, while you read :) — 
 
 " As for my brother, as all of us have 
 such reasons to think well of, him as spoke 
 last to you from this place; and as for our 
 sisters and our brethren as he has left behind 
 him," (motioning down to them,) " why, what 
 of him or them ? Sure they know, as well as 
 you or I, that he has only gone — only gone," — 
 (here he put out his arms in his usual indifferent 
 manner, allowed his face to simper very much, 
 dropped his tones into convincing familiarity 
 and easiness, and elevated coldly his great fat 
 eyes,) — " pho ! — only gone, I say, a little time 
 before them to — to another place, and a better 
 place; surely the separation is nothing, — just 
 call it some place a little way up, — in fact, up," 
 — (pausing an instant, for an illustration that 
 would come home to the homeliest mind,) — 
 " why, see, — up to the place overhead ;" — and 
 here he fixed his glance on the open trap-door 
 in the ceiling of the chapel, and thither all 
 other eyes followed his, looking, I imagined, 
 as if they half-expected to see the gray head of
 
 126 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 the old preacher nodding down assuringly at 
 them, from amid the scattered festoonings of 
 Mr. Boakes's hay. 
 
 '^' Pho !" he resumed, "what do I speak of? 
 I knew our brother well, and am sure of him. 
 It was but a few months ago that I called on 
 him, when he was poorly for a time, though 
 that wore off; and now you'll know from what 
 I say, that he was sure of himself into the 
 bargain. ' Well,"* I asked him, ' and what be 
 your hopes, now ?'' — ' Tut V he answered me, 
 laughing a little, while he coughed, ' quite right 
 and comfortable, quite packed up and ready, 
 waiting for God's coach !' " 
 
 And these, Graves, are specimens of the free 
 and easy style of expounding doctrine, upon 
 which such apostles pride themselves in ad- 
 dressing the ready-made inspired. 
 
 Too much of this; much too much. Indeed, 
 in looking over what I have written since the 
 evening of our arrival at the Anchor, I decree it 
 unfit for your perusal as it stands, dear Graves ; 
 and so, I will either copy out parts of it for 
 you, from time to time, or else condense and re- 
 model it altogether. My own warmth sometimes.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 127 
 
 and sometimes my petty details and wretched 
 allusions, sicken me; I believe I foresaw that 
 the latter would inconvenience you. What have 
 you to do with our lodging adventures, and 
 our miserable two guineas a week ? or with 
 my idle declamation on passing occurrences or 
 characters ? or with my poor-man sneers at a 
 viscount ? When you asked for people or in- 
 cidents, you did not ask for that. Besides, 
 though I owe you fullest confidence, and, as 
 this journal proves, feel inclined to give it, 
 bienseance whispers me, that for many reasons 
 I ought to suppress all farther allusions to my 
 father's purse and my own; — bienseance, say I, 
 — moodiness, say you. Well, I 'm not going 
 to argue it with you ; but for the present, cer- 
 tainly, " the journal" must not go as it is. 
 Some future day, when temporary annoyances 
 have been passed by, — or shall be passed, at 
 any rate, — every word I have here penned may 
 meet your eye; and then you will judge as 
 leniently as you can of my inconsistency. 
 
 Meantime, from the present moment I will 
 go on in such a way as I need not have cause 
 to repent ; that is, every word I shall hence- 
 forward write, you shall read ; that is, if I can.
 
 128 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Now, my magistrate at last, and in good 
 earnest. 
 
 Bessy and I, — ( I am more sorry than I can 
 say, that she was with me ; you may guess why 
 as I go on ; though perhaps not ; and, after al], 
 only see reason to accuse me of a new fit of 
 the fidgets,) — we were ushered through a noble 
 hall into a library. (I will tell you something 
 that hurt me, tingled through me to the quick 
 of ray nails, before we arrived at the house, 
 — ay, although I 'm sure of your laugh at me, 
 — that little crabbed monkey. Fox, after all 
 our conjidentiul discussion^ asked me which door 
 he should drive up to, the hall-door or the 
 door at the rear ?) 
 
 The magistrate evidently awaited us in his 
 morocco chair. To my bow and poor Bessy's 
 triste obeisance he made very little return ; he 
 shifted his position as he sat, that was all. I 
 believe I looked at him after this, not coolly 
 enough to sketch his likeness. And yet you 
 will imagine a man of between sixty and 
 seventy; tall, emaciated, with sunken cheeks, 
 yellow dried-up skin on them, small grey eyes, 
 cold and yet glittering, a long thin nose, and 
 a very narrow slit for a mouth ; hardness, 
 energy, self-opinion, and a sense of power, the
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 129 
 
 instantaneous impression upon you of all you 
 behold. 
 
 " I have called on magisterial business, my 
 Lord," I began, while as yet he had not in- 
 vited even Bessy to be seated. 
 
 " I know that. Sir," he said. 
 
 I suppose I stared, and then I handed a 
 chair to Bessy and took another by her side, 
 before I continued : the tears were in my dear 
 little sister's eyes. 
 
 " The nature of the business ?" he resumed. 
 
 " You shall hear it." 
 
 I did not " Lord" him this time, but entered 
 upon my case, and stated it briefly but dis- 
 tinctly. He comprehended it rapidly ; and, 
 indeed, there was abundant intellect upon his 
 high, bald, shrivelled, and cross-wrinkled fore- 
 head. 
 
 *' Your only view in coming here,*" he said, 
 after I had done speaking, " miist be to swear 
 informations against your landlord for an as- 
 sault, or rather a construed assault upon your 
 own person." 
 
 " I wish to observe," I began : — he interrupt- 
 ed me. " Pray, let me speak. I, as a magis- 
 trate, have nothing to do with the trespass 
 you say he has committed on your premises." 
 
 G 5
 
 130 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " I am lawyer enough to be aware of that," 
 I observed ; " the attorney, not the magistrate, 
 would be my adviser, had I proposed to indict 
 the old man ; but I decline any such thing ; 
 he is, indeed, too old, and too infirm, and too 
 irascible, to bear the agitation of law proceed- 
 ings ; and as our object is self-protection, ra- 
 ther than vengeance — " 
 
 " You come before me to swear an assault 
 against him, as I have said already ? But 
 would there be no vengeance in that course ? 
 Particularly when the assault exists in law 
 only, and not at all in fact ; for you have said 
 that he merely raised his crutch, or his stick 
 over your head ?" 
 
 " When you are quite at leisure to hear me 
 explain my real views, — why, then, you will 
 comprehend them — my lord," I said, bitterly, 
 like a fool. 
 
 " Go on, go on, Sir." 
 
 " I do not come before you to prosecute for 
 an assault." 
 
 " No ! then, why come at all .?" 
 
 " In the expectation that, as we 'are strangers 
 in your county, and one of us, my father, in 
 bad health, and my sister, here, in dread of our
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 131 
 
 absurd old tormentor — a magistrate, in the 
 spirit of a peace-maker, if not exactly in the 
 discharge of his duties, might remonstrate with 
 
 this Mr, Wiggins, and by his influence " 
 
 " Waste of time to us both, Sir : I could 
 do you no good, even were such a step ad- 
 visable ; I have no influence over the man ; 
 
 he is not even a tenant of mine ; and now 
 
 George," — here he was interrupted by the en- 
 trance of a tall young lad of about twenty, 
 with a stolid though handsome expression of 
 face, a nose even longer than his father''s, and 
 a sufficient portion, in his manner and air, of 
 that dry, pithless, graceless reserve, which in 
 a good many of his rank and about his age, 
 who have not travelled, would fain pass for 
 superciliousness. Two large sporting dogs fol- 
 lowed him into the room, and he carried a long 
 coachman's whip in his hand. Did he smell 
 of the stable ? I thought so, but will not be 
 positive. 
 
 " Didn't hear you were engaged," he said, 
 indifferently, by way of answer to his father's 
 challenge ; and then deliberately shutting the 
 library door, he strode across the apartment, 
 and took a chair; his fine animal eyes, — not
 
 132 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 even noticing me, — fixed, all the while, with a 
 dead, insolent stare, upon Bessy ""s very beautiful 
 Leonardo da Vinci face. 
 
 The Viscount magistrate was about to re- 
 sume his judgment on my case, when loud, 
 impassioned voices reached us from the lawn 
 before the hall door, at which he started anx- 
 iously and impatiently, and turned round to 
 look out at the window ; and even his son 
 showed as much interest as to remove his eyes 
 from poor Bessy, and revolve them in the same 
 direction. 
 
 It was only necessary for me to gaze straight 
 on before me, to see as much as they did. In 
 the middle of the lawn, another young man was 
 strugghng in the hands of a mean-looking 
 person, who seemed to exert all his strength to 
 keep him fixed to the spot, while both spoke in 
 the highest tone, although their words did not 
 reach us. At the instant my eye caught them, 
 a third person, also of a mean appearance, 
 issued from a solid-built little edifice — it seemed 
 like a green-house — to one side, at the skirt 
 of the lawn, and ran towards the combatants ; 
 and at sight of him, the young gentleman 
 appeared to redouble his efforts for liberty, and
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 133 
 
 was successful ; his antagonist, if so I may call 
 him, swung round, and fell, and he bounded, 
 deer-like, towards the house. 
 
 " Good heaven, George I" cried Lord Lin- 
 tern, starting up from his magisterial chair, 
 and shaking in every limb — " hasten ! quick ! 
 and see about this." 
 
 The young honourable, somewhat moved, 
 too, though under perfect self-command, was 
 hastening himself to obey this injunction, when 
 hurried steps were heard in the hall; the library- 
 door opened — flew open — and the object of Lord 
 Lintern's interest, stood before us. 
 
 I never saw so peculiarly striking a person ; 
 very young — though I cannot venture to define 
 his exact age — of a good height ; slight, and 
 even too slight, yet not emaciated ; of a noble 
 carriage. Nature's evident gift, rather than 
 the dancing-master's, or the drill-serjeant's ; — a 
 visage and features full of strong if not high 
 character, though the one was very pale, and 
 dragged with care, or passion, or harassing, or 
 deep experience of some kind ; and the others — 
 the chin, nose, and mouth — sharpened ; while 
 the black eyes glistened and flared, and shot 
 out, spark after spark, a devouring excitement.
 
 134 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 He bounded ia, and faced Lord Lintem, 
 trembling, panting, and seemingly bursting with 
 some vehement appeal he was about to make : 
 he wore no hat ; and the heaps of black curling 
 tresses on his fine head, shook with the strength 
 of his emotions. The Honourable George Allan 
 — such, I have learned, is the family name of 
 the Viscount — had stepped back at his entrance, 
 and yielded him ready place and predominance. 
 A second had scarce elapsed, when he began to 
 speak, in a shrill, though sometimes hoarse 
 voice. 
 
 " So, Sir ! or, so, my Lord ! I meet you 
 again, face to face ! — face to face, to go on with 
 our last interrupted explanation I ay, after all 
 your measures to keep us asunder, and to deny 
 that explanation ! after all " 
 
 " Leave the room, Sir r interrupted the old 
 magistrate, advancing upon him — " silence, and 
 leave the room !"" and he motioned with his 
 arm, as if partly to enforce his command. 
 
 " Have a care !" screamed the intruder, start- 
 ing a step backward, locking the door and 
 securing the key — " do not i/ou lay a hand 
 upon my body ; — forget yourself so far — add 
 that to the rest — do, and by earth and 
 heaven "
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 135 
 
 "Monster!" Lord Lintern's cadences now 
 rivalled his — " Monster ! and no son of mine !" 
 — My blood curdled ; noise was heard at the 
 locked door. 
 
 " Monster, j'ou ! and not my father — or 
 not a father to me !" reiterated the wretched 
 youth. 
 
 " Give way — out of the way !" resumed the 
 as wretched parent, approaching the door, and 
 he caught one of his son's arms. 
 
 " Not till we speak more !" — and the son 
 seized one of his. 
 
 Persons abroad here seemed to use force to 
 open the door ; the uproar and horror of the 
 scene grew excessive ; but a new incident 
 calmed, in a degree, every thing, and every 
 body. Bessy, who had arisen in a fright, and 
 clung to me, shrieked and fainted. The shriek 
 operated on the young man like the sound of a 
 trumpet on a war-horse; he jumped round from 
 his father to her ; and the sight of her then 
 seemed to work him like a spell. I thought I 
 read in his deep and astonishing looks, along 
 with the utmost surprize — for surely he had 
 not observed us before — compassion for her in- 
 sensible and helpless appearance, self-reproval 
 for having occasioned it, and, I fear — (though
 
 136 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 why that word) great admiration of my poor 
 sister's personal charms. 
 
 " Who is this ? what's this ?''"' he asked, as if 
 unconsciously, almost in a whisper. 
 
 " Your violence has frightened the young 
 lady, almost to death, as you see," said his 
 father, also speaking in a comparatively sub- 
 dued tone ; " and you will not now refuse, I am 
 sure, to open the door, and leave the room, and 
 go " 
 
 " Where ?'''' demanded the other, bending a 
 look upon him. 
 
 " Up stairs, up stairs, with George," — recol- 
 lection of the observation of strangers, induced 
 by Bessy's startling interruption of their strange 
 and revolting contest, had doubtless brought 
 the father to his senses ; " and there, I give 
 you my promise, we shall speak as much and as 
 long as you have need for — Do you consent .'' — 
 you must, if only for the young person's sake ; 
 she wants air, and help." 
 
 The youth, who had again fixed his regards 
 on Bessy, as she hung on my arm, suddenly 
 drew the key of the door from his pocket, laid 
 his hand on the lock, hesitated an instant, and 
 asked — *' I go without interruption .?" 
 
 " Certainly ; leave the door and the hall
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 137 
 
 free, whoever is there," answered his father, to 
 the persons without. The intruder immediately 
 turned the key; but before he left the room, 
 approached me and said, in tones of perfect 
 sweetness, though they were exhausted : " To 
 you, Sir, as the protector of this lady, whoever 
 you are, I offer my sincere apologies for having 
 caused her such distress ;" and once more he 
 gazed intently on Bessy's face, and as he at 
 length went out at the door, with his brother, 
 I could hear him whisper — " George, who are 
 they ?" 
 
 At his preparations to depart. Lord Lintern 
 had rung his bell, and we and the Viscount 
 were scarce alone again, when a servant ap- 
 peared, and quickly returned, at his master's 
 order, with water and wine. My sister had 
 now begun to come to herself, however, with- 
 out any restoratives ; and I only offered her a 
 sip of water, and then was bearing her towards 
 our fly, with little leave-taking, when his Lord- 
 ship addressed me. 
 
 " I regret it much — I trust your sister will 
 not be the worse of it. Sir : is she quite able to 
 be removed ?" 
 
 " Yes, quite ; and the open air and the ride 
 will do her good."
 
 138 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " Very sorry, indeed " I had now con- 
 veyed Bessy into the hall — " and as to your 
 affair of business, Sir, I have heard what you 
 had to say, and you have heard all I can 
 say ; your landlord would pay no attention to 
 any remonstrance of mine — I know a little of 
 his character, upon report : were he a tenant or 
 a dependant of mine, indeed — but as it is, being 
 quite independent of me, he would turn on his 
 heel and disregard me — so " 
 
 He had stopped in the middle of the hall ; I 
 had proceeded on through the open hall-door, 
 down the steps, into the fly, with Bessy ; and at 
 his last words. Master Fox, twice stimulated by 
 my command, whipped Polly and Harret, and 
 with a formal inclination of the head on both 
 sides, the Viscount and I lost sight of each other. 
 
 The fresh air and the ride did produce a 
 good effect on my poor Bessy, thanks, or rather 
 no thanks, to his Lordship. For some time 
 after her perfect restoration to her senses, she 
 was silent, abstracted, and infectiously sad. 
 Then, broken comments upon the scene which 
 she had witnessed, escaped her ; and her pure 
 and simple heart sent out expressions of the 
 greatest wonder, that a father and son could 
 so meet, and so speak and act towards one
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 139 
 
 another ; and her pity for the son was to me the 
 most interesting, though the least agreeable part 
 of her observations. She was sure he had been 
 ill-treated, in som^ way or other ; she was sure, 
 wicked as he had appeared, people had made 
 him so ; she was sure if he had another father — 
 such a father as she had — that he would be a 
 good son ; and when I merely asked Bessy 
 how could she tell that ? Bessy reddened, and 
 agreed that, indeed, she could not tell it, 
 exactly. 
 
 Master Fox seemed awe-stricken, and quite 
 tamed into silence, from the effect of such pas- 
 sages of the transaction as had come under his 
 notice, while he stood with his fly and steeds 
 near the fine hall-door. I did not try to draw 
 him into conversation till we met the people 
 coming out of the chapel, after the sudden 
 death of the old preacher. My mind was suffi- 
 ciently engaged to spare him. Under all the 
 excitement of the domestic quarrel I had seen, 
 I certainly could not help saying to myself, — 
 and so, because Mr. Wiggins is independent of 
 Lord Lintern — after happening to be too old 
 and too sickly for taking vengeance on him — 
 and because my father and my sister and I are 
 strangers here, and poor ones, — we must let
 
 140 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 him come poking his head, and croaking like a 
 mad and aged raven, into our window again ? — 
 To be sure ; or how could one call it free and 
 independent England ?" 
 
 As to my afternoon's adventure, like Bessy, 
 I pondered, and wondered, and was mystified, 
 in my own way ; and the last and most consi- 
 derable of my wonderings was — " Am I ever to 
 see or hear of any of those strange people 
 again ?" 
 
 Good news this morning, dear Graves. A let- 
 ter from the manager : " Harold" accepted with 
 high eulogiums; the two great tragedians equal- 
 ly pleased with the parts assigned to them — 
 they, who scarce ever before could be got to 
 accept parts in the same play, — in any, ancient 
 or modern ; and rehearsals to be commenced 
 very soon. The tidings have pleased, and a 
 little cheered my dear father, and Bessy opens 
 her lustrous, lash-fringed eyes, and smiles in a 
 sort of personal vanity, I believe. I am in- 
 vited, urged indeed, to run up to town, to be 
 present at one or two rehearsals ; you also 
 think that I ought to do so; and I believe I 
 will, and accept, into the bargain, your offer of
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 141 
 
 your chambers, with little Joey's services as a 
 body-man, while you are on circuit. And at 
 the same time I can escort Bessy to pay a long- 
 requested visit to her old London boarding-school 
 mistress, who, it seems, is much in love with 
 her — no wonder, for she has seen her, and be- 
 come acquainted with her. Poor Bessy resists 
 the arrangement as vigorously as she can, on 
 account of my father's state of health ; but ray 
 father presses her, in order that she may have a 
 week's amusement ; and as he mends a little, I 
 say nothing to keep her at home; particularly 
 as / shall not be more than a few days absent 
 from him. 
 
 Dear little Bessy ! I am rather uneasy about 
 her. Since our visit to Lord Lintern's she has 
 not been herself. She droops, fidgets, cogi- 
 tates, and looks pale and red by turns, and is 
 oftener out walking, in lonesome places, either 
 alone, or attended by a follower whom I do not 
 much like — our maid-servant. These are cu- 
 rious domestic details for your eye, but I have 
 always so talked to you, and you to me ; and 
 this moment the talking fit is on me. And 
 by the way, why don't I like Lucy, our maid ? 
 I cannot say, but I do not. There is a kind of 
 village mystery of manner about the girl. A
 
 142 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 cleverness, kept down, I fear ; more experience 
 than she pretends to : sectarian prudishness 
 (for, before now, she lived with Mr. Boakes) 
 not always hiding the old leaven, or else the 
 first out-breakings of a different character •, all 
 this, to my observation, is in her, or about her. 
 She seems, too, a creature of few or none of 
 the attachments of the heart : one who has 
 never experienced them, and who is not 
 likely ever to feel them ; although this can 
 scarce be considered as her fault ; for she is a 
 workhouse girl, brought up and sent out by the 
 parish, unclaimed by father or mother, or a 
 single relation, and " kept right,*" that is, over- 
 seen by the overseer, whom, although she con- 
 strains herself to call him her friend, I know 
 she hates rancorously. Indeed, whenever I 
 have questioned her about any of her old 
 parish governors or governesses, Lucy's utmost 
 caution and self-control were not sufficient to 
 hinder me from seeing that she disliked them 
 all, and was any thing but grateful for the 
 humiliating, the matter of course, and des- 
 potic benefactions received at their hands. Do 
 poor creatures brought up like her generally 
 feel otherwise ? or do they come out into the 
 world with opened and awakened hearts ? But
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 143 
 
 I am getting once more into my theories. So, 
 I shall only say that here you have all 
 my whimsies for not liking Bessy's attendant. 
 Yes — there is another. I have found her talk- 
 ing on the road near our house with the 
 honourable master, who condescended to abase 
 his stolid eyes, a few days ago, upon my sister, 
 in his father's lordly mansion — I mean the 
 young knight of the whip, and the sporting 
 dogs. And tlie youth has since often rode up 
 and down by our windows : and once, when I 
 mentioned both circumstances to Bessy, she 
 was embarrassed. I recollect, too, that while 
 we spoke, the other day, of the comparative 
 merits of the two brothers, Bessy, in another 
 quandary, admitted that although she had 
 much pitied the violent young man, his junior 
 put forth most personal claims on our notice. 
 
 Admitted it, I say ? what a word ! Does it 
 include the shadow of a doubt of the prudence 
 and good sense of my dear sister .f* Not the 
 shade of a shadow ! No, not as much as 
 would hint to me to abridge a hair's breadth 
 her liberty in the frequent walks she had lately 
 chosen to indulge in. So far as the affair of 
 that visit to the noble magistrate may affect 
 her present moodiness, doubtless she only feels
 
 144 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 a continuance of the shock and the revulsion 
 then experienced by her delicate nature. And 
 
 yet 
 
 And yet, Graves, some pages I have here 
 penned, must make (after all my promises to 
 the contrary) a part of the portion of the 
 journal which shall not for the present be sent 
 to you. 
 
 For want of any thing better to scribble 
 about, listen to our domiciliary proceedings 
 after parting from Mr. Wiggins. 
 
 Part from him we did, and from his wife, 
 and from his cob, and from his two gardens, 
 back and front, and from every thing that was 
 his, the morning after my unsatisfactory ap- 
 peal to ni}' neighbour. Lord Lintern. And to 
 the Anchor we repaired for a few days, where 
 Mr. Moffit again shone upon us. And at 
 length Bessy and I spied out the abode, still 
 more remote than our last, from the sea-houses, 
 where we at present sojourn. 
 
 It is a little half-wooden building, contain- 
 ing two sitting-rooms, four bed-chambers, and a 
 kitchen, and it, also, has gardens ! to the front 
 and to the rear. Notwithstanding a good deal
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 145 
 
 of creditable contrivance, and brushing, and 
 scrubbing, and polishing, the furniture in it can- 
 not have cost our landlady one hundred and fifty 
 pounds; for, obviously, she has picked it up, 
 here and there, and any where but in an 
 upholsterer's ware-room. You shall see my 
 view, presently, in saying so much. After my 
 critical observation of chairs and tables, I was 
 curious enough to ascertain what amount of rent 
 and taxes our new proprietress paid. I found 
 that both did not exceed thirty pounds per 
 annum. Very good. Join to that, the yearly 
 interest of one hundred and fifty pounds for 
 furniture — not at the rate of four, five, or 
 even ten per cent, but, if you like, at the rate 
 of twenty per cent — quite as much, in all con- 
 science, as a Jewess (though our landlady is 
 not one) could fairly ask you for money laid 
 out, but not sunk. That gives another thirty 
 pounds a year. Rent and taxes, then, and 
 the interest of her furniture- money (at twenty 
 per cent) make sixty pounds per annum. 
 Now, what has she asked, and what is she paid, 
 for her furnished house ? what additional profit 
 does she require on her furniture ? Twenty 
 yearly pounds more .'* What say you to forty 
 — what say you to sixty yearly pounds more ? 
 VOL. I. H
 
 146 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 It is the fact. She asks, and insists upon, and 
 gets, and in the present exaggerated state of 
 things can and will get, that unnatural, usuri- 
 ous — worse than usurious — dishonest profit. 
 By incurring a responsibility of thirty pounds 
 a year to her landlord, the King, the parson 
 and the parish, and by laying out at interest, 
 one hundred and fifty pounds, of which the 
 maximum rational yieldings ought to be no 
 more than fifteen pounds a year — and so we 
 must reckon them — this excellent lady contrives 
 to ensure to herself an absolute " indepen- 
 dence" of seventy-five pounds a year. But 
 then, the village butcher must be paid London 
 prices by her, eight-pence and nine-pence a 
 pound for beef, mutton and veal — to be sure 
 he must, or how could he keep two horses, and 
 a cart, to send his boys galloping about the 
 green lanes upon or in, (how disreputable if the 
 steak-fed fellows walked !) and a gig and horse, 
 at least, for himself and wife, on Sundays ? or 
 how could he give his daughter ten thousand 
 for her marriage portion ? To be sure. And 
 Miss Sutton, our landlady, must she not also 
 dress as well as the squire's lady, having not a 
 shilling in the world but what she makes of her 
 " furnished house," and keep company with the
 
 THE SiMUGGLER. 147 
 
 rich brewer's wife ; ay, and leave her native 
 village, — too retired for her taste, during the 
 season — to visit some more brilliant " watering 
 place" ? Why not. 
 
 One word more of her, to satisfy 3'our often 
 expressed cravings. 
 
 With many excuses she prayed us, as we 
 had hurried her so much, to allow a town- 
 friend of hers — though once an old neighbour — 
 to spend the evening with her, after we took 
 possession of the " house ;" and we were very 
 reluctantly compelled to sit half an hour at her 
 tea-table. The two friends chatted agreeably 
 over many ancient recollections, and now and 
 then upon religious topics : — and while I knew 
 that neither could write a legible hand, or spell 
 a line correctly, or read even their Bible without 
 blundering and stammering, — as I am an ac- 
 countable agent, I heard one surmise that, of 
 late, she had considered the divinity of the 
 Redeemer with more than usual independence 
 of mind, to get at the truth, and she could no 
 longer bring herself to think him any thing 
 more than man — though " she didn't deny, a 
 very good man" — and the other conscientiously 
 and modestly hesitated a little, and sipped 
 her tea, and broke a morsel of her biscuit, and 
 
 H 2
 
 148 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 declared that she, too, had thought of the 
 matter in a very independent, truth-seeking 
 spirit, but, as yet she could not make herself 
 sure that he might not be something more than 
 mei-ely one of themselves : upon which, su- 
 perstition was objected to her, in a friendly, 
 anxious way ; and it was hoped that she did 
 not continue so wretchedly unassisted as to go 
 kneel down at the table for the parson's bread 
 and wine — and" — 
 
 But you have enough, dear Graves. Make 
 your own comments on this veritable anecdote. 
 
 At last, dear Graves, after leaving the journal 
 to its repose for a few more jejune days, some- 
 thing has occurred worth noting down for 
 
 you. Poor Mas''r Moffit ! but I must be 
 
 methodical. 
 
 The fishermen here call the boats which go 
 out to take crabs, horse-boats, or horsers. As 
 I walked along the shingles, at the back of 
 the sea-houses, the other morning, I descried 
 many of these making for shore. It was about 
 five o"'clock. I had been very gravely pondering 
 nothing at all ; the shingles were almost de- 
 serted ; the little incident aroused my interest,
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 149 
 
 and I walked towards the point where I knew 
 the boats would land, just to gape at fishermen 
 who had been out all night, (at least,) and at 
 crabs, fresh-taken, and all alive, fighting and 
 kicking with one another at the bottom of the 
 boats, and wrenching one another's claws off. 
 
 Passing by the rear of the Anchor, I encoun- 
 tered my old friend Moffit, issuing from the 
 Inn by a back door. We graciously exchanged 
 salutations. I spoke of the horsers, and said I 
 was going to see them come in. He observed, 
 that, having little better to do, he had the same 
 intention. I began to suspect him of a dis- 
 loyal purpose, and asked if it ever happened 
 that a lugger met with a horser, during the 
 night ? He looked too much appealed to, and 
 with much grave earnestness, assured me the 
 thing was impossible. We continued our walk, 
 conversing in a very friendly way. 
 
 Some of the boats had run in upon the 
 shingles, as we gained the accustomed touching- 
 point. We stood at one side of a buttress 
 which had been built against a wall near to the 
 shingles, and which, at high tides, often bore 
 a buffet from the breakers. I wondered that 
 the blockade-man, nearest at hand, had not 
 come up, to begin his usual visitation of the
 
 150 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 horsers. Mr. Moffit gave an expressive, though 
 a timid " hem !" and glanced sideways ; at 
 the same moment I heard a surly, subdued 
 laugh near us, and following his eye, saw the 
 legs of the individual of whom I had spoken, 
 protruding at the other side of the buttress, 
 while he lolled with his back against the wall ; 
 and the next moment the man strode to the 
 boats, and entering one, began his prescribed 
 task of searching for contraband articles. 
 
 We saw him disappear successively into the 
 confined and smoky holds of more than one 
 boat, when my companion gently declared that 
 he would step aboard the first which the man- 
 of-war's man had visited, and " look up" a good 
 crab or two, for the Anchor. Accordingly, 
 wishing me most politely a good morning, he 
 crawled into the horser, and, I noted, after 
 regarding and handling a few of the fish, va- 
 nished into the hold. 
 
 I stood where I was. The blockade-man — 
 a young, ill-favoured, passionate-looking fellow 
 — soon appeared on the edge of the last boat 
 he had had to search, and prepared, his business 
 done, to jump on the shingles. Previous to 
 making his spring, however, he glanced at me, 
 and, I thought — -and doubtless I was right —
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 151 
 
 not seeing Mr. Moffit at my side, a cloud of 
 suspicion gathered on his heavy, fleshy fore- 
 head. Then he looked round him, at the 
 boats, and a second time went down into the 
 hold of one of them. 
 
 But not into the right one. Mr. Moffit's 
 head now popped up from its own hold, and 
 turning observantly in all directions, finally en- 
 couraged its body and limbs to follow it. Short- 
 ly afterwards he gained the land, and, not see- 
 ing me, or pretending not to see me, walked 
 with his hands behind his back, in his usual 
 grave and modest pace, towards the Anchor. 
 As I looked after him, I heard a voice cry 
 " Stop !" It was the blockade-man who spoke, 
 once more preparing to jump ashore. My poor 
 friend either did not or would not hear, or else 
 imagined the command had not been intended 
 for him. Again he was challenged, and his 
 challenger hurried after him. I followed ; and 
 a tall, broad-chested, athletic lad, dressed in the 
 flannel jacket and waistcoat which denote a 
 working carpenter, walked on at my side. 
 
 Mr. Moffit at length stood still, innocently 
 and inquiringly. 
 
 " What have you got in your coat-pockets. 
 Master ?" demanded the man of power.
 
 152 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " Crabs, I protest," answered MofRt, with an 
 appearance of perfect candour. 
 
 " Let's see them." 
 
 "To be sure; — there's one, and there's 
 another ;" drawing one from either pocket. 
 
 " Any more V 
 
 " No, I assure you, Sir." 
 
 " Something else, then ;" and the blockade- 
 man advanced to feel. Old Moffit stepped back, 
 remonstrating, but still not put out of coun- 
 tenance. 
 
 *' Don't pull the old boy about so," said the 
 young carpenter. 
 
 " Best not interfere, you," growled the man- 
 of-war' s-man, seizing the waiter of the Anchor. 
 
 " Run, Mas'r Moffit !" exhorted his ally. 
 
 " Stand ! you and he, both !" and the braved 
 guardian of the coast collared the operative. 
 
 "Now, then, run !" cried the latter, catching 
 the sailor in his arms. While they struggled, 
 Master Moffit certainly endeavoured to stride 
 away. The blockade-man freed an arm, drew 
 a pistol, and calling out — " Back at your peril !" 
 presented it at his young antagonist. I saw a 
 hostile and resolute frown on the lad's brow, 
 and a knitting motion of his right hand, as they 
 glared an instant at one another ; but prudence,
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 153 
 
 and perhaps, a hope that Moffit might escape, 
 taught him ^better, and with a flout, and — 
 " pho — what a fuss about nothing !" he gave 
 over his opposition. Then the pursuer was hot 
 in the fugitive''s track, still calling out to him to 
 stop. But he was not obeyed ; and then I saw 
 smoke and fire, and heard the sharp report of 
 his pistol, baffled by the boom of the sea, and 
 Moffit staggered upon the shingles, and fell. 1 
 ran towards him. The blockade-man had come 
 up before me : he knelt on one knee, and was 
 certainly drawing out of the contested pockets, 
 sundry small rolls of tobacco. The old man 
 lay motionless upon his face. His captor turn- 
 ed him up ; blood came freely from his left 
 breast ; the ball had passed through him, and 
 he was quite dead. 
 
 Hasty, though low, expressions of, I believe, 
 consternation and regret, escaped his slayer ; 
 indeed, I am sure the young man-of-war's man 
 had but yielded to a hasty and ill-tempered im- 
 pulse when he pulled the trigger of his pistol. 
 I unconsciously echoed his ejaculations, and he 
 looked up into my face, with a conscience- 
 stricken expression of eye, still kneeling over 
 the dead body. The carpenter's voice sounded 
 at our backs. 
 
 H 5
 
 154 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " There — you've done it," he said. 
 
 We both turned to observe him. His for- 
 merly ruddy visage was pale, and his comely 
 features worked with a bad manifestation of 
 rising passion. " Yes," he continued, speaking 
 slowly through his teeth, while I thought he 
 was preparing to spring on the blockade-man, 
 " that 's your morning's work. You have taken 
 the life of an old man, and the best-liked among 
 us, for the value of as much chaw-weed as 
 would save him his Sunday half-pence. Here, 
 lads," turning to a crowd of fishermen, and other 
 villagers, men, women, and children, who ran 
 up to the spot, " here 's poor MasV Moffit 
 shot through bv a man-of-war's man !" 
 
 Exclamations from the fishermen, and groans 
 and shrieks from their wives and daughters, 
 and children, answered this announcement ; and 
 frowning and enraged faces began to close 
 round the offender. He saw his danger, and 
 sprang up from his knee. 
 
 " Stop, in your turn !" cried the carpenter- 
 lad, striking him to the shingles again ; and he 
 was immediately seized by three or four, and 
 hurried into the midst of the angry crowd. 
 
 What were their intentions towards him I 
 cannot say ; perhaps they did not themselves
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 155 
 
 know at the moment. But they were huddling 
 him off, amid curses and revih'ngs, when a 
 number of his comrades, detached from the 
 next tower and headed by a Lieutenant, ap- 
 peared running down some rude steps near the 
 buttress, of which 1 have before spoken ; while 
 two or three others, sentinels along the coast, 
 also hurried to the scene of dispute. 
 
 The Lieutenant's voice was heard command- 
 ing the people to desist, and yield up their 
 prisoner. He was not to appearance a favour- 
 able specimen of, generally speaking, the gal- 
 lant and gentlemanlike officers of the British 
 navy. Though not, perhaps, more than forty, 
 his person was corpulent ; and his coarse face, 
 and especially his nose, hinted frequent inter- 
 course with the brandy, bottle. I will not 
 vouch that he was quite sober that moment ; 
 certainly he was not cool and temperate enough 
 for the occasion, for neither his tones, his looks, 
 nor his gesticulation showed any sympathy with 
 poor Moffit's fate, nor with the natural feelings 
 of the villagers. 
 
 " Stand still, all of you, or my men shall 
 fire !" he cried, coming near to the crowd. 
 Looks and whispers were interchanged among 
 them, and the next instant they did stand still.
 
 156 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 "What's all this?" he continued, giving one 
 hasty glance at the corpse. 
 
 The young carpenter stepped out as spokes- 
 man, with his own account of the outrage, 
 adding, " Your man has murdered one of the 
 most harmless old creatures among us, and 
 we only want to have him up before a magis- 
 trate." 
 
 " I am sorry for what has happened," said 
 the prisoner, " and declare I did not intend 
 to take life, though, if I had, my duty would 
 bear me out in it ;" and he informed his officer 
 tiiat Moffit had had contraband articles con- 
 cealed on his person, would not submit to be 
 searched, and was escaping, while he, the 
 speaker, was attacked by an accomplice; and 
 he directed attention to the carpenter, on whom 
 the Lieutenant immediately bent an angry look, 
 and then asked, 
 
 " Are the contraband articles still on his 
 person ? 
 
 " No, Sir, I seized them when he fell." 
 
 " Produce them." 
 
 The blockade-man was still surrounded by 
 the people ; he demanded to have his arms 
 freed ; they assented, but did not permit him 
 to join his comrades. He put his hand in
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 157 
 
 the bosom and in the pockets of his jacket 
 alternately, and replied, " Sir, they have been 
 taken from me." 
 
 A groan of denial and accusation escaped his 
 captors, and the young carpenter said, " You 
 never had no such things in your possession." 
 
 " Search him" resumed the prisoner. 
 
 " Jigger me, if he do !" cried the lad, step- 
 ping back and mixing with his friends. 
 
 " Well then, Sir, ask that 'ere gentleman 
 about the whole of it ;"''' and the slayer of old 
 Moffit pointed to me. 
 
 The Lieutenant immediately asked me if I 
 had witnessed the transaction. I found myself 
 placed in a disagreeable situation ; few of the 
 village friends of MofRt felt, I believe, more 
 indignation than myself at his death, and 
 against the whole system which warranted the 
 taking away a fellow-creature's life on such 
 slight grounds as sufficed for his assassination ; 
 hence, my first feeling was unwillingness to say a 
 word in favour of the man-of-war's man. I also 
 thought, in prudence, that I ought not by so 
 doing to ensure to myself the general and per- 
 haps dangerous hostility of the people among 
 whom I had temporarily taken up my abode. 
 Therefore I hesitated at the Lieutenant's
 
 158 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 question. He pressed it; very properly re- 
 minding me of the necessity of giving any 
 evidence that would set the unhappy affair in 
 its true Hght, and adding, that present unwill- 
 ingness to speak out could not avail me upon 
 a probable future occasion. His words had 
 effect, as also had my own awakened sense of 
 justice; and, at length, in guarded answers to 
 his repeated questions, I admitted that I had 
 seen the young sailor draw out of the pockets 
 of the deceased the articles in debate. 
 
 " That 's enough," said the officer, " my 
 man has done nothing but his duty. Release 
 him, at your peril !" addressing the people. 
 
 The men of the crowd held a sullen silence, 
 the women and children renewed their cries, 
 and a shriek more fearful than any of theirs, — 
 that of the wife of the dead man, — now reached 
 us from a distance. 
 
 " At your peril !" resumed the Lieutenant, 
 and he drew his cutlas. 
 
 " Ay, kill as many more of us, as you like," 
 said a voice which I thought was that of the 
 now concealed carpenter : " but let the women 
 and children go home, first — don''t kill them, 
 too." 
 
 I began to fear horrible consequences, par-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 159 
 
 ticularly as the shrieks of the newly-made 
 widow, now coming nearer, had the natural 
 effect of rousing still more the enraged people. 
 Acting upon a sudden thought, I asked a 
 parley of the Lieutenant, before he could reply 
 t(5 the threat and the insult directed against 
 him. He allowed me to speak with him apart. 
 I represented the idea that had come into my 
 mind, and to my great relief, he adopted it, 
 after an instant's demur, only. 
 
 " Harkye," he said, " yield up the man to be 
 examined before his officers, in the first place, 
 and I pledge my word that if he shall be found 
 to have acted improperly, in the least degree, 
 he shall be handed over to civil authority : ob- 
 serve, likewise, I have the right, and the power, 
 too, to secure the person of the accomplice of 
 the old smuggler who attacked my man-of-war's 
 man in the execution of his duty, and also to 
 search him, and all of you, for the contraband 
 articles plundered by some one of your number; 
 yet I will give up both these points, at some 
 risk to myself, if you at once obey my first 
 command." 
 
 I joined my entreaties to the officer's less 
 supplicating tone; pointed out to them the 
 good sense of the course proposed ; reminded
 
 160 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 them that they could do nothing against the 
 law of the land, while that law would be sure 
 to protect itself; and in fact, their reasoning, 
 English minds, were enough worked upon by 
 the two appeals made on the part of the officer 
 and myself, to allow me to advance within 
 their circle, and, upon a repeated understanding 
 of full justice to be done, lead their prisoner to 
 his comrades, just an instant before Mrs. Mof- 
 fit broke through them, in an opposite direc- 
 tion, and flung herself upon the body of her 
 husband. 
 
 The liberated man was quickly marched off 
 to his tower, guarded by his mates, and pre- 
 ceded by his officer, who touched his cap to 
 me; and while the fishermen prepared to bear 
 poor old Moffit's corpse to his wife's house, 
 obstructed by her violent cries and actions, I 
 ascended the steps near the buttress, and walk- 
 ed home, through waving fields, my back 
 turned to the sea. 
 
 In the course of the day, I received a sum- 
 mons to attend a coroner''s inquest on the body. 
 Now I was compelled to give full evidence 
 of the whole transaction : and after I had de- 
 posed that the old smuggler had certainly 
 refused to be searched, and was running off,
 
 THE SMUGGLER. I6l 
 
 while the carpenter secured the blockade-man, 
 the jury, under the direction of the coroner, 
 returned such a verdict as left the latter a free 
 and unquestioned person in the eyes of the law. 
 I must remark that the jury was composed of 
 the more respectable inhabitants of the village 
 and its neighbourhood, among whom were some 
 individuals of absolute rank, so that the angry 
 prepossessions of the lower classes little inter- 
 fered with their judgment of the case. 
 
 But it was easy to see that the verdict did 
 not satisfy many others of the inhabitants of 
 the village. Faces that I had noticed on the 
 beach, in the morning, were in the room when 
 it was delivered, and, although no murmurs 
 arose, I could perceive their deep disappoint- 
 ment and wrath, as they turned communica- 
 tively their watchful eyes upon one another. 
 As I sauntered out, after the investigation, 
 groups in the street, or by the sea''s edge, also 
 conveyed to my mind a similar dissatisfaction, 
 as they whispered together, sometimes raising 
 slightly, but stamping energetically their feet 
 into the sand or amongst the stones and peb- 
 bles, or shaking their bent heads as if to their 
 own rising determinations. 
 
 I returned to the sea-houses, in the evening,
 
 16*2 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 and observed similar signs of excitement, 
 through the whole village: in addition to 
 which, a little crowd attracted my notice at the 
 door of Mrs. Moffit*'s house. I looked on ob- 
 servantly. Presently, the widow, supported by 
 some female neighbours, came out, and took 
 their way to the shingles. The crowd of men, 
 lads, and children followed them. I did not 
 stay behind, though I kept ray distance. All 
 proceeded towards Lieutenant Hood's tower — 
 Hood being the name of my acquaintance of 
 the morning. Arrived near the edge of the 
 deep and wide dry fosse, lined with smooth and 
 massive mason- work, which encompasses it, and 
 cuts off all communication, except by a move- 
 able wooden bridge, from the main land, Mrs. 
 Moflfit asked to speak with the officer. The 
 blockade-man of whom she made this demand 
 disappeared, without a word, through a low, 
 square door- way, into the tower. 
 
 Lieutenant Hood soon was visible at the 
 same spot. Mrs. Moffit required to know what 
 decision he and his brother officers had come to 
 upon the man who had shot her husband : she 
 was answered carelessly, and as if a case of no 
 importance were in discussion, that the man's
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 163 
 
 officers, as well as the coroner's jury, could find 
 no fault with him. He was not, then, to be 
 given up for examination before a magistrate ? 
 Flouting the idea, the Lieutenant retired ; and 
 with an expressively muttered, "Very well," 
 from almost every lip, Mrs. Moffit, her com- 
 panions and followers slowly returned to the 
 village. 
 
 Next morning, I met Lieutenant Hood near 
 his tower. He saluted me, and we entered into 
 conversation : of course the late occurrences 
 formed our topic. He spoke bluffly of the 
 obstinacy of the people of the place, and as- 
 sured me that, the night before, every watch on 
 the coast, up and down, for miles, had been 
 overlooked by men from the village, in the 
 hopes, he believed, of finding the individual, 
 who, only in obedience to orders, had been 
 unfortunate enough to shoot the old smuggler. 
 *' We had as close an eye upon them, as they 
 had upon us," he continued, " and were pre- 
 pared for any foolish violence they might have 
 attempted ; though, as we knew they were bent 
 on only a particular business, I had little fear 
 of disagreeable results ; that is, of being com- 
 pelled to do my duty ; for, long before they
 
 164 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Stole out to us, the man in question had been 
 stolen off, to a remote point of the coast, for 
 peace-sake." 
 
 " Do vou wish them to be made acquainted 
 with this fact ?" I inquired. 
 
 " To be sure, Sir," he answered, " it was not 
 intended as a secret, in the daylight, this morn- 
 ing ; and you may do some good by helping to 
 spread the little piece of news." 
 
 We parted, and I availed myself of the per- 
 mission given me. I got into conversation with 
 two or three fishermen on the shingles, and told 
 them what I had just heard. Others came up 
 while I spoke. I had hoped to see their ex- 
 citement allayed, or at least diverted by the 
 intelligence. Such, however, was not the case, 
 to all appearances. On the contrary, I thought 
 their brows grew blacker, after their first sur- 
 prise, and that they stealthily glanced at each 
 other with increased, though still suppressed 
 indignation. I tried to make it appear that 
 the prompt removal from among them of an 
 obnoxious individual, when he might have been 
 continued on his post, after the decision of the 
 coroner's jury, was a proof of attention to their 
 feelings, and to those of the friends of the de- 
 ceased ; but the men only smiled darkly, or
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 165 
 
 shook their heads ; or some of them, affecting 
 indifference, turned off, whistling, to look idly 
 upon the sea. 
 
 Two days have since elapsed, and, to my 
 view, the passions of the people seem to work as 
 deeply as ever. Old Moffit is not yet buried ; 
 and our maid Lucy informs me that, contrary 
 to English custom, the body is visited, hourly, 
 by crowds, some of whom are strangers, as it 
 lies exposed in its coffin, the blood ostentatiously 
 left on the articles of dress stripped off it, after 
 death. I can also hear allusions, as I pass 
 along the street, from women and children, of 
 " what a funeral he is to have ;" and this 
 moment, three ballad-singers have passed our 
 windows, two men and a woman, croaking and 
 screaming forth a lamentable song of my poor 
 old friend's " murder," burthened with hostility 
 and curses against his Majesty's revenue, and 
 the blockade service. 
 
 And having written so far, dear Graves, I 
 send you off my sheets, for your edification. If 
 any thing else occur of a remarkable nature, 
 you shall hear of it, quickly. I make no theo- 
 ries, now.
 
 166 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Your letter, in acknowledgment of my last 
 despatch has just come to hand. So, you knew 
 of our little row, here, almost as soon as you 
 had an account of it from me ? And of all 
 people in the world, your brother ran up to 
 town with the outline of it, to you, before post- 
 ing down to us, from the other side of the coast, 
 to take command of Lieutenant Hood's tower ? 
 Well ; I do think this arrangement very wise 
 on the part of those who have made it. As long 
 as Hood remained here, either he or our fisher- 
 men, (smugglers) or both, must have been in dan- 
 ger of suffering or committing new outrage. 
 
 I am obliged to you for your letter to your 
 sea-brother, for me. Since you like him, so 1 
 am sure shall I. Let him come ! 
 
 This is the fourth day after old Moffit's 
 death, and although the people do not look as 
 angi'y and as excited, I believe they still in- 
 dulge some wayward plans of retaliation. I 
 have a second time met Lieutenant Hood, and 
 he seems of my opinion. But he and his men, 
 he adds, are on their guard, without con- 
 descending, however, to evince any conscious- 
 ness to the eyes of the villagers. He also says, 
 that whatever may be the popular disposition
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 167 
 
 to violence, there is little fear of its becomine; 
 matured into acts without the presence, or at 
 least the proximity of Lilly White ; and the 
 Lieutenant has been authentically advised that 
 the homely and common-place hero mentioned, 
 is at present in the channel, watching his time 
 for running in his lugger. We shall see. 1 
 expect a call from your brother to-morrow. 
 
 ]Mutford''s Journal may here be interrupted 
 for a while. In order to supply information 
 where he could only make conjectures, pains 
 have been taken to induce the confidence of in- 
 dividuals of the humble community regarding 
 whom he has been writini?- : and thoujjh this 
 was found no very easy task, yet, in the first 
 instance, much of the following has resulted 
 from it. 
 
 The red-brick houses of which he has spoken 
 did not present to the eye a uniform row. 
 Here and there, between them, appeared very 
 poor cottages, built of wood, and covered with 
 tiles, the abodes of fishermen, or of shop-keep- 
 ers of the humblest grade. We enter one of 
 those, the day after Mutford wrote in his 
 Journal the last extract made from it.
 
 168 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 It is a fisherman's house. He is out of doors, 
 in the Tap, or else talking with some neigh- 
 bours on the shingles. His wife, a tall, gen- 
 teel-faced woman, of a tasty style of dress, and 
 respectable manners, sits at her geranium-shaded 
 window, wearing spectacles, though not more 
 than forty, to assist her in going through the 
 repairs of a pile of tattered and torn garments, 
 male and female, and all belonging to little 
 people, which lie on a deal table before her. 
 Some of the owners of them, that is, four or 
 five, are scrambling, and rolling, at play, on the 
 tiled floor near her feet ; two or three more, of 
 riper years, are running in and out at the open 
 street door of this, the only sitting apartment 
 of her house, carrying on against her a war 
 which some recent remonstrances on her part 
 has given rise to ; one pops in, a moment, and 
 having said — "Blow you, our mother!" he 
 shoots off again ; another takes his place to 
 address to her even less respectful language ; 
 and a moment before our entrance, she had just 
 sat down to resume her work, after pursuing 
 the young rebels half way up to the Anchor, 
 with the handle of a hair broom in her hand. 
 A few more of her fish-fed offspring are dis- 
 porting themselves by the edge of a wide ditch,
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 169 
 
 at the opposite side of the street ; and at each 
 frequent splash into the sedgy water, she starts 
 up in the certainty that for the third or fourth 
 time, that day, she shall have to fly out, and 
 bring home, by the waistband of his little 
 breeches, or by the skirts of her scanty frock, 
 Watt, or Jane, or Georgy, or Jemima, soused 
 like gurnets. 
 
 And all this while she contrives to join in 
 the conversation of three friends, who sit at a 
 second deal-table, in the opposite corner of her 
 little apartment, drinking brandy and water, 
 with which, though she has taken out no 
 licence, the good woman can supply them at 
 will. 
 
 One of these persons is the husband of the 
 poor landlady of whom Mutford, his father, 
 and sister at first had lodgings. The ex- 
 pression of the man's face is disagreeably sot- 
 tish, his frame is powerfully and symmetrically 
 knit, his dandily-cut clothes are worn in a lazy 
 and vulgar manner; he is the most silent of the 
 party, and his hoarse and croaking voice, when 
 he does speak a few sulky words, would induce 
 no one to wish him less taciturn. 
 
 The next toper is a young man of an agree- 
 able cast of face, with great earnestness in con- 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 170 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 versation, to which a stutter gives additional 
 expression. He drives a van, of which he is 
 the proprietor, from the village to a town some 
 dozen miles off; and he just drew up four 
 hours ago to ask Missis Simmons for one glass 
 of her cheap brandy, when, finding agreeable 
 company under her roof, he was tempted to 
 linger a little while, and then a little while 
 longer, until, at length, here he is, in the dusk 
 of the evening, his van still standing at her 
 door utterly neglected, if not forgotten, and 
 standing a chance of standing there for yet 
 another hour to come, and then of being driven 
 back to its shed rather than upon its lawful 
 business of the day. 
 
 The third of Mrs. Simmons's guests, under 
 the rose, is announceable as Butcher Fell, or 
 Preacher Fell, indifferently. He has his Bible 
 by heart, but never repeats it so perfectly as 
 after he has been in Mrs. Simmons's house, 
 or else in the Tap for an hour or two at a 
 time. He is to be encountered every Sunday 
 morning at six or seven o"'clock, on the road 
 to a near village, reverendly habited in black 
 clothes and top-boots, going to preach to a 
 little primitive congregation who eagerly ex- 
 pect his weekly visit. The top-boots have
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 171 
 
 been redeemed from pledge overnight, out of 
 the hands of Mrs. Simmons or some other 
 accommodating neighbour, who has had pos- 
 session of them since the previous Monday 
 morning, and is sure to see their faces again 
 early upon the morrow. A well-featured wo- 
 man, who is not his wife, although he has 
 been married and is no widower, walks by 
 his side on these occasions, carrying a basket 
 filled with edibles, and surmounted by a black 
 bottle or two. He cannot rank higher than as 
 the third or fourth-rate butcher of the village, 
 and, now sitting before us, wears only his 
 greasy hat, his blue round frock, and a pair 
 of heavy buskins. 
 
 The conversation between these good people 
 had unavoidably commenced with the one great 
 absorbing topic of the week, namely, the death 
 of old Mas'r Moffit ; and in the free range of 
 its discussion was comprehended sufficient abuse 
 of men-of-war"'s men, officers and all, and of 
 every one who aided and abetted, invented and 
 upheld them ; and Mrs. Simmons, in her own 
 quiet respectable way, took her share in the 
 discourse, for she had her reasons. 
 
 Presently, however. Butcher Fell made a 
 short turn into what he considered parallel 
 
 I 2
 
 172 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 grievances, and he called certain persons and 
 personages drones of the hive ; and anon insti- 
 tuted a happy comparison between them and 
 the blockade-men ; showing, that as the latter 
 guarded the waters of the sea, to hinder honest 
 people from getting now and then the comfort 
 of a good drop of cheap liquor, the former 
 acted the same part upon the shores of the 
 waters of life, keeping off from our souls the 
 nourishment they stood so much in need of, 
 or not letting it ashore unless it had paid a 
 duty, and a tax, and a tithe, which not only 
 made it too dear for humble pui'chasers, but 
 had the effect of adulterating its quality, and 
 turning it into a deleterious draught. 
 
 The young van-driver, Bowers by name, 
 vehemently stuttered out his more than acqui- 
 escence in this reasonable doctrine, adding, that 
 it was but too true, " every word Cobbett had 
 writ"" on the subject, in his book called the 
 History of the Reformation. At this Butcher 
 Fell took fire, and reprehended Cobbett as a 
 story-telling Papist, quite as warmly as he 
 had discountenanced more venerable indivi- 
 duals; and hence grew a stormy debate be- 
 tween the two speakers. 
 
 A stranger might have been surprised to
 
 THE SjMUGGLER. 173 
 
 hear the precision with which Bowers detailed, 
 notwithstanding his stutter and the force added 
 to it by Mrs. Simmons's hospitahty, the state 
 of church-property before the Reformation, and 
 in particular its partial appropriation to the 
 poor, so as to leave people free of poor-rates, 
 — all conned out of Cobbett ; — (it may be no- 
 ticed that the volume he has written on these 
 matters is in the hands of many a village poli- 
 tician ;) but Butcher Fell, his incalculable ran- 
 cour against the name of Papist having fully 
 possessed him, would take nothing on the au- 
 thority quoted ; would not permit Cobbett to 
 find fault with any thing or any body ; would 
 not believe a word out of his mouth ; and, 
 in consequence, he naturally began to defend 
 whatever that well-known writer had attacked, 
 and thus unsay, one after the other, his own 
 recent charges against the established religion 
 of these realms. 
 
 The dandy sot of the party was appealed to 
 by both the disputants. He indolently pro- 
 nounced the whole matter, " at one side and 
 the t'other, gammon, and nothing else." 
 
 " Ay, Will Brown, to you it be, and to all 
 like you, what don't believe in a God, or in 
 a devil," said Butcher Fell, bitterly.
 
 174 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " Preacher Fell, you be a fool, and so that 's 
 at an end," resumed Will Brown ; '* who do 
 you think is to stop here listening to your pur- 
 ring, purring, from morning till night, from 
 night to morning ? I say, Miss's Simmons, the 
 bottle be as empty as some people''s heads ; 
 leave off, MasV Bowers, I tell you, and let 's 
 think of business. Miss's — where be Martha 
 Huggett staying, so long? Let me talk now, 
 Mas'r Fell, me and Miss's Simmons, together; 
 for I be jiggered if I '11 stand no more of your 
 preaching — eh, Miss's .P" 
 
 " Never mind, Mas'r Brown, Martha won't 
 be long behind her time," replied Mrs. Sim- 
 mons. 
 
 " Then, what 's that you was a-saying. Miss's 
 about t'other trade, and your losses, just now? 
 Tell us that, while we be Availing for her." 
 
 " Ah, as I 'm a living woman, Mas'r Brown, 
 sitting here before you, this precious moment, 
 the times afore the blockade-men came were 
 the times for me, and all of us, as you know 
 very well. Long life to Bonyparte, and I hope 
 we '11 see him again. Many a Sunday, on my 
 way to Mr. Hugh's chapel, across the marshes, 
 I knowed where to find as good as a hundred 
 pounds' worth of light articles, made up so nice
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 175 
 
 to my hand that I could sit out the best lecture 
 that precious man ever gave us, side by side 
 with Miss's Turner, from the custom-house, 
 and never afraid as what she could guess the 
 contents of my pockets. No, the riding officers 
 didn't give us no trouble worth talking of. 
 It's these men-o'-war's men what keeps us as 
 poor as we are, with their pistols at our heads 
 every hand's turn, and watching us so close 
 that there 's no such thing as turning an honest 
 penny for ourselves or our little 'uns. And the 
 whole world will never make me think but 
 what it was one of 'em, dressed up like a gen- 
 tleman's servant, what informed against me, the 
 time that the two London men walked into my 
 house, in the middle of the noon-day, and went 
 straight to every hole and corner where I had a 
 single thing, the same as if they had seen me 
 going about the house, twenty times — ah. Will 
 Brown, that was the day I broke ; three hun- 
 dred pounds' worth I had under the roof, and in 
 my pockets, and three hundred more they fined 
 me. But here 's Jack Simmons, and news 
 in his face — Well, Mas'r Simmons," as her 
 thick-set, broad-shouldered husband entered, 
 somewhat agitated, (that is, for him,) " What's 
 in the wind now ?"
 
 176 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " Will Brown," said her spouse, "weVe 
 a-goina; to lose the man-o"'-war's man afore his 
 time be up among us." 
 
 " What 's that ?"" asked Brown, rousing him- 
 self. 
 
 " A post-chaise drove up to the Anchor, as I 
 came by, and a new lieutenant jumped out of 
 it — any one can tell what's that." 
 
 " ""Tis easy following t'other," and Brown 
 relapsed into his indolent manner. 
 
 " Not so far as he'll go," observed Mrs. 
 Simmons ; " they won't leave him on this side of 
 England." 
 
 " He can't get off for to-night, at any rate," 
 resumed her husband, " and so let the old man 
 be earthed at once : that 's my mind." 
 
 " Where be the friends he expects at his 
 funeral, MasV Simmons .''" demanded the smug- 
 gling landlady ; " you know the evening was 
 fixed for after to-morrow, and fixed for the two 
 jobs, together, and so, people bayn't at hand." 
 
 " I '11 wait till Martha Huggett steps in, be- 
 fore I say mi/ mind," grumbled Will Brown, 
 " so, there's an end of that; — and they swore 
 you, Miss's Simmons, didn't they, never to buy 
 or sell a single thing that hadn't paid the King's 
 duty ?" he continued, alluding to the story of
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 177 
 
 her losses which Mrs. Simmons had been tell- 
 ing, before the appearance of her husband. 
 
 " Me and Jack Simmons, together, Mas'r 
 Brown, in as hard oath as ever they could 
 think of." 
 
 Brown gave a chuckle, though a lazy and 
 sullen one, as he helped himself to a proof of 
 Mrs. Simmons''s faithful observance of those 
 hard oaths. It is remarkable, that in her indi- 
 rect avowal of deliberate perjury, there was not 
 a shade of self-accusation, nor yet of bravado. 
 She seemed to have lived all her life in an 
 atmosphere of opinions which attached no moral 
 guilt to the act, but on the contrary regarded it 
 as one of the inevitable, matter-of-course oc- 
 currences of her trade ; rather disagreeable and 
 inconvenient, to be sure, but that was not her 
 fault, but the sin of those who would not let her 
 earn her bread in her own way. 
 
 " Well, here be Martha, at last," resumed 
 Brown, as the person he spoke of came in. 
 She was a girl of about twenty-three, not tall, 
 well-featured, with a ruddy complexion, her 
 figure more neat (almost genteel) than attrac- 
 tive, in a certain sense, and her attire, — a co- 
 loured frock, a second-hand black silk spencer, 
 and close straw bonnet — tidy and precise. The 
 
 I 5
 
 178 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 moment she stepped over the threshold of the 
 door, Martha stopped short, and cast round her 
 a glance peculiarly observant and intelligent. 
 
 " There be a girl can hold her tongue, if 
 need be," continued Will Brown. 
 
 " Good evening, Miss"'s Simmons," she said, 
 ending her scrutiny : " always stitching and 
 contriving for the little 'uns ; I wish I had time 
 to sit down with you and patch a hole or run 
 up a slit in one of those trousers or frocks:" 
 and she seated herself. 
 
 " Obleeged to you, all the same, my maid," 
 replied her friend ; " hard at work, all day, I 
 warrant V 
 
 " Till a moment afore I whipped up my bon- 
 net for a run to see you ; families keep coming 
 down to us, now, day after day, and the iron be 
 never out of the fire, in our house, that it 
 bayn't in my hand." 
 
 " Not the only one you have in the fire, old 
 girl," observed Brown. 
 
 " Hard work, indeed, Martha," continued 
 Mrs. Simmons ; " but it pays you ; it will be a 
 bad week for you, the rest of the season, that 
 you don't clear a couple of sovereigns, / know." 
 
 " Why yes. Miss's, one week with another."
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 179 
 
 " To say nothing of t'other trade," mumbled 
 Brown. 
 
 " Mas'r Brown, you be a fool, I tell you,"' 
 said Martha, " and of an odd time don't rightly 
 know what you're a-saying." 
 
 " Well, my maid," resumed Mrs. Simmons, 
 with a sigh, as she made several attempts to 
 thread her needle, in the increasing twihght ; 
 ** not a girl or woman among us makes up 
 clothes tidier or nicer than you, and that 's why 
 you deserve your two sovereigns a- week, / say ; 
 though the half of that seldom comes into this 
 house now-a-days, put every earthly thing to- 
 gether that Jack and myself can do ; his fish- 
 ing, and my going into the sea with the lady- 
 bathers, and the odd tub, now and then, and 
 all ; ay, not forgetting thripence a-day each, 
 earned by Watt and Jem, picking stones in 
 Mas'r Martin's fields ;" she spoke of two little 
 fellows of seven and six, who, instead of being 
 at school, or in any other situation, for improv- 
 ing themselves, worked, indeed, under the ri- 
 gorous inspection of the farmer named, twelve 
 hours a-day for sixpence between them. 
 
 " Miss's, you be talking precious nons'n's,"' 
 said Jack Simmons, as he took a stride towards
 
 180 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Martha Hug-o-ett, from the middle of the tiled 
 floor, where he had been standing moodily, his 
 hands thrust into the pockets of his loose trou- 
 sers ; " and more than that, you be keeping 
 Martha here, from " 
 
 *' Me, Mas'r Simmons P'" interrupted the girl, 
 " nobody keeps me from nothing ;" and she turn- 
 ed her face quickly to the dark corner, in which, 
 with his head resting on his hands, upon the 
 table, preacher Fell had fallen fast asleep. 
 
 " You don't know him?" demanded Simmons. 
 
 " Why, it be only Mas'r Fell, the poor stoo- 
 pid, and a-snoring, too, or going to begin." 
 
 " Oh, — only he .'' all 's right then, if he was 
 broad awake," resumed Martha ; " and nobody 
 over-head. Miss's Simmons .?" 
 
 Mrs. Simmons assured her not. 
 
 " Where be Jane .-*" she continued, meaning 
 her friend's eldest daughter, a girl of fourteen. 
 
 " Out by the sea, carrying baby, for a walk." 
 
 " Well then :" Martha paused a moment. 
 
 " AVell then," repeated Brown, " there be a 
 new Lieutenant come to Hood's tower, old girl, 
 and Hood's off." 
 
 " Not to-night," said Martha Huggett. 
 
 " To-morrow, then, at fard'st." 
 
 " No, nor to-morrow, Mas'r Brown."
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 181 
 
 " Very well : 'tis you I believe ; but who 
 told you ?" 
 
 " Theirselves told me. I came round by 
 the tower, for a run, coming here, and seed 
 'em meeting on the clift ; and then I sat behind 
 Mas'r Hall's hedge to let 'em pass by, and they 
 walked close to me, and were a-talking. 
 
 " That will do," said Simmons. 
 
 " Yes — if to-morrow evening will do, instead 
 of the evening after, for burying Mas'r Moffit," 
 resumed Brown. 
 
 " Ye must make it do," said Martha. 
 
 " P'raps — supposing you get round to that 
 side, after dark, my maid," observed Simmons. 
 
 "And won't I? — but who is to give the 
 word to the Rye and Hastings men, that the 
 time 's changed ? — They must be looked after, 
 t'other way from round by that side, .you 
 know." 
 
 No one answered her. " Mas'r Bovvers !" 
 she went on ; and the van-proprietor started in 
 his chair, and opened his blinking eyes, which 
 were fast following the example of Butcher 
 Fell's. 
 
 " 'Tisn't the first time you met us all, with 
 the van, Mas'r Bowers, by a short cut, hard by 
 the Three Williams, over the clift."
 
 182 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " N — n — no !" assented Bowers, vehemently. 
 
 *' And you know all what's in the wind now.-^" 
 
 « Ye— e— " 
 
 " Yes, to be sure you do. Then, listen to 
 me. There 's your van, again, doing nothing, 
 at the door, and you a-helping of it, going a- 
 sleep at that table ; stir yourself, and whip it 
 off towards where you know ; and try and get 
 out one word among the people what be a- 
 coming to see us : no one will never suspect 
 nothing of you, no more than of myself; you 
 follow your lawful calling, though if a marked 
 man goes that road, 'twould be another thing : 
 be you moving, yet.'' I'll be round that side — 
 the t'other from your's — afore long, and see 
 some one what often paid you for a job — and 
 paid you well, too." 
 
 With alacrity of limb, though tardy expres- 
 sions of readiness. Bowers arose, walked pretty 
 steadily out of the house, mounted his van, and 
 disappeared with it from the door. 
 
 Martha Huggett then shook Butcher Fell by 
 the shoulder, and when he could comprehend 
 her, asked " A-preaching as usual, to-morrow 
 morning, Mas'r Fell ?" 
 
 " The Lord's work — "" he began ; she inter- 
 rupted him to say that, under the circum-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 183 
 
 Stances, it would do to have the friends he was 
 going amongst get a hint, early in the morning, 
 and he was appointed to speak with them, after 
 or before his sermon, just as he liked, provided 
 he would be sure to speak to the purpose. He 
 accepted the mission. Martha then exhorted 
 him to get up and go home and sleep, in order 
 to prepare himself for early rising. This advice 
 he also adopted, and was staggering slightly to 
 the door, when she added, " The two jobs — 
 remember that ;" at which preacher Fell sagely 
 nodded his head and departed. 
 
 " Now, you and I be ready for going round 
 by that side, old girl," muttered Brown. 
 
 " No, Will, we bayn't — one of us, at least," 
 answered Martha Huggett authoritatively. 
 
 " And which of us be that one, Martha ?''* 
 
 " Me, if you go ; you, if I go."" 
 
 " Meaning that you won 't take me with 
 you .?" 
 
 " Just so." 
 
 " And why won't you ?" 
 
 " Because I wun't. Will Brown ; and for 
 two reasons, besides : I don't like you 'nough 
 to be alone with you out by the clift; and 
 though you mayn't think it, Mas'r Will, people 
 begins to ask one another how you go so fine.
 
 184 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 and keep your setters and your gun, and give 
 your mind to nothing but brandy and water in 
 Miss's Simmons's house, or to London porter 
 at the tap, while Miss's Brown hasn't over and 
 above too much in her own house at home ; and 
 so, Will, I don't think you could pass the men- 
 o'-war's men, going round to that side, without 
 they turning to look after you ; and that 's why 
 you can't and shan't walk at my elbow to-night, 
 when so much is at hap-hazard, and to be done, 
 if ever it was done, on the sly." 
 " Then go alone, old girl." 
 " No, I wun't — not that, neither. Jane Sim- 
 mons," as the girl entered with her youngest 
 brother asleep in her arms, " be you coming 
 out for a walk .?" 
 
 " Which way ?'''' demanded Jane, interested. 
 " Why, up to the old mill, first, suppose : 
 and then by Mas'r Yielding's garden-wall, 
 you know" — Jane tittered — '^ and then, any 
 where at all, home again — There — come along — 
 put baby in mother's lap — there — Mas'r Brown, 
 you may walk with us as far as the old mill — 
 no one will never suspect you, so far" — she 
 continued whispering him — " and you can give 
 the word to the folk what will be waiting for 
 it there, about this time, just to keep Jane
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 185 
 
 from seeing or hearing too much — So, here we 
 go:" — speaking loud again "Night, Miss''s — 
 niffht Mas'r Simmons — I'll bring; Jane home 
 safe to you," and taking the girFs arm, she 
 left the house, obediently followed by the lazily 
 striding Brown. 
 
 " I be blow'd, Miss's, but that 'ere be as 
 clever a hand as any what Lilly White has in 
 pay," observed the master of the house to his 
 wife, with whom, excepting the baby and three 
 or four infants, he was now left alone. 
 
 " 'Tis you I believe, Mas'r Simmons," she 
 replied ; "and nothing in this world will never 
 make me think but what he gives Martha 
 Huggett more of his mind, ay, and of his 
 mone}'^, too, than he gives to any other body 
 among you." 
 
 " Well, and if so, she earns and deserves it. 
 I be not over-sure he could keep up t'other 
 trade at all without the help of some one like 
 her, what nobody never has a thought of, and 
 what can beat the oldest of us at doing a thing 
 on the sly, as she says herself. How she ma- 
 nages to blind even our Jane, Miss's, for as 
 many times as they went out together ; talking 
 to her of Bill Yielding, and all that 'ere stuff, 
 to keep her head at work on its own account."
 
 186 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " And don't you like the girl, MasV Sim- 
 mons, for getting Jane, or any other great girl 
 at hand, to go out with her, just to hinder any 
 one from saying that she met this man or that 
 boy, by the cUft, alone ? Did you hear her at 
 Will^Brown, to-night? — I be blessed, but I 
 was glad she gave it t' him. And how many 
 girls of her years, do you think, could go 
 among men and boys, of every sort, and at all 
 hours, and in all places, and keep them off, and 
 keep her own character, to this precious hour, 
 without a blemish, Mas'r Simmons.?" 
 
 " I don't know, I 'm sure ; but I be blowM 
 if you bay n't be going to talk cruel nons'ns, 
 over again. Miss's," answered her husband, 
 walking out of his house with his head poked 
 down, and his hands in his trousers pockets. 
 
 Meantime, Martha Huggett, Jane Simmons, 
 and Will Brown, proceeded from the sea side 
 down towards the village where dwelt Mutford, 
 his father and sister. They passed it, con- 
 tinued a little way by the high road, and then 
 over paths through fields, to another village, 
 but a much smaller and poorer one. That also 
 they cleared, and began to ascend a rugged and 
 imperfectly-seen track, up an uncultivated hill, 
 which, however, was covered with the short.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 187 
 
 tender herbage that sheep love, and that makes 
 men and women love to eat sheep, because they 
 have loved and eaten it. Upon the brow of this 
 hill appeared indistinctly — for it was now as 
 dark as a moonless siimmer night generally is — 
 a jumble of the ruins of an old building. 
 
 " Up with you," whispered Martha to 
 Brown, and if you find all right, cry out to 
 us — ' Girls, go home !' I must bring all the 
 news I can with me where I'm going — Jane 
 and I will stop here a moment." 
 
 He parted from them. " I wonder where 
 Mas'r Brown be a-going to, now, Jane," 
 continued Martha to her companion — " and 
 leave us standing here; — on no good, either 
 for his-self or poor Miss's Brown, I warrant ; — 
 There I told you !" — as Brown's signal-words 
 met her ear — " I be blessed and made happy, 
 Jane, if he ha'n't come here to meet Lucy Peat, 
 or one of her like ! — Come along, my pretty 
 maiden ; let 's run back by Bill Yielding's." 
 
 So saying, Martha caught Jane's hand, and 
 galloped with her down the hill, both laughing. 
 Retracing their steps, they re-passed the little 
 village, and were soon tripping by the gar- 
 dener's, Mas'r Yielding. Martha stopped at the 
 open door of the cottage and asked " Be Bill
 
 188 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 at home ?" though she well knew he wasn't. 
 The old father came out, and answered her. 
 " Oh, very well ; we know where to find him, 
 then, up the clift — Let he and you have the pit 
 open, in the garden, about eleven, to-morrow 
 night" — she whispered. — " So, now for it, Jane !" 
 They struck across fields and marshes, 
 straight for the coast. After ascending gra- 
 dually, the land flattened, and the fresh breeze 
 on their foreheads told them that they were 
 near the edge of the cliffs. A few yards more, 
 straight on, brought them to the path by their 
 line, and now the girls pursuing it, faced in the 
 direction whither Mutford had walked, as de- 
 scribed in his journal. Their course was, how- 
 ever, unvaryingly, by the cliffs. They saw 
 more than one blockade-man, pacing slowly or 
 standing still, upon the solitary shingles under 
 them, and passed more than one upon their own 
 path ; and on these occasions, Martha Huggett 
 contrived to be talking and laughing girlishly 
 with her young companion, or singing : — 
 
 'Twas on the morn of sweet May-day, 
 ^yhen Nature painted all things gay, 
 
 Gave birds to sing, and lambs to play, 
 And deck'd the meadows fair —
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 189 
 
 Young Jocky with the morn arose, 
 
 And tript it lightly o'er the lawn ; 
 The youth put on his Sunday clothes. 
 For Jenny had vowed away to run 
 
 With Jocky to the fair ! 
 For Jenny had vowed away to run 
 With Jocky to the fair ! 
 
 They walked and ran a good distance, ascend- 
 ing and descending with the rise and fall of the 
 cliff. They paused upon the verge of an abrupt 
 chalk-pit, of which the depths were hid from 
 their view, owing to the inequality of the vari- 
 ous excavations. 
 
 " I '11 try for him here, Jane," said Martha ; 
 — " you stop where you are, as the path is not 
 easy, and you don't know it as well as I do.*" 
 
 " Why, what would bring him down there ?" 
 demanded Jane. 
 
 " I think he heard me say that you and I 
 might come so far for a run to-night — so, stand 
 still, a moment." 
 
 She ran down the precipitous side of the first 
 excavation, digging into the chalk with her 
 heels. Jane soon lost sight of her, as she con- 
 tinued her descent to the depths of the pit. 
 Arrived at her point, Maytha stared in surprise
 
 190 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 at the young carpenter whom Mutford had 
 seen on the shingles. He was the only person 
 visible. 
 
 " Only you here, Sam Geeson !" she whis- 
 pered . 
 
 " Only me, old girl; and I don't think you 11 
 see any one else, to-night : Lily seems as if he 
 were going to be frightened a bit." 
 
 " Any sign of him ?" continued Martha, peer- 
 ing inquisitively at the sea, out through an 
 opening in the top line of the chalk pit. 
 
 *' You'll get none, now," replied Geeson; 
 *' though I do think I saw him in the fog, 
 about two hours ago." 
 
 " Let 's talk to him :" — Martha drew some 
 tow from her pocket ; shook spirits of turpen- 
 tine over it, out of a small vial ; struck a light 
 in a little tinder-box ; set fire to a match, and 
 touched the match to a portion of the tow, 
 which she placed on the edge of the pit. 
 
 " That says lolien^'' — she resumed, — " and 
 this will say where^'' — and she ignited the se- 
 cond portion of the tow. *' And now, Sam, good 
 night ; and don't give up yet : he may slip off 
 a boat after this." 
 
 "But I say, Martha," growled Sam, in a 
 way which he meant to be coaxing.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 191 
 
 " And what do you say ?" she was hastening 
 up the pit. 
 
 " You "ll stay and talk a bit, won't you, 
 now ?■" 
 
 " All nonsense, Sam Geeson, with me — and 
 I 've told you as much afore : good night, and 
 mind your look-out." — And she was soon by 
 Jane's side. 
 
 MUTFORD IN CONTINUATION. 
 
 From some place I do not know — 
 
 Nor your brother Alexander either, dear 
 
 Graves, who is in it along with me. And we 
 are prisoners, closely watched, though I will 
 own, not badly treated. Nay, / don't care how 
 long they hold me in durance, — provided they 
 have kept their word with me as to conveying a 
 note to my father — so pleasing, so soothing, has 
 been one circumstance connected with my loss 
 of liberty. And I believe in my heart, that but 
 for his shame and impatience of his late discom- 
 fiture, and his ardour to be again engaged in 
 his duties, your brother could pass a very agree- 
 able bondage of a few weeks, at my side ; for 
 this moment, as I glance up from my writing, I 
 see him seated in the recess of an old-fashioned
 
 192 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 window, smiling and chatting most contentedly 
 with one of our hostesses, or jailers, or keepers 
 — a pretty and engaging girl of eighteen or 
 thereabouts. Our first prison-house, has, in- 
 deed, been of a worse description. But do I 
 not rather tantalize you .'' I hope so. And to 
 make amends, you shall have as methodical 
 an explanation as my sense of order, and of 
 events in series can supply. 
 
 In the twilight of the evening after I last 
 journalized for you, I was stepping out of our 
 furnished house, when a young naval officer 
 met me at the door and inquired for myself. 
 I knew him at once, though he is not a bit 
 like you. We smiled at each other, as he 
 put your note into my hand ; and that smile 
 went a good way in breaking down the barriers 
 of formality between us. The next moment 
 we were upstairs with my father and Bessy, 
 claimants upon the evening hospitality of the 
 latter ; and my little sister, recovering from a 
 momentary fright, bustled about us with more 
 energy and good-humour than she has lately 
 shown to her own friends exclusively. 
 
 I do like him, dear Graves, very much ; he 
 seems born and informed for his most manly 
 and straightforward profession, and in any
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 193 
 
 situation of society must inevitably be taken as 
 an excellent specimen of it. Frankness without 
 display, without as much as consciousness ; 
 bluntness, without a jot of rudeness; nature, 
 without a jot of uncouthness; these are his 
 more considerable characteristics, discernible at 
 a glance; in fact, he is a gentleman, though not 
 of a coterie, a college, or a club-room. Then 
 his humour is heart-cheering, though I do not 
 remember his saying one good thing, as they 
 call it ; it cheers his own heart, and, of natural 
 necessity, the hearts of others ; and although 
 so young, — scarce twenty, I should suppose, 
 and believe I have heard you say, — there yet 
 surrounds all this, bracing and keeping it toge- 
 ther, a solid good sense, of which many of my 
 acquaintance of treble his age stand in need. 
 And, by the way. Graves, with that gallant, 
 tall, symmetrical figure of his, and that in- 
 genuous glowing face, — (how lavish is Nature 
 to some of her children !) — I should call Alex- 
 ander a dangerous invader of the female peace 
 of heart of the drawing-room. My life upon 
 it, he would annihilate three sons of Stultz in 
 half an evening. 
 
 So, you see, we must have chatted and 
 laughed to some purpose over Bessy's tea-table 
 VOL. I. K
 
 194 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 scantily attended as it was by our solitary Lucy 
 Peat, to allow of time and opportunity for my 
 seeing and thinking all this about the new 
 acquaintance you have introduced to us. And, 
 indeed, we did: and I have not known even 
 my father so cheerful this long while. 
 
 Well, but all this is not what you want ; 
 or do I think you ignorant of the features of 
 your brother's character or face, down to the 
 present hour ? Patience ; our evening's con- 
 versation did not close without allusions to the 
 death of old Moffit ; and I began to love your 
 brother for condemning heartily the rashness 
 and intemperance of the man-of-war's man, and 
 the bungling bluffness and badness of Hood's 
 deportment on the occasion, at the same time 
 that he hinted good-humoured yet contemptu- 
 ous dislike of the blockade service, as one 
 strange and unfit for people who had at least 
 seen Algiers in a seventy-four. 
 
 The interest I had taken in the recent occur- 
 rences, prompted me to express, indirectly, a 
 hope that Lieutenant Hood would not remain 
 long in his martello tower. Your brother 
 bluntly replied that he had asked to be left in 
 it for that night, but would surrender it next 
 morning, and the village in the course of the
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 195 
 
 (lay. " I am sorry he does not repair to his 
 new station without a moment's delay, if it 
 were possible," your brother continued, " after 
 what has happened, and since the people seem 
 so angry with him." 
 
 Here ended our interview for the night ; 
 but at parting Alexander asked me to dine 
 with him the following day, and I gladly ac- 
 cepted the invitation, after glancing at my 
 father, whose approving nod as well as reno- 
 vated appearance gave warrant for the unusual 
 indulgence. 
 
 Proceeding to keep my appointment, about 
 five o'clock next day, I could not fail to notice 
 among the villagers the same subdued pertur- 
 bation which I had before observed, and have 
 mentioned to you. It also struck me that the 
 usual population of the little place had beeri 
 increased by new comers, all, however, fisher- 
 men, as was evident by their blue trousers and 
 jackets, their best, in honour — I supposed, ex- 
 clusively — of the day, Sunday. 
 
 In a circle, within the circle of the tower, I 
 found your brother; I gained his sitting-apart- 
 ment, after crossing the wooden bridge over 
 the deep, broad, dry fosse, through a kind of 
 guard-room, — a semicircle, where his men sat 
 
 K 2
 
 196 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 on forms at a rough deal-table, some mending 
 their clothes, some furbishing their pistols, 
 carabines, or cutlasses ; and a goodly display 
 of these weapons was on the walls over their 
 heads. Again they eyed me in silence, one 
 only ushering me to his officer, with a word 
 and a bow ; and again their appearance and 
 manner, now added to by their situation, in- 
 terested me. 
 
 I was not sumptuously entertained, as you 
 may suppose, under all the circumstances; yet 
 our dinner was a good English one, and our 
 ■wines not to be found fault with. But in truth, 
 we wanted little else than one another's conver- 
 sation to pass a very pleasant evening : — or part 
 of one, I should have said. 
 
 The sun had gone down an hour, when, once 
 or twice, your brother paused, and seemed to 
 listen with some attention. I heard a dull 
 sullen noise, but thought it the mixed boom 
 and clatter of the sea and the shingles, coming 
 up to us, a good distance from the beach, to the 
 high ground on which the tower stood, and 
 again deadened by the thickness of the tower's 
 walls. 
 
 " No,"" said Alexander, smiling, " I know all 
 modifications of sea-sounds somewhat better
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 197 
 
 than you can, and I swear to you this is none of 
 them : it comes from the village, and is formed 
 of human voices." 
 
 " What can it be, then ? Hood has long ago 
 removed himself out of danger," I observed. 
 
 " I hope so ; yet I have suspected that he 
 seemed half inclined, at our parting, to linger 
 out the day, if not the evening, in the village, 
 perhaps with an old crony or two — Hollo !" he 
 went on, sitting upright, and brightening into 
 interest, as, along with the repetition of the dis- 
 tant and disagreeable noise, a woman was heard 
 talking rapidly, and almost in screams, outside 
 the tower. 
 
 The man who had conducted me in, and 
 afterwards attended table, entered in some agi- 
 tation ; and to a challenge from his officer 
 answered, that " a girl what used to make up 
 things for Lieutenant Hood" was abroad, and 
 brought word that Hood had not left the 
 village, but had dined with friends at the 
 Anchor ; and that, the old Smuggler's funeral 
 passing by, followed by crowds, from all parts, 
 and himself left for show in his coffin, the 
 people had surrounded the inn, and were now 
 calHng for liicutenant Hood, and groaning, and 
 hissing him, men, women, and children ; and, in
 
 198 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 fine, Martha Hugget earnestly entreated the 
 new Lieutenant to hasten with all his force to 
 the Anchor, and hinder mischief, before it was 
 too late. 
 
 Making little of the girPs fuss, and of the 
 whole matter, and soundly rating the man 
 before him for his confused manner and story, 
 your brother lost not a moment, however, in 
 attending to this appeal. Hastily putting on 
 his cap, after a word to his tower's crew, he was 
 wishing me a good evening. I requested to be 
 allowed to accompany him. He hesitated, and 
 spoke of probable inconvenience to me. I 
 pressed my suit, and we sallied forth together, 
 followed not only by all of our present garrison, 
 one or two excepted, but, at a distance, and 
 gradually, by all the sentinels from the tower 
 along the cliffs, as far as the point which I have 
 before described to you : one pistol shot from 
 the tower, taken up and repeated by them, from 
 one to another, being the signal to summons 
 them to our aid. 
 
 Your brother scarce spoke a word on our 
 way to the village ; but I saw it was not be- 
 cause he was off his guard, and puzzled, but 
 rather because he was deliberately making up 
 his mind to the course best to be pursued.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. • 199 
 
 And at another look at him, I felt I had 
 nothing to fear from his impetuosity. 
 
 We were within half a quarter of a mile of the 
 scene of disturbance. Our path thither was down 
 the rather abrupt slope of the lump of ground 
 upon which the tower was based, then by the 
 edge of the diminishing cliff, and lastly along 
 the shingles, gained by rude steps, of which you 
 have before heard. Not an individual met us 
 in our hasty advance. Even Lieutenant Hood's 
 laundress had disappeared — Heaven knows on 
 what business of her own, though lately I begin 
 to suspect. We gained a near view of the Anchor 
 — of its front, in the street. Alexander halted 
 his men, and looked on for a moment. 
 
 A formidable crowd, indeed, surrounded the 
 inn, rolling round it by a passage and a narrow 
 lane, at either side, and doubtless closing again, 
 at its rear. Women and children flocked at the 
 skirts of the throng; but the great majority 
 were men. Your brother and I jumped upon 
 an old wall, which enabled us to look down 
 upon them. 
 
 In the middle of the mass of people were a 
 chosen number, wearing black-crape hatbands. 
 Within them, again, stood perhaps half a 
 dozen, bearing the coffin of old Moffit on their
 
 200 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 shoulders ; but the coffin was not open, as 
 Martha Hugget seemed to have intimated. A 
 bundle of articles of dress was heaped upon it, 
 however — doubtless the mortally stained clothes 
 of the deceased, though the increasing dark- 
 ness did not allow me to be sure, at the moment. 
 
 Every tongue called out the name of Hood — 
 " Hood ! Hood ! to join the funeral !"" and 
 between each pause, the groanings and growl- 
 ings of the men, and the gurgling shrieks of 
 some women, and the yelling of children, and 
 even the barking and yelping of dogs, made a 
 vile chorus. I felt, and for an instant gave a 
 thought to the fearful power of a mob ; al- 
 though this, compared with city mobs, was 
 insignificant. With their union of purpose, 
 passion, and well-matured bodily strength, I saw 
 that the people before me were able to demolish 
 the poor Anchor inn, and confound its very stones 
 with the shingles at hand on the beach, if they 
 could in no other way gratify their exasperation, 
 or were not diverted from their intentions. 
 
 We glanced up at the windows of the be- 
 sieged house of entertainment. The shutters 
 of all of them were closed, as was the substan- 
 tial hall-door. But stones and other missiles 
 had been begun to be flung at the former,
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 201 
 
 before our arrival, and an impatient knocking 
 at the latter now gradually increased into 
 furious thumping and crashing. 
 
 " This won't do," said your brother to me, — 
 observe, though I have paused to describe what 
 I saw. we had not been looking on more than half 
 a minute, and I believe that few of the crowd 
 as yet noticed us — " this won't do ; they must 
 be stopped directly. What 's all this, lads ?''" 
 he called out, from the top of the old wall — 
 every eye turned to him, and there was compa- 
 rative silence — " Stand still, men-o'-war's men," 
 he continued, "and do not follow me — you 
 have no duty before you, at present — Tell 
 me, good lads, what's the matter ?" — Here he 
 jumped down, and peaceably, though holdly 
 approached them. 
 
 They renewed their cries for " Hood ! to fol- 
 low in the funeral !" 
 
 "Is that all? To be sure he will; and so 
 will I, and my men along with me : Lieutenant 
 Hood has stopped for the purpose: and where 's 
 the poor old fellow's wife ? I had forgotten a 
 message to her — where is she.'' here.''" he 
 bustled through them, towards the coffin. The 
 people did not oppose him ; and I. could see, 
 from my high position on the wall, only one 
 
 K 5
 
 202 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 discontented brow among the bearers of the 
 corpse, namely that of the young carpenter, 
 (now in his Sunday attire, like the rest) al- 
 though he was the person who pointed out Mrs. 
 Moffit to your brother, saying, in a surly voice, 
 " There she be.*" 
 
 " And I 'm glad I \-e met her," resumed the 
 peace-maker ; " here, Mrs. Moffit, is a slight 
 parting gift from my friend Lieutenant Hood, 
 with his sincere regrets for what has happened ; 
 and allow me to add a trifle to it ; my men ask 
 leave to do the same, as soon as they have 
 finished a little subscription between them — 
 pray take it— or, your friend, here, will hold it 
 for you ;" he forced it into another woman's 
 hand. — " We are indeed all very sorry — very 
 sorry that our strict duty will now and then 
 get us into these things ; but, I say, my lads, 
 some of you ought to be a bit more cautious 
 and sly, or not so obstinate, you know, — that 
 is, if you will be such cursed rogues — d'ye un- 
 derstand?" — he smiled good-humouredly, and 
 many of the rough-minded fellows who heard 
 him, seemed amused at his blundering good- 
 nature, as they thought:—" And so, fall back, 
 now, from the door, will you, and let me up to 
 tell my friend what you want him to do ; we
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 203 
 
 will be down again with you, arm in arm, as 
 soon as you get the old boy, here, under weigh, 
 in good order, and, as I said — fall back, my lad, 
 won't you ?" to the young carpenter, the only 
 one who now pertinaciously obstructed the ap- 
 proach to the door, — " as I said, he shall have a 
 guard of honour, as soon as — Then you won't ?"" 
 he interrupted himself again to expostulate 
 with the carpenter. 
 
 " No !" was the only reply, extended to a 
 length of growling sound. 
 
 ** Is this fair, lads ,?"" appealed Alexander to 
 the crowd. 
 
 " Come along, Sam Geeson," said many 
 voices. 
 
 " Do, Sam — come along," exhorted a girl, 
 advancing, and laying her hand on his arm. 
 To my edification I recognized our maid-ser- 
 vant, Lucy Peat. 
 
 " There now — do — get away with your sweet- 
 heart," resumed Alexander jokingly. 
 
 " Sweetheart ? what 's that to you if she be ? 
 I '11 stand none of your nons'ns," answered Sam, 
 with a philosophical objection to be spoken kindly 
 to, in which some of his class are proficients. 
 
 " Come, my lad, stand back,"" pursued Lieu- 
 tenant Graves, knocking at the door — " Mrs.
 
 204 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Moffit, won't yoLi and your friends call him 
 away ? — " 
 
 " Nons'ns, I say again ;"" repeated Geeson — 
 " I have a right to stand here, and vouVe none 
 to bid me go along/' 
 
 Your brother's last appeal to the more 
 reasonable had produced some effect, reckoning 
 upon which, doubtless, he now began to show 
 his tusks. " Is there no constable, here ?" he 
 demanded. 
 
 " No there bayn't — do you take him for a 
 fool ?" continued Sam. The demand was re- 
 peated, but remained unanswered. 
 
 " Is there no constable, here, to keep the 
 king's peace, I ask ?" Alexander's voice rose 
 high — " we have enough to keep it, without a 
 constable," pointing to his men ; " but is there 
 no constable to make us all quiet ?" 
 
 " There be, Sir," answered a sad, plaintive 
 voice, from the outskirts of the crowd ; "here 
 be two on 'em ; and I be beadle." 
 
 " Then, constables and beadle, come for- 
 ward and secure this troublesome chap." 
 
 " We thought to do our duty, before, Sir, 
 but they used threatening language," answered 
 another unseen person, doubtless one of the 
 lukewarm constables.
 
 THE SMUGGLER, 205 
 
 " D'you hear that ?" demanded Sam Geeson, 
 with a rude laugh. 
 
 " Do you continue to refuse me free approach 
 to this door ?"" questioned your brother. 
 
 " And don't you know V retorted the young 
 rioter. 
 
 "Then, here, constables!" — and with the 
 promptness and courage of a young lion, Alex- 
 ander collared Geeson, and pushed him back 
 through the crowd — " Make way, lads V he 
 cried — " make way for the only disturber of 
 the peace among you ! Constables, your duty ! 
 men-o '-war's men, stand quiet ! Mrs. Moffit, 
 tell your friends what 's best for them ! — Con- 
 stables, here he's for you, now, ready to your 
 hand — take care of him !"" — And v/ithout the 
 slightest resistance from the law-fearing though 
 law-breaking crowd, the young carpenter was 
 in the hands of the guardians of the peace, 
 and of their melancholy beadle, the most gro- 
 tesquely clad beadle I had ever seen. Doubt- 
 less, Alexander's previous appeals to them, the 
 friendly gifts to Mrs. Moffit, and the promise 
 to bestow unusual and unexpected honours on 
 the funeral of the deceased, to say nothing of 
 the presence of the men-o'-wars men, had helped 
 to calm down the exasperation of the generality
 
 206 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 of the people, and induced them to accept the 
 more penitent attendance of Hood upon the 
 corpse of the old Smuggler, in lieu of what- 
 ever arbitrary retaliation had been in store for 
 him. I must add that Miss Lucy Peat played, 
 with her loud gabble and expostulations at the 
 arrest of Geeson, a prominent though secondary 
 part in this scene. 
 
 Lieutenant Graves was again standing at the 
 inn-door a few seconds afterwards, and again 
 knocking loudly for admission. He called on 
 " the friends of Mrs. Moffit" to pledge them- 
 selves to await peaceably his re-appearance with 
 Hood, and they did so. The landlady of the 
 Anchor then cautiously opened the door, ad- 
 mitted him, and closed and secured it again. 
 
 He did not make his appearance as soon as 
 I had suspected, and meantime some things 
 happened that drew my attention. 
 
 I saw about a dozen of the least prepossess- 
 ing of the men of the crowd group together at 
 its skirts and talk expressively, pointing after 
 Geeson and the constables. The words — " the 
 cage," caught my ear, and presently they de- 
 tached themselves, followed by some twenty 
 more, from their friends, and walked hastily up 
 the street.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 207 
 
 At about the moment of their departure, the 
 girl Martha Hugget approached demurely to- 
 wards the Anchor, from the road leading to 
 the isolated group of houses and cottages in 
 one of which I live. Whether she had come 
 upon that road, of a sudden, from some path 
 to the cliff, out of our sight, I leave herself to 
 answer. She spoke first with those of the crowd 
 whom she met first; then she glided unob- 
 trusively through them, and still whispered 
 something, pointing cautiously along the line of 
 the coast. The movement which followed sur- 
 prised me ; and I remembered at that moment 
 a word which Lieutenant Hood had told rae 
 about Lilly White and his lugger. One by 
 one, or two by two, more than half of those 
 ostensibly assembled to do honour to Mas'r 
 Moffit's funeral, lounged off the way Martha 
 Hugget had come, and at a turn of the road, 
 disappeared from view. 
 
 Before the last of them had vanished, the 
 shutters of one of the front windows of the inn 
 opened, and I perceived your brother and 
 Hood standing at the glass, plainly visible in 
 the candle-light at their backs. Hood pointed 
 after the deserters, and seemed to impress some- 
 thing eagerly on his companion. Alexander
 
 208 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 threw up the window, and asked hastily — -" Has 
 the funeral gone forward without us ?" — 
 
 Those immediately about the coffin answered. 
 No ! " Then, where have those men gone ?" he 
 continued — " what ! am I played a trick, after 
 all ?" — and he disappeared with Hood from the 
 window, and quickly issued into the street. 
 
 " Bury the old man, now, in your own way, 
 and no more Avords about it !" he said, sternly 
 — " I repeat I am sorry for his death — but 
 bury him — bury him !"" The remainder of the 
 people, men, women and children, moved off 
 with the poor bandied-about corpse of my polite 
 old friend. " Follow me, lads !" — to his station- 
 ary and patient men-o"'-war's men — " But what's 
 to do, now ?" — 
 
 The two constables stumbled back towards 
 the Anchor, as fast as their efforts to hold 
 Geeson between them permitted — the pictu- 
 resque Beadle, flourishing a very curious badge 
 of office, was running on much faster, before 
 them. Some of those who had stolen away to 
 rescue the young carpenter, followed ; and two 
 ffentlemen on horseback trotted after them. 
 
 " Beware a riot !" cried the foremost horse- 
 man, in whom I recognised Lord Lintern ; the 
 other was his son George — " I have been but
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 209 
 
 tardily informed of these matters ; but now that 
 a magistrate is here, beware a riot, I say, young 
 man, and you, fellows who press on him. 
 Constables, back with him to the cage." 
 
 " 'Twill never hold him, such a night as 
 this be, my Lord," replied one of the constables. 
 
 " Then, Sir," continued the magistrate, ad- 
 dressing Alexander, — (the Honourable George 
 Allan had intercepted the still afflicted Lucy 
 Peat, and was whispering to her, at his stirrup) 
 — " then. Sir, allow me to call on you for 
 temporary assistance, in the name of the King's 
 peace, particularly as I understand that 'tis you 
 have a charge against this foolish lad." 
 
 " What am I to do. Sir ? I beg pardon, but 
 my time is precious- — ^" 
 
 " Keep him in your tower. Sir, till he can be 
 sent to jail." 
 
 " With all my heart, Sir — bring him along, 
 
 lads — constables and all; though there — 
 
 good evening. Sir: Mr. Mutford," as he 
 
 passed me — "good evening to you, too, at 
 last." 
 
 " Let me sec it out," I pleaded, and kept on 
 by his side. 
 
 We gained the steps which led up from the 
 shingles to the path to the tower. There Lieu-
 
 210 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 tenant Graves detached half of his men along 
 the sea's edge, and they parted from us, making 
 all speed. We arrived, with the other half, the 
 constables and Geeson, at the tower, and the 
 latter was consigned to the care of the few 
 people whom its commander had left to hold it 
 secure in his absence. TJien he wished the con- 
 stables good night, and bidding the man who 
 knew best " the path to the Three Williams," 
 lead the way, we all struck direct into the 
 narrow track by the cliff's edge, and pushed 
 forward at a trot. 
 
 I asked what was the matter, notwithstanding 
 that I had my own suspicions. 
 
 " The admirable rascals !" answered your 
 brother, " I do beMeve they have succeeded in 
 as well-planned and as well-performed a scheme 
 as rogues and smugglers ever attempted ! Hood 
 is sure of it. But we shall see. At present, 
 "'tis lost time, talking. We shall see !" 
 
 " Lugger, standing out from shore !" cried 
 our guide, stopping a moment, and pointing 
 down to the sea. 
 
 " It is, by heavens !" said Alexander. For 
 my own part, I saw, indeed, a dark something 
 in motion on the sea below us, but a good way 
 on. " Steady, lads^ and silence ! we may meet
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 211 
 
 some of them, above ; and if the rest of us have 
 sense, they ought to surprise some more by the 
 water's edge — but no, confound their stupidity !" 
 we heard pistols discharged, under us — " there 's 
 a signal to baffle every one but the smugglers — 
 ay, themselves who make it — lubbers! that 
 couldn''t wait for a short shot and close grap- 
 pling ! Up, however!" 
 
 We continued along; the track I have de- 
 scribed to you, dear Graves, not eventually 
 striking a little inland, however, as I had for- 
 merly done. Having come in view of the bleak 
 and round summit of the point, we proceeded 
 by the very high cliffs over the sea. 
 
 " Three Williams a-head," said our guide, 
 pointing to three remarkable tall conical piles of 
 chalk which shot up to the level of the cliff, in 
 this point, from its base, but without touch- 
 ing it. 
 
 " Speak lower, and a sharp look out," an- 
 swered your brother. The man gained the per- 
 fect level of the land at the cliff's verge before 
 us, and gave another announcement. 
 
 " Smugglers ahead, but making off!" 
 
 We sprang on, and quickly gaining his ad- 
 vantage in position over us, I saw, at about a 
 quarter of a mile in advance, groups of dark
 
 212 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 figures hurrying to the right, inland. Vehicles 
 of different kinds, carts, light and heavy, gigs, 
 flies, (and peradventure, one of the latter, from 
 its general make and air, in the distance, might 
 have had the honour to be whirled off by two 
 steeds called " Harrit, Miss," and " Polly, 
 Missis,") were in rapid motion before them. 
 We heard no sound of feet, of horses, or of 
 wheels, on the soft but elastic and almost track- 
 less sward ; but something like the jingle of 
 chain-harness now and then struck on our ears. 
 
 " Chase them, every man !" — was your bro- 
 ther's command, instantly given — "chase them I 
 at least to the next village — or until they quite 
 distance you ; and look out for me, hereabouts 
 — perhaps they have left something or some 
 one behind ; I '11 see." 
 
 His men directly left us alone, running in the 
 track of the smugglers, who had already dis- 
 appeared, however, down into one of the spa- 
 cious wild valleys formed by the inland dipping 
 of the point. 
 
 I walked with Alexander, still by the cliffs, 
 to the Three Williams. We arrived at the 
 commencement of a very precipitous track, be- 
 ginning at their verge, and winding zig-zag
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 213 
 
 down the nearly perpendicular face of the 
 chalky precipice. 
 
 " This is the spot of which Hood told me," 
 said your brother : " and here they not only 
 work their tubs, and other lighter though more 
 valuable articles, up from the beach, with ropes 
 and huge baskets, but, he affirms, come up 
 themselves, with great loads on their backs." 
 
 " Impossible," I observed — " for the latter 
 achievement, at least ; see, there does not ap- 
 pear a stay for the hand — scarce a spot for the 
 foot — and 'tis a hundred yards at least, to the 
 shingles." 
 
 " Keep your eye looking down," he resumed, 
 " and you may find yourself undeceived." 
 
 " How ?" I asked, following his advice. 
 
 *' Note the third turn that the track takes," 
 he whispered — "does nothing — (lie on your 
 breast, but still look close) — does nothing stir 
 over it ?" 
 
 Thus instructed, my eyes sharpened, and I 
 certainly saw something move cautiously up- 
 ward. 
 
 " And 'tis a woman, too," he continued, 
 " and so I am glad to be saved from what per- 
 haps my duty must have told me to do, had it
 
 214 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 been a man ; don't you notice the dress ? a bon- 
 net and a black spencer ?" 
 
 " No," I replied, " there my optical powers 
 fail me. But the person, whoever it is, seems 
 now stationary." 
 
 " Yes ; I understand. She has been sent up 
 from the rascals below to see how matters go 
 on here, and now know, by the silence, that all 
 is well, or, at least, pretty well. And that tells 
 badly, too, for my men on the beach. They 
 have been either beaten back, or eluded : the 
 latter, I think ; nay, any thing else is impos- 
 sible. And see ; the petticoat scout now re- 
 turns to make her report." 
 
 The figure was indeed quickly descending, 
 and soon faded from our eyes. 
 
 "Well," I resumed, after rather a long pause 
 between us, during which I am sure we were 
 thinking of very different matters : " 'tis worth 
 any thing at all to be here, at this hour, lying 
 on our chins on this fine precipice, over the sea, 
 with a gusty breeze around us, unknown in the 
 flat world of villages and towns below, and the 
 sea-birds that your men's pistols have fright- 
 ened from their sleep, flitting and sweeping like 
 birds in dreams, half-way from us to the sea, 
 and the mysterious sea itself working and
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 215 
 
 throeing away, away, without sound or apparent 
 motion, but still in its endless labour — in the 
 moonless and starless dark, we can't tell where, 
 
 or how, or why, or 
 
 " Stop — I beg your pardon — that 's all very 
 pretty — but I think I see a rope over the cliff," 
 interrupted your brother; " all very pretty, I 
 say ; only, ever since I became midshipman, 
 with more of the sea, and all about it, than you 
 can now enjoy, to contemplate at my leisure, I 
 have often preferred my hammock — I'll read 
 it with you, any day you like,"" he continued, 
 rising; " now I want to look at this — ay, I 
 thought so ! some of their tackle left behind — 
 see !" 
 
 I followed him a few paces. He had in his 
 hand a thick rope, which was secured in the 
 soil at our feet by iron hooks, and which fell 
 tight over the edge of the cliff: — and there's 
 another," he continued, pointing a few yards 
 onward, " and are both laden, or empty ? let's 
 try : a hand, here !" 
 
 I grasped the first discovered rope with him, 
 and we began to pull at it together, might and 
 main. We succeeded in getting up a few coils: 
 but while all my strength was lavished upon a 
 renewed effort, I suddenly felt my arms secured
 
 216 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 by two men at least, and at the same time I 
 knew that my friend, behind me, could ejacu- 
 late, and — Heaven forgive him — imprecate 
 a little, as he did, only because he was treated 
 in the same unceremonious way. 
 
 *' Want to know as what the baskets be 
 loaded or empty, Lieutenant ?" demanded a 
 strange and deep voice, though not an ill-tem- 
 pered one ; " try, then, you and your friend Mr. 
 Mutford !" And while we manfully and vainly 
 resisted, dear Graves, as men, and vain ones 
 might, I call earth and sea to witness, that we 
 were forced separately into the separate baskets 
 at the ends of the two ropes, which our accom- 
 modating eavesdroppers promptly hauled up to 
 the table-land, dropped without an apology 
 down the face of the cliff, and permitted to 
 descend, cautiously and providently, to save 
 us, I suppose, from chance buffets against the 
 chalk — (now hard enough, notwithstanding my 
 former poetical objections. And so, down and 
 down we swung : we, I own ; for I have rea- 
 son to know that your brother accompanied 
 me, at a little distance, in his own particular 
 basket, though, at the time, I own I did 
 not see him — no, nor think of him either, 
 nor scarcely care about him ; my chief soli-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 21T 
 
 citude being exercised in clinging close to the 
 rope of my personal destiny, keeping myself 
 steady in my aerial bark of osier, and petition- 
 ing Heaven, that, as I rested an instant on a 
 frail projection, or slid down an inward curving 
 of the smuggler's desperate track, or swung at 
 the mercy of my guftrdian angel's and of their' 
 hands, I might not become shingle-material, or 
 at the best, a morsel of breakfast for the next 
 shore-exploring young shark. 
 
 Let me not boast. I had not my presence 
 of mind at hand at the moment that I must 
 have safely touched the beach ; and nothing do 
 I remember till I found myself close by your 
 brother, hurried onward by the sea's edge. I 
 believe the considerate scoundrels had suffered 
 to find its way down my throat a drop or two 
 of brandy. Certainly, though my ideas con- 
 tinued a little confused, my bodily strength be- 
 came recruited ; not sufficiently, however, to 
 even attempt to resist the over-mastering force 
 which hurried me along, ancle deep in the shin- 
 gles at one moment, at the next running over 
 the smooth, cool sand ; and it appeared that 
 your brother was equally incompetent to con- 
 trol his involuntary motion. 
 
 *' What do you want .'*" I heard him ask. 
 VOL. I. L
 
 218 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " Mean you no harm, Lieutenant," some one 
 answered him ; " and all we want is Sam Gee- 
 son, out of your tower, 38, — to let him go to 
 work for his old mother, to-morrow morning.'"' 
 
 " He shall stay there till he is removed to 
 jail/' replied Alexander. 
 
 " We '11 see, Sir,"" croaked a second voice, 
 though still not savagely ; and they continued 
 to help us along. 
 
 " Have a care what you are about,"" resumed 
 Lieutenant Graves, " my men will meet you, 
 here." 
 
 " Never fear. Sir," returned the first speaker. 
 
 " The scoundrels ! have they run from 
 you ?" 
 
 " Didn't say that. Lieutenant ; but the coast 
 be clear, at any rate. Have you never in your 
 life followed a false chase, yourself. Sir ?" 
 
 Alexander allowed an impatient and bitter 
 ejaculation to escape him. There was a pause — 
 I mean in speaking, only : — and I ventured to 
 ask — " And what have / done ? what do you 
 want of me V 
 
 " You, Sir ? Nothing at all ; only, as it hap- 
 pens you be the lieutenants friend, by his side 
 when we borrowed him, we want to keep you 
 and him together, don't you see, just to keep
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 219 
 
 you from not remembering to tell people where 
 he might be found, supposing you to have your 
 own way, you know." 
 
 " Oh, I know," I said ; and on still they 
 forced us — no matter how gently, until at 
 length we stopped at a point at the base of the 
 bare cliff, where rude steps — perhaps twenty of 
 them,^ — ascended to a yawning orifice, some 
 ten feet high, and six broad. The tide was 
 only beginning to come in ; otherwise we 
 could not have gained this spot : for, dark as 
 it was, I saw the damp mark of high-water 
 more than half way up the steps. 
 
 We ascended to the opening of the cave, — 
 as such it proved to be, though an artificial 
 one. We first entered an outward chamber, or, 
 if you like, anti-room, lower than the height of 
 the entrance. Here all was pitchy darkness. 
 A light gleamed further inward, and a man, 
 who, I presume, had expected us, presently ap- 
 peared standing in a kind of archway, a lan- 
 tern in his hand. Obeying some friendly hints, 
 we approached him, and he ushered us, through 
 the archway, into a rather spacious and lofty 
 apartment. I do not say that it was of any 
 particular form, square, or round, or oblong, or 
 that its ceiling was flat, or coved ; it bore how 
 
 L 2
 
 220 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 ever, at a glance, the features of a handycraft 
 excavation, or, at least, of a natural one much 
 modified, if not enlarged. There were recesses, 
 shaped into shelves, around its walls, if so they 
 are to be called ; there were others, with a seat 
 left, certainly for resting the limbs ; and there 
 was a large flat platform in about the middle 
 of the chamber, apparently to serve as a bed, 
 with or without other appurtenances. More- 
 over I descried hundreds of inscriptions on 
 the sides of the sea-cavern ; some, names only ; 
 others, more profuse effusions, yet to be deci- 
 phered, and comprehended, and admired. 
 
 " What thieves' den is this .?" asked Alex- 
 ander, of the only man who now visibly attend- 
 ed on us. 
 
 " Never heard of Arthur's hole. Sir.?" de- 
 manded the fellow, in return, touching his hat 
 quite obsequiously, and smiling. Your brother 
 impatiently answered that he had not; I, that 
 I had ; as, indeed the local fame of the place 
 did not fail to reach my ears during my gossip- 
 ing inquiries at the village, after every thing, 
 of every body ; though this was my first visit 
 to Arthur's hole. And I proceeded to inquire 
 if it had not been made a good while since by
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 221 
 
 an eccentric clergyman, whom some people 
 considered a little mad, partly to serve himself 
 as a retreat from the world, partly to hold out 
 a chance refuge to the crews of ships which 
 might be wrecked on that dangerous point of 
 the coast ? 
 
 " All right, what I said," the man observed ; 
 " and it was hard to tell if it had ever done any 
 ship's crew any good, during the life of its 
 owner, though here he used to sit, every stormy 
 night, showing as much light, seaward, as might 
 be seen a good way off; lately, however, to our 
 informant's own knowledge, the crew of the 
 Lord Crandon, an East-Indiaman, would have 
 perished to a man, but that Arthur's hole was 
 at hand when she struck ; in fact, her bowsprit 
 had run into the outward mouth of the excava- 
 tion, and thus many hands were enabled to 
 jump on the floor, abroad, and secure her cable ; 
 otherwise the poor people of the coast might 
 have witnessed as fine a wreck as the winds and 
 waves ever sent them." 
 
 " And was it known what causes had driven 
 the reverend Arthur to live alone, in the cave ?'' 
 I went on to ask, while your brother flung him- 
 self, sitting, into a recess.
 
 222 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 I was answered that he did not always live 
 here, but only on very stormy nights, at home 
 or abroad, as it happened. 
 
 " What did that mean ?" — 
 
 " Why, when he thought the wind was high 
 enough on the sea to drive in a ship or a boat, 
 he came to his cavern to try and do good, 
 though it might be a calm at home; and just 
 as often, a storm at home sent him here, fair 
 weather or foul, for peace-sake." Still I pressed 
 for an explanation, and the fellow added, with 
 a grin, that the poor parson used to have a wife 
 at home. 
 
 Lieutenant Graves changed the conversation 
 by demanding if his friend and himself were to 
 be detained in this place ? 
 
 He was told that young Sam Geeson, the 
 carpenter, had a good many relations and friends, 
 and that they would be very much obliged if 
 the Lieutenant relented a little towards him. 
 
 And who dared to keep him, Alexander, a 
 prisoner, in Arthur's hole, provided he did not 
 relent ? 
 
 Every one would be sorry to do any such 
 thing ; and yet, abundance of those friends 
 and relations waited in the outer room to strike 
 a bargain with the lieutenant : and if that bar-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 223 
 
 gain were not quickly entered into, the sea 
 itself would then dare to hinder us from 
 getting home for the night : though it was 
 only to say that Sam was free, and we might all 
 leave Arthur's hole with scarce a wet shoe, as 
 the tide had only just begun to turn. 
 
 " Go out to your cousins, and brother-wor- 
 thies," said Alexander ; and when our attend- 
 ant had obeyed his command, he asked my 
 opinion of what was to be done, first giving his 
 own views. 
 
 " I have no great quarrel with this Sam 
 Geeson," he said, "and don't see that he has 
 done much, after all, to get into the clutches of 
 the law, and have his stupidity magnified to 
 something enormous : so, on that account I feel 
 little zeal to hold him in durance in my mar- 
 tello tower, particularly as he retaliates by 
 keeping me, and you along with me, in Ar- 
 thur's hole. But here is my difficulty. Sam 
 will be connected, right or wrong, with the 
 smuggling adventures of this night ; and if I 
 send word to the tower to have him shoved 
 across the bridge, folk may say that I liberated 
 a smuggler out of fear for myself." 
 
 " And that, while a huge falsehood, would 
 not eventually serve you," I replied. " Cannot
 
 224 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 you arrange the matter thus ? Let the law have 
 him, and charge what it likes against him, but 
 do you fail to support that charge, and Sam 
 must be enlarged." 
 
 " And promise to that effect, to those smug- 
 glers?" 
 
 " Yes ; and at once ; to guard against wait- 
 ing the tide^s leisure for an escape from this 
 den." 
 
 " I should still leave myself open to the ac- 
 cusation of compromising my duty," replied 
 your brother : " but let us see. My friends at 
 the helm, in London, are kind as well as able 
 friends ; I will write to them, plainly stating 
 the whole affair: and I make no doubt that 
 some apprehensions for my personal safety, as 
 well as for your's, in the same trap with me, 
 and on my account, will urge them to give me 
 permission to adopt the course you suggest : 
 meantime, until an answer arrives to my letter, 
 I can go very near pledging my word to master 
 Geeson's friends and relations that, although I 
 allow him to be paraded before a magistrate, he 
 shall encounter no prosecution at my hands." 
 
 I applauded this course, as the very best to 
 be taken, under the circumstances. Your bro- 
 ther called in our jailor, and signified it to him.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 225 
 
 The man again withdrew into the outer cham- 
 ber of the excavation ; again appeared before 
 us, and announced that all was right, provided 
 the Lieutenant gave the promise in writing. 
 After a moment''s demur, Alexander consented. 
 The sole question then was about pen, ink, and 
 paper: and the tide raising its voice among the 
 nests of black rocks a short distance from Ar- 
 thur's hole, began to warn us that it was time 
 to go and seek those articles somewhere else, 
 since they did not seem at hand where we 
 were. 
 
 Your brother, innocently enough, I thought 
 — for certainly he meant to keep faith with the 
 smugglers — proposed repairing, at once, to his 
 tower. Our diplomatist smiled, and remarked 
 that there was a gentleman"'s house, near at 
 hand, where we would be sure to be accommo- 
 dated ; and thither we had better go, as, he 
 believed, means had been taken — though harm- 
 less ones — to beckon the Lieutenants men off 
 the straight road to it. Alexander saw he must 
 consent, for still the admonitions of the tide 
 grew louder and hoarser. 
 
 Accordingly, once more escorted by the 
 friends who had received us out of our baskets 
 at the bases of the Three Williams, we descend- 
 
 L 5
 
 226 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 ed the steps of Arthur's hole, and walked a 
 good distance along the shingles, still, however, 
 farther and farther from Alexander's tower. 
 They kept us close under the cliff, and appear- 
 ed more watchful than their assertions of a 
 clear coast seemed to justify. The line of the 
 cliff grew low, and they moved on with in- 
 creased caution, making us do the same. It 
 swept down, a little way before us, almost to 
 the level of the shingles, and arose again, at 
 some distance, leaving an opening or gap from 
 the sea into the wild and broken land. Sud- 
 denly, we all stopped hiding behind a projecting 
 rock. 
 
 " We be sure you knows the good of hold- 
 ing your tongue, now, for a moment. Lieu- 
 tenant Graves," whispered a surly-browed 
 though well-dressed man, of our escort — I re- 
 cognized him — he was the husband of our first 
 landlady, at the sea-houses. 
 
 " I suppose I must be silent, though I see 
 what you mean," answered Alexander; " that's 
 one of Lieutenant Oglis's men at the other side 
 of the Gap, and his watch-house cannot be 
 many yards distant." 
 
 " Right and wrong, in a breath, Sir," ob-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 227 
 
 served our kind acquaintance of Arthur's hole ; 
 *' one of Mr. Oghs's men, sure enough, though 
 the watch-house be not so near as you think of ; 
 and we've only to get him out of the way, and 
 the pen and ink shall be yours." 
 
 " If you hurt the man I will give the alarm, 
 though you murder me among you,'' resumed 
 your brother. 
 
 " Never fear, Sir, never fear ; you'll just look 
 on, quietly, that's all." 
 
 The speaker separated himself from his friends, 
 as if he were to come to issue with the man-o'- 
 war's man single-handed, and began to creep 
 clear of the cover of the rock, which hitherto 
 had screened us all from hostile observation. 
 The object of his attention stood, as Alexander 
 had said, at the other side of the gap, close by 
 the edge of the again gradually rising cliff'; 
 and he stood there, quite still, his straw-hat and 
 white trousers forming patches against the deep, 
 dead-colour of the sea and sky. Doubtless, the 
 noise of the bursting waves upon the shingles, 
 must have exclusively filled his ears; and he 
 seemed to gaze in solitary meditation upon 
 them, except that now and then his head was 
 slowly turned in the inland direction of, I con-
 
 2^8 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 jectured, his watch-house, perhaps to observe 
 if his comrades yet approached to reheve him 
 on his lonesome post. 
 
 It seemed impossible to me that our single 
 adventurous smuggler could surprise this well- 
 armed man; nay, that any number of our 
 guards could secure him, without violence. 
 The same opinion was whispered to me by 
 Alexander. We could only look on, however, 
 attentively. 
 
 In a few moments, the smuggler, after creep- 
 ing quite close by the base of the cliff, at his 
 side of the gap, clambered up from the shingles 
 into a sloping rent of the chalk, and we lost 
 sight of him. Some time now elapsed in sus- 
 pense, while we all watched the sentinel of the 
 waves. He turned suddenly on his heel, and 
 with his back to us paced on his walk. His 
 figure was blurring and mixing with the dark- 
 ness, when he turned again, faced us, strode back 
 nearly to his first stand, and after another look 
 inland, resumed his set gaze at the sea. There 
 was, however, a slight change in his position, 
 and of course in its accompaniments. Imme- 
 diately at his left shoulder, the land now fell 
 abruptly to the cliff, at right angles, and at the 
 other side of its line I conjectured there was
 
 THE SMUGGLER. ' 229 
 
 also a descent. I was right. The smuggler, 
 after having doubtless taken a wide range to 
 avoid crossing the gap, slowly put up his head 
 over that line, and we were wondering what he 
 would do, when he jumped upon the sentinel, 
 seizing him tightly in his arms, and dragging 
 him to the ground. This seemed the signal for 
 others to come to his aid. Master Brown, 
 snatching a large folded sack from the shoul- 
 ders of a man before him, and saying to your 
 brother, " Never fear, still, Sir; it be only an 
 old trick," bounded to his comrade's side, two 
 othei's following him. Then we all moved 
 slowly towards the scene of exploit ; and when 
 your brother and I arrived there, no man-o'- 
 war's man was visible, only the sack instead, on 
 the ground, well filled, tied hard at the neck, 
 and rolling about, as if of its own accord. I 
 could scarce repress my laughter at the sight ; 
 and I saw that as your brother stared curiously 
 at the grotesque object, he had as much diffi- 
 culty in keeping a stern disapproving frown on 
 his brow. 
 
 Our conductors now expressed their belief 
 that if they had but a van or a fly at hand, we 
 might gain our destination without farther im- 
 pediment. And even as they spoke, a fly came
 
 230 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 noiselessly, though rapidly, down a falling val- 
 ley, which opened before us, and as it drew 
 near, I recognized in its driver my old friend 
 MasV Fox. 
 
 " Good night, good night," he said, approach- 
 ing us ; " has any one seen my company, here- 
 abouts .P I be blowed, but I 'm afeard all 's not 
 right with the poor gentlefolk : they left me 
 here, at about twelve o'clock to-day, to go a 
 pleasure-boating, and " 
 
 " Never you mind, Mas'r Fox," interrupted 
 Master Brown, " here be another and as good a 
 load for you, so, your time bayn't lost." 
 
 "What! who?" demanded Fox, jumping 
 down ; " bless me, if it ain''t our new Lieutenant 
 at our tower ! and Mr. Mutford, too ! Well, I 
 be blowed !" 
 
 *' Up with you," exhorted Brown. 
 
 " Take care what you 're a-doing, lads," re- 
 monstrated Master Fox, seriously, " against 
 these gentlefolk and myself; it 's a shame for 
 you all, I tell you." 
 
 " Go along, or the fly must go without you," 
 persisted Brown ; " jigger me, but 1 think you 
 be turning jest into earnest, you be chawing 
 about it so long." 
 
 And with various other ejaculations, and
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 231 
 
 many sighs, Fox continued to play his inno- 
 cent part, calUng on me, all the time he helped 
 me into his fly, with your brother and three of 
 the smugglers (a fourth was to sit beside him, 
 on his perch) to take notice how much against 
 his will, and how much in the teeth of his law- 
 ful calling, at this hour of the night, he was 
 forced — &c. 
 
 " Get along with you up to Mr, Linnock''s 
 house," were the directions given to our chario- 
 teer; and away we rolled over the springing 
 sod, now ascending, now descending, lumps and 
 sweeps of wild grazing ground only around us ; 
 not a tree, a road, a house in sight ; and I must 
 notice that I could not help enjoying the 
 strange ride, with its strange scenery and com- 
 panionship, animate and inanimate, and its oc- 
 casion ; and the cheery breeze that we cut 
 through, and the low-built and almost starless 
 heavens over our heads. 
 
 In half an hour, perhaps, we got upon a rude 
 road, or track ; and in another, entered a most 
 isolated village, — a few cottages built at the 
 bases of two confronting little hills, and con- 
 tinuing and ending with their short sweep. It 
 was past eleven o'clock, as our watches informed 
 us ; yet few of the inmates of this solitary ham-
 
 232 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 let seemed yet retired to rest. Feeble lights 
 glimmered through most of the windows of the 
 low-roofed houses ; and as our fly clattered by, 
 many a head, male and female, was thrust ob- 
 servantly through the half closed doors. I 
 accounted to myself for the late hours kept by 
 the primitive inhabitants upon this night. 
 
 We left the village behind us, and proceeded 
 under the shelter of a row of trees, occasionally, 
 but as often over unplanted, uncultivated, and 
 unenclosed ground. A good-sized house ap- 
 peared before us, blackening against the suffi- 
 ciently black sky ; and, unlike the bustling 
 hamlet, not sending us an inviting ray from its 
 windows. We passed thatched and tiled build- 
 ings, seemingly belonging to it, and pools of 
 water, peered into each by a stunted thorn or 
 oak. We arrived at a wall which surrounded 
 it, or rather at a gate-way in the wall ; but the 
 gate, apparently in a neglected condition, of- 
 fered no impediment to our progress, and we 
 entered a spacious though littered yard, and 
 drew up before the house, welcomed by a 
 strange mixture of sounds ; the hoarse barking 
 and baying of dogs of monstrous size and 
 hideous aspects, the cursing of men and boys of 
 the establishment to keep them quiet, or at
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 233 
 
 least guiltless of our blood, and the merry ting- 
 ling of a piano-forte within the house, inter- 
 rupted now and then by the merrier notes of 
 female laughter. 
 
 I glanced up at the windows of the building. 
 They were secured with substantial-looking shut- 
 ters, within, and iron bars, without ; one of our 
 conductors knocked at a door, for admission. 
 It was not in the front of the house, nor like a 
 chief-entrance door, but lay in one of the many 
 angles of the uncouthly-built edifice, and was 
 low, narrow, and arched at top ; yet it seemed 
 the only one of which we could avail ourselves. 
 It opened. A woman, tidily dressed, a maid 
 servant, as I afterwards found, appeared at it, 
 with a candle. Master Brown, after whisper- 
 ing to me, " Pray, Mr. Mutford, forget you 
 have known me before," requested permission of 
 Mrs. Linnock to write a line, on important busi- 
 ness. She retired ; and soon reappeared with 
 another female, a young, pretty, laughing, 
 fashionably-attired, and not very vulgar-man- 
 nered girl, who said, addressing us, that her 
 father was from home, but in his name, she 
 offered us the accommodations we required ; 
 and she paused at the door, as if to usher us, 
 herself, into the house.
 
 234 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Perhaps your brother had previously felt some 
 reluctance to pass in ; now he stepped down 
 readily, however, with a smiling face ; I quickly 
 followed him. Miss Eliza Linnock, as I after- 
 wards learned was her name, taking little notice 
 of me — (I did not wonder — nor was I jealous of 
 your gallant-looking brother) — stood aside at 
 the door, and motioned him forward. At the 
 sight of a narrow, crooked passage, vaulted over 
 head, he hesitated an instant. " Come," she 
 said, laughing, 
 
 " On Heaven and on thy lady call, 
 And enter the enchanted hall !" — 
 
 And answering her, by going on with the 
 quotation, he crossed the threshold of his 
 present prison, I meekly following him. 
 
 Miss Eliza, tripping lightly along the flagged 
 passage, opened a door to the left, and showed 
 us into a small parlour : only one of the Smug- 
 glers accompanied us, and he was one of those 
 with whom we had held no previous commu- 
 nication — if indeed we had seen his face before. 
 Candles were on a table, but still pen, ink, and 
 paper did not appear ; our young hostess, how- 
 ever, promised to return with them ; and leav- 
 ing us a moment, came back, indeed, bearing a
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 235 
 
 nice rose-wood writing-desk, which she recom- 
 mended as her own ; and then she withdrew a 
 second time. 
 
 " You wait for this undertaking I 've pro- 
 mised .?" your brother asked of the mute though 
 not unobservant Smuggler. The man nodded, 
 politely, as no doubt he thought. Alexander 
 soon wrote it, read it out, and handed it to 
 him. " It was all right — but would Lieutenant 
 Graves be so good-natured as just to write 
 another line to his men, at the tower, telling 
 them to let young Geeson go before the magis- 
 trate, without delay ?" 
 
 " I can manage all that, myself," answered 
 Alexander, " as I shall be at my tower as soon 
 as any one else could get to it for me — tell 
 the little lad who drove us here that we are 
 ready for another ride.'' 
 
 " That little lad be gone home, Sir,"" said 
 the Smuggler. Your brother stormed unmea- 
 suredly at poor Master Fox. And what was to 
 be done, then ? Would the people of the house 
 we were in supply us with horses — or were there 
 any at hand — suppose in the hamlet we had 
 passed ? or could we be guided a-foot to his 
 tower ? How far was it off.''" 
 
 Six miles, by the shortest cut: though it
 
 236 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 made little difference how far or how near it 
 might be : surely Lieutenant Graves did not 
 think of seeing it again until an answer could 
 come to the letter he proposed writing to Lon- 
 don ? or until Sam Geeson was a free man, at 
 all events ? 
 
 Alexander now began to open his eyes, and 
 along with a good deal of exclamation, and of 
 reprehension of the whole gang of Smugglers, 
 demanded to know what was meant ? He was 
 forthwith satisfied. Sam Geeson was a person 
 much esteemed among his friends, on account 
 of many useful as well as good qualities, and 
 all who now interceded for him felt themselves 
 bound to get him out of trouble, without leav- 
 ing a doubt of failure. They could not even 
 tell but that Lieutenant Hood might inconve- 
 nience him with some old charges, if an ex- 
 ample were set ; or perhaps other folk ; who 
 could say ? — Besides, he was wanted, at pre- 
 sent, by some who occasionally gave him work 
 to do, on particular business; and in fact, it 
 had been resolved to befriend him in a down- 
 right in-earnest way. 
 
 Your brother now showed little of his former 
 vexation and impatience. His features became 
 resolutely composed, and bending a look on the
 
 THE SxMUGGLER. 237 
 
 Smuggler, he said — " I am unarmed — but let 
 me see if I shall be opposed in endeavouring to 
 leave this house : stand back, my lad." 
 
 He was passing to the door of the room. 
 The man offered no resistance, but quietly 
 besought him to listen to a word of reason. 
 Alexander stopped impatiently ; and the Smug- 
 gler went on. It had been voted, he said, and 
 was a settled thing, that he should not go at 
 large, at present ; and he would find himself 
 baffled in any attempt to regain his liberty. 
 For that night, and for the next day, and for 
 every night and day that he awaited an answer 
 to his London letter, people were to keep waiting 
 by the higli wall of the yard, without, and by 
 the walls of the gardens and the orchard of the 
 house, so as to watch him closely : and if he 
 did not remain content with his present lodg- 
 ings, why, they were to take him back to 
 Arthur's hole; that is, the very first time he 
 should try to escape. 
 
 " So — and Mr. Linnock, and his family are 
 to be my jailors .''" demanded your brother — 
 •' they connive at this impudent outrage .f^" 
 
 That was a mistake : both Mr. Linnock and 
 his brother, who lived along with him, were in 
 London on business, would stay there some
 
 238 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 time, — long enough for seeing out the present 
 arrangements, — and so could never have an 
 opportunity of interfering till every thing 
 should be settled peaceably, and, therefore, 
 no one ought to blame those gentlemen ; and 
 as to the young ladies of the house, it had 
 been represented to them by this time that 
 Lieutenant Graves and his friend, Mr. Mut- 
 ford, had particular reasons for wishing to 
 pass a few days in close retirement in the 
 country, and would trespass on their hospi- 
 tality in consequence ; and, doubtless, the 
 young ladies, with their mother''s consent, 
 would behave genteelly ; and the speaker was 
 sure that Lieutenant Graves was too much of 
 a gentleman to give any other account of the 
 transaction to the Miss Linnocks, so as to 
 frighten them and their mother, and also an- 
 other young lady, — a perfect lady, indeed, — 
 who lodged in the house, to say nothing of 
 the maid-servants ; and surely no more need 
 be said to show that every thing had been done 
 for the best with a view to the Lieutenant's 
 
 comforts; and 
 
 With an impatient and contemptuous word 
 your brother at length broke short the orator's 
 discourse, and issued from the room. I closely
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 239 
 
 followed him. We met no interruption in the 
 passage, now dark, nor at the outer door, nor 
 yet in the yard, excepting a proposed attack 
 of the three or four ravenous watch-dogs of 
 monstrous breed, who were checked and drag- 
 ged back by persons issuing from a stable built 
 within the walls of the yard. At the gateway, 
 by which we had entered the premises from the 
 open country, some demur occurred, however. 
 Its neglected gate now appeared closed, and 
 well though rudely secured, and half-a-dozen 
 men stood beyond the bars ; Alexander and 
 I strove to open it, it baffled our effort; he 
 called out to the men, who looked on silently, 
 to assist him. 
 
 " They had no orders," they answered, 
 
 " Let 's climb," he resumed. 
 
 " No one wants to hurt you. Sir," said a 
 voice; " but don't you climb, if you bayn't 
 mad to get back to Arthur's hole." 
 
 " Rascals ! I 'll have my turn yet, at you 
 all !" said Alexander, looking impatiently round 
 the formidable wall which encompassed us. * 
 
 " Oh, no. Sir ; you '11 think better of it," 
 replied another man, as we hastily walked back 
 to the house. The entrance-door was open, as 
 we had left it, and in a few seconds we again
 
 240 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 confronted the pertinacious plenipotentiary of 
 the smugglers in the little parlour. 
 
 " Well, Sir ; I will write my letter to Lon- 
 don, and that 's all,"" said your brother. 
 
 " And the line or two for the tower, Sir ?" 
 
 " Not a word ; let that young bravo take 
 his chance ; and, at least, I shall not be the 
 fool to set him at large while you dare to keep 
 me as a prisoner." 
 
 " There 's our word of honour, Lieutenant 
 Graves, " 
 
 Your brother laughed out, suddenly and 
 heartily, and " Confound your impudence !" 
 he said ; " but no matter, begone about your 
 business, and let me write at once to London." 
 
 " I 'm to wait for the letter, Sir." 
 
 " You are !" and Alexander stared, and was 
 again growing stern and angry. 
 
 "Yes, Sir; just to see that it will give no 
 hint of where your friends might find you, sup- 
 posing them of a mind to get you, by the 
 strong hand, instead of exchanging you for poor 
 Sam." 
 
 In fact, our resolute captors would have their 
 way ; and Alexander at length handed an open 
 letter to the fellow, obtaining his promise to 
 seal and forward it by post as soon as it should
 
 THE SMUGGLER 241 
 
 have undergone the scrutiny of the friends of 
 Master Geeson. 
 
 We were then left alone ; and your brother, 
 when he had once or twice consulted my face, 
 resumed his merriment. I joined him, and 
 we absolutely enjoyed our situation, the Miss 
 Linnocks and all. 
 
 " And what next ?" he said to me ; " what 
 are we to be ordered to do next .?" 
 
 " A bit of supper, gentlemen ?*" almost an- 
 swered Miss EHza Linnock, tripping in ; " you 
 are fatigued, by all I hear, and stand in need 
 of it. Pray allow me to ask your company into 
 the next room, where my mother and my sister 
 wait to have tiie pleasure of being introduced 
 to you ; and we are all happy to see you, and 
 regret that our father and uncle are not at 
 home to say so too : pray oblige us." 
 
 With a side glance to me, Alexander arose 
 forthwith, graciously offered his arm, and led 
 the lady out ; I followed as I might. We 
 entered a spacious though not lofty old-fash- 
 ioned apartment, where a well-hghted and well- 
 furnished supper table incontrovertibly appeared 
 in smihng readiness; it was even tastefully as 
 well as substantially laid out. An elderly, 
 plain-habited, homely-mannered, sensible, mo- 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 242 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 therly, housewifely-looking woman sat at the 
 head ; and Miss Linnock, wearing a fashionable 
 evening-dress, like her sister, that is, — for I 
 dread falling into mistakes, — one that left her 
 neck and arms as bare as possible, stood at 
 the grand piano-forte, of which the music had 
 blessed our ears the moment we got a near 
 view of the house, carelessly and not unskil- 
 fully touching the keys. Duly were we pre- 
 sented by Miss EHza, and with all ceremony 
 and graciousness did we take our places ; and 
 then, with the appetites of young and destitute 
 sharks, did we engage the good things on the 
 table, good wines and all ; and I call your 
 brother to witness that they were good, and 
 French, and befitting the season, and one of 
 them champagne, and of god-like quality. 
 
 Miss Linnock was some sad years the senior 
 of our first specimen of the family ; and whe- 
 ther on that account, or from natural character, 
 grave and well-governed accordingly. Yet she 
 smiled too, but it was in a merely good-natured 
 fashion, mixed up, perhaps, with a little more 
 rustic and homely consciousness than troubled 
 her sister, fresh home from a boarding school — 
 a " finisher." The old mamma did not smile at
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 243 
 
 all, but on the contrary sighed (though I do 
 not say her daughters never sighed at all) as if 
 her honest housewifely heart were oppressed 
 with calculations of the business of to-morrow. 
 But no matter. Your brother and I devoured 
 and hob-nobbed, and laughed, and said capital 
 things, just as if we had been born for that 
 very night and that very situation. And re- 
 nounce your friend for ever, if Mrs. Linnock 
 did not give a toast — " The gentlemen's healths, 
 and escape from all troubles V and if Miss 
 Eliza did not add, with a racy look and air 
 of coquetry, at your brother — " and the other 
 poor gentleman's speedy recovery, and may the 
 lady be grateful to her champions !" (thus in- 
 sinuating her knowledge of our reasons for 
 living incog., a few days in the country !) and 
 if — at I don't know, and who cares, what a 
 o'clock — Alexander and I didn't go sinsring 
 into our comfortable bed-rooms — the former 
 having kissed Miss Eliza before her own and 
 her mother's and her sister's faces, ere we 
 turned up stairs. 
 
 Now there 's an evening, or rather a night 
 and a scrap of a morning for you, after all our 
 pei-ils of the cliff, the sea, and Arthur's hole. 
 
 M 2
 
 244 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 And the first sound I heard in the morning was 
 emitted by your brother, laughing till I feared 
 he was hysterical, in his bed, (separated from 
 mine only by a thin partition,) over the suc- 
 cessively coming recollections of the recently- 
 ])assed. And here I must stop, dear Graves, 
 to go to supper again, upon the second evening 
 of our happy captivity. To-morrow morning 
 I shall continue — perhaps in a changed tone, 
 for I have, indeed, a changed subject before 
 me. 
 
 Yes, dear Graves, changed indeed, as, from 
 experience and misgivings of myself, I prophe- 
 sied last night. And yet this is caused as 
 much perhaps by exhaustion of spirits, of mere 
 animal spirits, as by distinct occurrence ; and 
 yet, again, I am not sure of that. 
 
 Man's bosom — read it for him some angel ! — 
 assuredly he cannot read it for himself : or, are 
 the bosoms of all or of most other men calmly 
 legible to their own eyes, and mine, alone, 
 a blur, or a Sibyl's leaf to me ? I have called 
 what I now allude to, a pleasing event — is it ? 
 I cannot answer, if 'tis of myself I ask the 
 question ; nor can you, without some informa-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 245 
 
 tion, if 'tis of you I ask it. Well : a few 
 words will be enough — oh, in how very few can 
 the most swelling and fateful haps of life ever 
 be told ! Life itself ! two words describe its 
 (perhaps) only two important acts — its act of 
 
 living, and its act of dying — and then 
 
 But I am an ass. I write myself down one, 
 without waiting for the contingency of Dog- 
 berry's aspirations; that is, for you to do it, 
 Graves : and, to make an end, it is — to be sure 
 it is — a woman ! and I need not have told you ; 
 you guessed it before ; the " other lady — the 
 perfect lady, indeed, who lodged in the house f 
 young, not beautiful, but better than that ; of 
 lower stature than — than Miss Eliza Linnock ! 
 and yet Alps above her : quiet, smiling, 
 thoughtful ; an informed and self-knowing 
 spirit of good and of power ; sunshine upon 
 me, dear Graves ! Rich, gentle spring sun- 
 shine, out in a leafy place, all freshly dyed with 
 green ; my only other comforting, till I met 
 her, since 
 
 No; I have stopped to think (for the first 
 time.'' answer, yourself) — and love has not 
 burst the grave; that unnamed, that nameless 
 grave ! 
 
 I will be a note-taker, simply, for you, dear
 
 246 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Richard. Yesterday morning we — that is, 
 your brother and I, and the Misses Linnock ; 
 their mother was " busy about the house — ^" 
 seemed to wait breakfast for some one. We 
 stood at a window, which, looking across the 
 yard, commanded a door in a side wall, that, 
 as I was told, led into the garden. That door 
 opened, and she appeared, followed by an 
 elderly female, an attendant or companion, ap- 
 proaching the house. " Oh, here they come, at 
 last !" cried Miss Eliza ; " and now for break- 
 fast." Almost as she spoke they entered the 
 room. Our young ladies curtsied, and wished 
 " good morning to Lady Ellen ! and to Mrs. 
 Planche; and hoped Lady Ellen's health was 
 better ; and that her walk in the garden had 
 asreed with her ;" and gentle and oblisfinfj 
 answers came from both the persons addressed, 
 and to breakfast Ave sat down. 
 
 Our hilarious spirits, and almost romping de- 
 meanour, underwent a correction. It was not 
 reserve on the part of the new-comers which 
 effected this ; for, though they sat close toge- 
 ther, and rather detached from us all, at table, 
 reserved they were not : no, but it was the dif- 
 ferent kind of thought, and feeling, and manner.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 247 
 
 which they brought into the room, and which 
 imperceptibly spread over us hke a fresh air — 
 a new atmosphere. Lady Ellen put down at 
 her side a little volume which she had been 
 reading in the garden. Miss Eliza, aware of 
 its contents, spoke of their merits a little flip- 
 pantly, but not very ignorantly, nor in a tone 
 of assumed equality of intellect : lier lodgers 
 replied ; I hazarded an opinion ; it was not 
 treated superciliously, or with neglect ; the 
 topic continued ; changed ; I felt myself talk- 
 ing in the way that you sometimes praise, dear 
 Graves ; and it was long after breakfast before 
 Lady Ellen and her highly-intelligent compa- 
 nion left us, to withdraw into the apartments 
 sacred to them in the house. 
 
 I did not laugh much when they had gone. 
 I wanted to ask questions about them, but the 
 state of my acquaintance even with the Misses 
 Linnock scarce permitted such a liberty. Miss 
 Eliza supplied, however, some information, im- 
 asked. 
 
 " Poor Lady Ellen ! it was a sad thing to 
 see her separated from her family, on account 
 of ill-health, and the doctor's recommendation 
 to live in pure country air, and lead the quietest
 
 248 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 life possible, for some time ; to be sure, she 
 was well attended by Mrs. Planche and her 
 own servants, and Mrs. Linnock and her daugh- 
 ters did all they could to make her comfortable ; 
 still the poor young lady must often feel quite 
 sad and downcast, and no wonder." 
 
 " But Lady Ellen was visited by her friends V 
 I conjectured. 
 
 " Why, yes, by her father and younger bro- 
 ther, now and then." 
 
 " And by her mother and sisters, of course .''" 
 
 " Oh, her mother was dead; and, as to her 
 sisters, they are most generally out in the world, 
 — in town, — at least they had been, for the few 
 months of Lady Ellen*'s residence in the coun- 
 try : their health required no looking after.,'''' 
 Miss Eliza added, expressively glancing at 
 Miss Linnock. 
 
 " Nor other people's health, perhaps, if the 
 truth were known, Eliza,'" remarked Miss Lin- 
 nock ; and then, with a laugh. Miss Eliza 
 changed the subject, calling on Alexander, who 
 amused himself opening and shutting her reti- 
 cule, to tell her the names and qualities of her 
 cabinet of shells. 
 
 A little devil of restlessness — one of my
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 249 
 
 attendant cloud of them — took possession of me. 
 Here was an insinuation that the young Lady 
 Ellen — I believe she is not seventeen — had been 
 sent into retirement by her family upon the 
 pretence, only, of ill-health ; " and certainly she 
 does not look to be an invalid." 
 
 I added — her friends then must have had 
 some reason for displeasure against her — what 
 reason ? — how could one so young, so gentle, 
 so intellectual, and, to all seeming, so good, 
 offer them a sufficient one ? — An attachment 
 contrary to their wishes ? My spirit started, as 
 if at a reptile in its path, and I valorously and 
 very sensibly hated and longed to kill some one — 
 I could not exactly tell myself who : and so con- 
 tinued, till I caught a sight of my foolish, ay, 
 and plain, face, in a mirror, and then I laughed 
 at Michael Mutford in my sleeve, and turned 
 on my heel from him to a window, leaving your 
 brother and Miss Eliza at their conchology, in 
 a far corner of the room ; Miss Linnock had 
 withdrawn, also to be " busy about the house," 
 I presume. 
 
 " The only rational curiosity I ought to in- 
 dulge," said I, " would lead me to ask, who are 
 her friends.'*" but this point her young hostesses 
 
 M 5
 
 250 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 had seemed to shun, else why not have prattled 
 on it? surely nothing but good reasons could 
 have stopped them ? — and again I felt it would 
 be impertinent in me to question any one upon 
 the subject. Suppose I put it all out of my 
 head, as a matter I really had very little to do 
 with ? and Alexander offered me the opportu- 
 nity by tapping me on the shoulder, and speak- 
 ing; for Miss Eliza, in a little fit of displeasure, 
 I believe, at something he had said or done, 
 had now followed her sister. 
 
 " A joke's a joke, Mutford,"" he said, " and I 
 can give and take, in that way, as well as any 
 one : and 'tis pleasant enough living here, into 
 the bargain, if one had time for that agreeable 
 girl ; but it strikes me I ought not to sit down 
 quietly, this morning, without another attempt 
 to return to my duties ; so, come out with me ; 
 and if these smuggling, humbugging scoundrels 
 still present a really overpowering force, or if 
 there be really no way of eluding them, or of 
 sending word to my friends on the coast, or 
 to a magistrate, why then, I suppose, we must 
 await my letter from London, and laugh away 
 the interval as well as we can, with the still 
 more pleasing prospect of having, in it, and in
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 251 
 
 some occurrences that have gone before it, food 
 for laughing at, any time during our life to 
 come." 
 
 We sallied out into the yard, accordingly. 
 Our first observation told us that the high wall 
 which surrounded it afforded but one egress into 
 the open country : the gate, namely, at which 
 we had tried our skill the night before. We 
 approached that : it was still well fastened, and 
 seven or eight men, divided into two groups, 
 appeared lounging near it. Again your brother 
 called to them to allow us to pass. They kept 
 their backs turned, as if tender of their faces, in 
 the daylight, and said nothing, but contented 
 themselves and him by shaking their heads. 
 
 " I ""11 try them, however," he said ; " they 
 surely will not kill me, at a blow," — and with 
 great agility, he clambered over the gate, and 
 jumped down, on the outside. Three of the 
 men instantly seized him ; and without a word 
 in reply to his loud words, put him over the 
 gate again, and dropped him at my side. The 
 moment this was done, they stepped quickly 
 out of our view to one side of the gate ; its piers 
 and the wall hiding them ; and gave him to un- 
 derstand, that for this time, and just to allow
 
 252 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 him leisure to know what was for his good, they 
 would ffive him his choice between Mr. Lin- 
 nock's house and Arthur's hole; but warned 
 him not to cross bounds again. 
 
 We saw some other men and boys looking at 
 and enjoying this scene from the door and win- 
 dow of the sohdly-constructed stable in a corner 
 of the yard. Alexander walked to them, and 
 made a lively appeal to their sense of justice, 
 and to their fear of God and of the laws, and as 
 the servants of an honest man, Mr. Linnock, 
 and demanded their assistance in recovering his 
 liberty. The fellows now kept their faces very 
 grave, and assured him, that they, themselves, 
 were afraid of opposing the strange men abroad 
 — people from Rye, they believed, or some 
 place a good way oflP: and they too had been 
 advised not to pass the gate, or out of the pre- 
 mises : and the house stood in so lonely a spot, 
 it would be impossible to escape for help, with- 
 out being overtaken ; and moreover, they did 
 not like to frighten the ladies within, by letting 
 them know that they were surrounded by a 
 gang of smugglers, " desperate chaps, what did 
 not care what they did ;" and Mr. Linnock's male 
 servants declared, in fact, that they could only
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 253 
 
 wait in hopes of their master's return ; but if 
 we were all to be kept in such a state of alarm 
 till that event should occur, then, at least, we 
 would all be righted. 
 
 Alexander, imposed upon by this rigmarole, 
 bent his steps towards the door leading into the 
 garden, protesting that any thing so lawless and 
 audacious he could not imagine as of possible 
 occurrence in England ; any thing so audacious 
 and so ridiculous, together: a house absolutely 
 besieged by a set of smugglers, and the ser- 
 vants of it bullied into passiveness, and not 
 allowed to pass its gate, and he, Alexander, 
 and I, his friend, thrust into it, and made pri- 
 soners in it, upon false pretences, and its family 
 blinded, as to the real cause of our intrusion, 
 and prevailed upon to set their wits on end 
 to entertain us. And here he very gravely 
 asked me if I really thought that the mere 
 fear of terrifying the Misses Linnock and their 
 mother, and the lady lodgers, ought to keep 
 us from telHng the truth to Miss Eliza, and 
 requesting her aid in restoring ourselves to the 
 world .'* 
 
 I believe it was simply a fear on Lady 
 Ellen's account which made me, at the moment.
 
 254 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 as solemnly assure him that I thought we were 
 in honour and gallantry bound (though Heaven 
 knows how I should have reasoned the case, 
 had he asked me) to abide for the present by 
 the arrangements made by our captors. But 
 I was rather surprised at Alexander's credulity, 
 and could only explain it to myself by calling 
 to mind that he was new, very new, in the 
 coast service, and in the study of the ways and 
 wiles and ramifications of smuggling, on a large 
 scale. For my own part, I did not entertain 
 a doubt of our true situation ; nay, I had no 
 hesitation on the subject before we left the 
 little parlour, the previous evening. The plan 
 of imposing a false story on Miss Ehza, her 
 mother and sister, had sounded hollowly and 
 vainly in my ears, the moment our diplomatic 
 smuggler spoke the words : the insinuation, 
 through the medium of toasts, at our good 
 supper, that the family believed such a ro- 
 mance, did not deceive me, either ; and, in 
 plain words, I conjectured we were in Mr. 
 Linnock's house, with Mr. Linnock's knowledge, 
 and with that of his matronly wife and his 
 clever daughters to boot, to say nothing of 
 his servants of doubtful, amphibious character ;
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 255 
 
 nor did I fully credit the anecdote of the 
 absence of that gentleman in London, on busi- 
 ness ; no, nor believe in my heart of hearts, 
 that the silk evening dresses of the Misses 
 Linnock, had paid, out and out, our good 
 King's duty. 
 
 And why not communicate ray suspicions to 
 Alexander ? For a reason that ought to be 
 somewhat obvious, dear Graves. Did he be- 
 lieve that he has been, and is entertained in 
 a smuggler''s strong-hold — by that smuggler's 
 family — and all in league with the men who 
 have dared to deprive him of his liberty, his 
 sense of duty, as the King's officer, if not any 
 other delicacy, would immediately suggest to 
 him the necessity of cutting himself off from 
 all friendly or social intercourse with Miss 
 Eliza, her sister, her mother, and every one 
 under her roof, and — since prisoner he must be 
 — of holding himself reserved, and stern, and 
 resentful, confined to his room perhaps, and, 
 in fact, passing a very disagreeable time of it : 
 and why need I enlighten him only to make 
 him miserable, particularly when his delusion 
 not only helps to cheer his lot, but also saves 
 him from the imputation of acting wrong, in
 
 256 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 allowing himself to be amused ? Besides, I 
 own an unwillingness to expose our kind host- 
 esses to the future inconvenience which must 
 result from his knowledge of what they are 
 in the eyes of the law, and of all men-o'-war's 
 men on the coast. Let him find out, at his 
 leisure, if he can, that he has been asking 
 little favours of a smuggler's younger daughter ; 
 I shall not be his informant : certainly not 
 now : and I do farther confess a hope that Mr. 
 Linnock and his amiable family may never 
 be dropped, by open discovery, and close 
 searching under the roof at present over us — 
 into the talons of his Majesty's exchequer : so 
 venial are their sins in my eyes. I wish, how- 
 ever, without robbing them, that I had the 
 value, in good current coin, of the smuggled 
 goods, " heavy" and " light," now in one house 
 with me. 
 
 So, when I confirmed Alexander in his 
 thoufrht of the unmanliness of tellino; Miss 
 Eliza that she was imposed upon — innocent 
 girl! — by the story of his having been seconded 
 bv me in a duel with a rival, upon a lady's 
 account, you see I Itad more reasons for my 
 disingenuousness than apprehension, called up
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 257 
 
 by a recollection of the young and truly un- 
 suspecting Lady Ellen. And yet, to save her 
 from a discovery of what an unfit retreat her 
 friends have chosen for her, while she is yet in 
 it, and surrounded by the most disagreeable 
 evidences of its unfitness, alone would certainly 
 make me avoid all debate of the question likely 
 to reach her ears. And upon this follows a 
 resolution as to the future. 
 
 I must now make it my business to ascertain 
 her name, and the residence of her friends, in 
 the view of putting them, by some indirect 
 hint, upon their guard against continuing her 
 where she is. Meantime, let us return to our 
 journal. 
 
 Alexander, after his useless appeal to the 
 men and lads in the stable, led the way into tlie 
 garden. It was a spacious one, though not 
 tastily arranged, the upper part of it being 
 devoted to flowers, the lower crowded with 
 substantial vegetables. The flowers, however, 
 seemed well taken care of, and among them 
 were some rare ones ; but that is not the sub- 
 ject at present. We found high walls on every 
 side of us here also ; I helped your brother 
 to climb one of them at the most practicable
 
 258 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 point, and by his conversation with certain 
 individuals on the outside, I learned that it 
 would be superfluous for him to jump over. 
 Indeed, we tried a similar experiment, with 
 the same results, at two or three other places 
 in the garden ; nay, we lifted the latch of a 
 chinky, crazy, old oak-door which led into an 
 extensive orchard, and still there were four 
 walls around us, and sentinels abroad watching 
 them. 
 
 " Then I '11 go make up my pretty little 
 quarrel with Miss Eliza," said Alexander ; 
 " will you join me, Mutford ?" 
 
 " No; you want no second in that affair. 
 I will stroll away an hour among these groves 
 of pear, apple, and cherry-trees," I said. 
 
 " Then help me to something uncommonly 
 handsome to begin upon with her." 
 
 " Ask her to twine your fetters all over and 
 over with roses." 
 
 *' The very thing ! — my fetters all over and 
 over with roses;" — and he left me to pursue 
 a new thought concerning him and his present 
 situation which had just begun to come into 
 my head. 
 
 " It is not merely to ensure Sam Geeson 
 against being prosecuted for riotous and dis-
 
 THE SiMUGGLER. 259 
 
 orderly conduct, that we are kept here,"" said 
 I to myself; " much esteemed as the youth 
 may be, such formidable measures would not 
 be lavished upon that consideration ; stop, — 
 is there never another luo-orer to run in ? or 
 was that which we half-surprised the other 
 night, quite " worked ^' before we came up ?" 
 
 For some time I dwelt upon these suspi- 
 cions; the lodgers in the house then re-occur- 
 red to me, and my surprise rose higher and 
 higher at finding such an individual as the 
 young Lady Ellen sent into such a retirement. 
 Why had not her friends put her under the 
 more seemly protection of persons of her own 
 rank ? Did they wish to hide her as well as 
 to banish her from among them ? And what 
 cause but one could she have given for such 
 mingled severity, unkindness, and mystery ? 
 Or what could possibly be their object but to 
 cut off the pursuit of some lover unworthy of 
 her, but whom she could not consent to for- 
 sake ? Yes, another surmise half arose to my 
 mind, but I flung it off in a rage against 
 myself for allowing it to tempt me ; it was, 
 however, — no, I will not breathe it ; not of 
 such a creature. 
 
 Through an opening among the fruit-trees
 
 260 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 I caught, over the garden-wall, a picturesque 
 view of the upper part of Mr. Linnock's 
 patched and piebald old mansion, with hills 
 behind it, and light and shadow so playing 
 upon the whole, as to form a tolerably good 
 subject for a sketch. And I longed to sketch 
 it ; and assuring myself that Miss Eliza, the 
 owner of an elegant rose-wood writing-desk, 
 and of a shell glass-case, and half owner of a 
 grand piano, could accommodate me with a 
 scrap of drawing-paper and a black-lead pencil, 
 I went into the house to see. Nor was I dis- 
 appointed : it interrupted her tete-a-tete with 
 your brother only half a minute to put these 
 matters into my hands, and I returned to the 
 orchard, sat down on the grass, and began my 
 outline. 
 
 I must have been at work some time, for 
 I had nearly done the sketch, finishing it 
 pretty highly too, when I heard female voices 
 near me, though I could not see the speakers. 
 The accents of one were grave, impressive, con- 
 soling, and tender, alternately ; those of the 
 other complaining and sad. I had not time 
 to listen long before they became visible to me, 
 having cleared the groups of trees at first be-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 261 
 
 tween us, and I saw Mrs. Planche and Lady 
 Ellen walking slowly, arm in arm. My eyes 
 became immediately riveted on my drawing. 
 They must have quickly observed me, for they 
 suddenly stopped speaking, and, I believe, 
 walking too. Pi-esently, however, I heard 
 the soft noise of their feet in the grass, and 
 they approached me, Mrs. Planche asking per- 
 mission to look at my sketch. I got up, 
 bowing profoundly, I believe, and holding the 
 paper in one hand and my hat in the other. 
 Much praise of my pencil then met my ear ; 
 and the plaudits of one of my critics, and her 
 voice while she vouchsafed them, made me 
 almost swear to give up the tragic for the 
 graphic muse during my present endeavours 
 to earn money by my wits. Graves, do you 
 think me a first-rate artist ? 
 
 Hitherto I had scarce looked into her face; 
 she sighed wofully, and then I glanced up. 
 Her arm was round Mrs. Planche's neck, who 
 held the drawing, her head touching the good 
 lady's shoulders, and tears trembled under her 
 downcast lids, as she intently observed my 
 production. She sighed again, and almost in 
 a continuation of the exquisite sound, said,
 
 262 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " Very beautiful, indeed, dear Planche ; how 
 like what poor Augustus used to do !" 
 
 No matter what had been my ridiculous 
 feelings, this tender praising of another man 
 because / drew prettily, soon changed them 
 into gall : and I knew not what I was going 
 to say or do, when dear Planche, seemingly 
 as much inconvenienced as I was, though 
 in a different way, by the allusion to poor 
 Augustus, rapidly remarked — " Yes, ray love, 
 — but come, come" — and then handing me 
 my drawing, and returning thanks, in which 
 Lady Ellen joined, she led the imprudent re- 
 miniscent rather abruptly to the garden. They 
 were not out of hearing, however, before the 
 young mourner allowed another expressive sen- 
 tence to reach my attentive ears. " Oh Planche, 
 where have they sent him ? and will they never 
 let us see each other again V and then I am 
 sure, I heard a fit of weeping. 
 
 You may be assured that these words, not to 
 talk of finishing my sketch, fully kept me oc- 
 cupied till dinner-time, so that Alexander had 
 a clear stage for me. There was now no doubt 
 that I had been right in the mildest at least of 
 my conjectures of the cause of offence given by
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 263 
 
 the gentle recluse to her family ; and will you 
 believe that I imagined myself as angry with 
 her as any one of them could have been, accord- 
 ingly ? — Yes, you will believe it of me, for 
 vou begin to know me : to know of what a 
 shakins; tofjether of the odds and ends of all 
 human inconsistencies Michael Mutford is com- 
 pounded. 
 
 But was this all I have had to puzzle me and 
 keep me oscillating, yesterday ? No, indeed. 
 Something happened at dinner, or rather im- 
 mediately after dinner — which then utterly sur- 
 passed, and now utterly surpasseth my com- 
 prehension. 
 
 "iMr. Mutford, Mr. Mutford !" — repeated 
 Miss Ehza Linnock, after your brother had 
 asked me to take wine — ('twas white hermitage, 
 Graves, worthy of the house we were in) — 
 " Mutford — Mutford" — she went on, thought- 
 fully pausing; and here I observed that her 
 lodgers looked attentively at me, and expres- 
 sively at each other — "Mutford — Mutford! — 
 excuse me. Sir, on so slight an acquaintance — 
 but, — any thing to the Mutfords of Hastings or 
 Brighton, pray .^" — (honest smugglers, I reckon.) 
 
 Pardoning the little impertinence — for I be-
 
 264? THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 lieve I have not courage enough to resent those 
 kind of freedoms, I answered that I did not 
 think I had any relations so far south in 
 England. 
 
 " Oh, then, Sir, we may call you a North- 
 Briton ? I guessed as much, once or twice, 
 from a slight peculiarity in your accent.*" 
 
 " Not quite so far North, either," I said — 
 " though I admit the slight peculiarity in my 
 accent ; I am a Yorkshireman." 
 
 " Of a Yorkshire family. Sir ?" demanded 
 Lady Ellen, almost out of breath. 
 
 " Yes, Madam ; the Mutfords of — (once upon 
 a time) Mutford Abbey." 
 
 With a whispered but earnest expression of 
 surprise and interest, she turned to her elderly 
 friend ; I caught a cautionary glance and ac- 
 tion, though the latter was scarce perceptible, 
 directed by that person to her ; she checked 
 herself ; bent her head ; grew very pale — she 
 had been very red ; — and a few minutes after, 
 both ladies withdrew. 
 
 Now, Graves, expound me that. I have laid 
 it under my pillow, and cogitated it, and queried 
 it, almost the whole of the last live-long night, 
 and can make nothing out of it, positively
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 265 
 
 nothing : not as much as the shadow of a sur- 
 mise. Why should Michael Mutford, sometime 
 of Mutford Abbey, Yorkshire, startle, and make 
 red, and white, and banish from her dessert, 
 Lady Ellen — xohoml That's the plain ques- 
 tion. Or rather, there are two questions in 
 one, for you. Who is she that I interest — that 
 I am something to, — I know not what ? Dear 
 Augustus, unknown to myself, in a state of 
 transmigration ? or what ? — or have I had a 
 dear friend in him, and has he made his ears 
 famihar with my name and my praises? — Let 
 me think. No. The only Augustus I ever 
 knew personally was Augustus Ceesar, our poor 
 old black, who followed us from the West 
 Indies; and he could not have been — before 
 he died, last winter, of a rheumatic fever — the 
 Othello of this gentle Desdemona. 
 
 In earnest, Graves, the circumstance much 
 engrosses me, and you will not wonder. And I 
 will find her out, — that I am determined upon; 
 ay, although she and her female Mentor have 
 not appeared at supper last night, nor at break- 
 fast this morning; and although the Misses 
 Linnock now plainly indicate that they had 
 rather not discourse of their lodger by name, 
 
 VOL. I, N
 
 266 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 having their tongues tied up— (who could ima- 
 gine it possible !) by some arrangement with 
 her avoiding family. 
 
 I '11 tell you. Graves. I do think that I 
 have a kind of right, — at least, am rather at 
 liberty, without getting myself deeply entan- 
 gled in the hateful silk gossamer meshes of 
 delicacy, — to request to be informed by what 
 means Lady Ellen Unknown has become aware 
 of my existence ; or why a man of my name 
 being alive seems to frighten her away from 
 table. And so, upon the very next tolerable 
 opportunity — by the fates and the mysteries, 
 and I have such a one already ! — this moment 
 they pass arm and arm into the garden; I am 
 after them. 
 
 •K ^F ^V '"ff 
 
 Returned from the garden, dear Graves ; 
 have addressed her, have been answered, and 
 stand more confounded than ever. Is she 
 mad ? Horrible, horrible suspicion ! Yet, is 
 she — and is her strange seclusion and separa- 
 tion from her family, whoever they are, thus 
 accounted for ? Or upon what other grounds 
 can I solve the earnest though vaguely ex- 
 pressed — and by me not at all understood—
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 267 
 
 notions which she has taken up with respect 
 to me ? 
 
 The whole thing has not lasted five minutes ; 
 I saw her and her companion as soon as I en- 
 tered the garden ; and they saw me at the 
 same instant, for their eyes turned to me very 
 expressively. Then Lady Ellen bent her looks 
 on the ground, standing still, and holding 
 Mrs. Planche's arm tight, so as to keep her 
 stationary also. I walked up to them in some 
 agitation, I suppose, saluted them at a little 
 distance, and before we were quite close toge- 
 ther began, 
 
 " May I take the liberty. Madam, " 
 
 " Mr. Mutford," she interrupted, " do not, 
 pray do not address me in that cold deferential 
 manner ; it pains me, indeed it does ; do not 
 talk of taking liberties ; do not fear, — think, I 
 mean, — you can do so in any thing you choose 
 to say, even though I decline answering — for 
 the present — all you may say ; for it is I who 
 ought to defer to you, to be in awe of you, 
 while we converse a moment together : — how- 
 ever. Sir," she went on in a hurried manner, 
 catching her breath, I standing a model for 
 Katerfelto, " it may be better not to propose 
 
 N 2
 
 268 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 any questions to me until a future occasion, 
 much better. I believe I know what you wish 
 to ask about, and that 's the reason I request, 
 supplicate your forbearance ; — pray hear me 
 out, — there can be no harm in my asking a 
 question oi you, and I am sure you will reply 
 to me ; will you not, Sir .?" 
 
 I stammered out something. 
 
 " Thanks, much obliged to you ; here is my 
 question, then, for you." 
 
 And here it is for you, Graves; and what 
 think you of it ? 
 
 " How is that excellent and injured man, 
 your father ?" 
 
 I said he had long been ill, but I hoped was 
 gradually getting better. 
 
 " Oh, I am very glad to hear you say so ; 
 — v.ill you allow me to go on.'' You have a 
 sister, Mr. Mutford ? a good, charming, en- 
 chanting creature, I am told ; and she, too — is 
 she well ?'' 
 
 Again I answered as aptly as I knew, or 
 rather felt how. 
 
 " It gives me great and real pleasure to be 
 told that, also ; and now, Sir, a last freedom, 
 — where does your family reside at present !''
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 269 
 
 I named the village for her, the street, the 
 very house. She looked, — if her looks mean any 
 thing — if, I repeat, they convey any thing in 
 excitement but the vague glitter of madness, — 
 she looked much astonished, perhaps a little 
 alarmed, and exchanged a long and deep regard 
 with her companion, then ended thus, 
 
 " Well, Sir, good bye ; we may meet again, 
 — if I live, with God's help, we shall meet 
 again, — and I will pray to be made known to 
 your sister, and ask her to love me, that is, 
 after she has forgiven me: and you, too, Mr. 
 Mutford, and your father ; — oh, I could kneel 
 to your father ! — Farewell, Sir ; think as well 
 of me as you can, and ask your family to do 
 the same ; and of poor Augustus, too ; indeed. 
 Sir, we have never consciously injured you or 
 yours, and that may be proved some day. 
 Bless you, Mr. Mutford !" — Graves ! she held 
 out her hand, to me — " and pray, pray do not 
 insist on knowing my name while you stay in 
 this house !" and she walked rapidly out of 
 the garden. 
 
 As I stood gazing, and, I suppose, gaping 
 after her, Mrs. Planche added a few words, 
 which completed my consternation.
 
 270 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " Mr. Mutford," she said, laying her hand 
 on my arm, and looking up into my face, 
 " be prudent, and take nothing for more than 
 its just value;" and she, too, parted quickly 
 away from me. 
 
 Now, Graves, what need I add to this."* 
 particularly as Miss Eliza has given me three 
 summonses to dinner. Will her lodgers, or, 
 I suppose, boarders rather, appear at table ? 
 * * * * 
 
 No, they keep their apartments ; " Lady 
 Ellen is a little indisposed," and, I suppose, 
 will meet me no more. So I must get out of 
 this house as fast as possible, in order to dis- 
 cover who she is ; — confound the smugglers ! 
 when, though ? I have no more to say to 
 you to-night, dear Graves, except it be right 
 to inform you that Alexander and I have twice 
 vainly repeated our attempts at the gate and 
 the walls, in the course of the day and even- 
 ing. Yes, I will own to his brother, that 
 since my suspicions of the master-motives for 
 keeping him here have sprung up in my mind, 
 I suffer considerable uneasiness at a question 
 often put to me by my conscience and my 
 honour, — " Michael, why don't you communi- 
 cate your bodings to Lieutenant Graves of
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 271 
 
 the blockade service ? is not your silence some- 
 thing like aiding and abetting smugglers in 
 their conspiracy and contrivances to throw him 
 off his guard and keep him from his duty ?" 
 
 I can only answer — " May I not be wrong 
 in my suspicions?" and then come in all my 
 former good arguments for holding my tongue 
 —or nearly all. And on one little point I have 
 enlightened him — ay, the instant after it began 
 to gleam in my own brain, which was but a 
 few hours ago — and utterly stupid have we both 
 been not to have seen it long ago- " Lieu- 
 tenant Graves," said I, " it just strikes me, 
 that the constables and the magistrate must 
 have applied at your tower for the body of 
 Samuel Geeson, early upon the morning after 
 his arrest; and your men would have had no 
 power to detain him, you know ; and so, if 
 the magistrate may not have happened to have 
 remanded him, till your appearance as pro- 
 
 secutor — " 
 
 " The rascal is now at large,^ and has been, 
 since yesterday morning? — But, if so — recollect- 
 ing that as it was only as hostages for him we 
 were kidnapped — if so, why are you and I pri- 
 soners, still.?"" 
 
 " That 's nearly the question I want you to
 
 272 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 consider," I replied. He looked thoughtful, 
 and reddened slightly. I left him, as night 
 began to fall, and as Miss Eliza il uttered in 
 to shine upon him instead of the day, first to 
 pen a few lines for you, dear Graves ; and se- 
 cond — and now that I have done — to steal out 
 into the garden, in what hope, you will con- 
 jecture. So, farewell for to-night, if I meet no 
 one : — till after supper, if I do.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 273 
 
 XII. 
 
 * 
 
 Wednesday morning — at home in my 
 own little writing-chamber. 
 
 I did meet some one in the garden, Graves, 
 and some one else, too, and another body, to 
 boot, and perhaps another still, to be candid 
 and particular with you. But neither of those 
 whom I had gone out to meet. And yet, per- 
 sons that keep me thinking a good deal. 
 
 Within the circles of time (goes it not so ?) 
 and of place, there are points in wait, as it 
 were, for every one of us, from the moment of 
 our birth — nay from their birth, the creation 
 of time and of place — to mark the era and the 
 whereabouts of that one event which above all 
 others shall mould and stamp future destiny. 
 But this is only putting an old common-place 
 
 N 5
 
 274 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 — indeed a hoary-headed adage, almost — in my 
 own convolved words, you will say. No matter, 
 since you understand me. Here is what I far- 
 ther mean : — that, the moment I entered Mr. 
 Linnock's house, / gained my points of time 
 and place, for the hereafter, I cannot help 
 thinking. For reasons you have heard, for 
 others you shall hear — if you may heed them — 
 I cannot help it. 
 
 I have told you that, when I stole into the 
 garden yester evening, night was falling. For 
 some time I walked slowly up and down the 
 least cleared, in fact, the grass-grown Avalks 
 running among the vegetables at the end ad- 
 joining the orchard. Here, my step must have 
 fallen lightly, so as not to have alarmed any 
 one who might be even rather close at hand. 
 Traversing the path which went directly by the 
 old chinky orchard-door, I fancied I heard low 
 and cautious voices, and thinking only of one 
 person, I trod on tip-toe to the door, and looked 
 through one of its rents. 
 
 A man of tall stature, great breadth of 
 shoulders, and respectably habited, stood with 
 his back to me: he was not two yards distant 
 from the door. Facing him, and of course me.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 275 
 
 was the girl, Martha Hugget. It was their 
 voices I had heard. They continued speaking 
 in a subdued key. For some instants, my shght 
 agitation at seeing them hindered me from 
 distinguishing their words, and the technicahty 
 of not a few of their phrases might also have 
 helped to confuse me. In a little time, how- 
 ever, after regulating my breathings, and steady- 
 ing myself in my position, I was able to overhear 
 something like the following. 
 
 " Yes, my maiden, though I can be sorry 
 enough for the old man"'s accident, it has told 
 well for one Lilly White ; you couldn''t have 
 quizzed Hood out of the round so easily as 
 the young 'un they sent in his place ; and by 
 that reckoning the Miss Molly might have had 
 more coasting holidays than she can afford." 
 
 "'Tis you I beheve. Sir; but don't forget 
 what I 've just bee^ a-saying of; Lilly ought 
 not to cross over the way no more ; there be 
 too much danger."" 
 
 " Why, yes ; he had but a short run for it 
 to the lugger t'other night, Martha, and trou- 
 ble enough to make shore since ; and I know 
 as well as you can tell me, that he could do as 
 much, if not more good, staying at home to
 
 276 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 prepare storage for the things ; but what is 
 he to do without a sharp 'un to chaffer with 
 the Parleys across the briney ? 'Twas all very 
 well while the young Don took a trip in his 
 stead ; d' you think we 're to see any more of 
 that chap, my maid ?" 
 
 " Hardly : he be too well looked after at 
 present, and the doctor gives leave for it, you 
 know." 
 
 " All nons'ns; the Don has no more need 
 of doctor's- stuff on that score than you have, 
 Martha, let people say as they like for their 
 own views." 
 
 " Besides, Sir, he never took to t'other trade 
 from love or liking for it, but just because it 
 came in his way that night we met him out 
 from home without a hat, and he jumped at 
 any thing to vex the great 'uns." 
 
 " Well, Martha, he has done t'other trade 
 some good, however, if he only holds staunch 
 now ; though I sometimes fear he may have 
 already got sorry and blown us." 
 
 " Never you mind, Mr. Lirwock,'''' — (I start- 
 ed, Graves, but something that soon followed 
 confounded me quite;) — " to-morrow, or after, 
 he mai/ peach, though I be blessed if I fear it ;
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 277 
 
 yesterday, or to-day, I will be upon oath he has 
 not said a word to harm us." 
 
 " How are you so sure, my little maid .?■" 
 
 " Think a minute, and you Ve no call to 
 ax. Sir. Who managed to have your house 
 favourably spoken of when they were in want 
 of respectable board and lodging for the lady ?" 
 
 " The Don, certainly." 
 
 " And why your house, Mr. Linnock .?"''' 
 
 *' Why, because he knew they wanted to 
 part him and her, and if the lady got here 
 he could see her, unknown to them, now and 
 then ; and so, — oh, yes, I 've a notion of what 
 you drive at now, Martha, — she is with us 
 still." 
 
 " To be sure ; and if he had gone to blab 
 all. Sir, she would be somewhere else : but it 
 be time the apprentice were with us, too, Mr. 
 Linnock ; the night's dark enough now for try- 
 ing to work the good 'uns we couldn't touch 
 t'other time, when the new blue-jacket came 
 up. You saw all right. Sir, about the spot, 
 a while ago .''" 
 
 " Ay, my maid ; or I couldn't be talking 
 here with you, you know ; and no time has 
 been lost since between master mate and me,
 
 278 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 to clear away, up-stairs ; so that, as you say, we 
 only wait for news from the apprentice — and 
 hush— isn't that he ?" 
 
 " It be," assented Martha, as a low and 
 cautious whistle sounded outside the garden 
 wall. 
 
 *' Come along, my lad," said Mr. Linnock, 
 whistling in answer. A man's head soon ap- 
 peared over the wall at the far end of the 
 orchard ; the next instant I saw Samuel Geeson 
 cautiously stealing through the fruit trees. His 
 carpenter's dress revealed him to me almost at 
 the first glance. 
 
 Mr. Linnock and Martha Hugget moved to 
 meet him : the trio stood still some distance 
 from the door, and I could not catch their 
 words. Yielding to my curiosity, I put my 
 ear to a chink : my position thus became an 
 awkward one ; I lost my balance, stumbled, 
 came with force against the door, burst it open 
 — perhaps it had not even been latched — and 
 fell on my hands and knees among the grass in 
 the orchard. 
 
 " Hollo !" whispered Mr. Linnock—" hollo !" 
 echoed the apprentice, and they helped me up 
 directly. Martha Hugget disappeared, I know
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 279 
 
 not whether into the gardens or among the 
 orchard-trees. 
 
 " What do you please to want on my pre- 
 mises this time of night, Sir ?" asked Linnock. 
 
 " Eh ? ah ?" queried Geeson, peering close 
 into my face ; " why it be one of 'em from the 
 house."" 
 
 " Mr. Mutford .^" continued Linnock : " ex- 
 cuse me, Sir ; but though you have been my 
 guest, as I am given to understand since my 
 return from town, this is the first time we have 
 met, you know — at least to my knowledge — and 
 I have but just returned, and, indeed, not yet 
 shown myself to my family ; but I hope they 
 make you comfortable, Mr. Mutford : and I 
 am sorry to hear that some people — " 
 
 " I say, Mr. Linnock," interrupted Geeson, 
 touching my host's elbow, after he had studi- 
 ously watched my face during this polite speech, 
 delivered by a man of a certain gentility, and 
 even grace of manner, too, and of a pre- 
 possessing expression of features, although, so 
 well as I could decide in the dark, those fea- 
 tures were remarkably lumpy, and went to make 
 up one of the blackest complexioned counte- 
 nances I had ever seen. He instantly turned
 
 280 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 an ear to Sam, who whispered him. They 
 withdrew a step or two from me, but between 
 me and the orchard door. I saw Mr, Linnock 
 become thoughtful : he bent his large, black 
 head, listening attentively, and once glanced at 
 me. In a few moments he came to my side 
 again, Geeson standing aloof. 
 
 " Well, Mr. Mutford." 
 
 "Well, Mr. Linnock; I am as thankful as 
 you know I ought to be for the hospitality of 
 your excellent family :"" — there was a shade of 
 emphasis in my words. He looked steadily 
 upon me. Meeting his eyes, I slightly smiled 
 to give him his cue, and he took it promptly. 
 
 " You are a gentleman, Mr. Mutford : tell 
 me one thing, on the word of a gentleman. 
 Were you long at that door before you fell 
 in to us here ?" 
 
 "I will save you another question,"" I replied, 
 
 " by the plainness of my answer 1 was ; and 
 
 long enough to hear a good deal that you and 
 Martha Hugget said together." 
 
 " Martha Hugget ?" he repeated, in feigned 
 or real surprise, either as if he wanted to deny 
 all knowledge of a person of that name, or 
 queried how / could have gained a knowledge 
 of her. 
 
 I
 
 THE SMUGGLER. , 281 
 
 " Yes, indeed," I went on ; " Martha Hug- 
 get, who came to Lieutenant Graves's tower to 
 exhort him to head all his men down to the 
 Anchor the other night, and afterwards was dis- 
 patched by Lilly White to engage hands among 
 some of us at the Anchor door." 
 
 " Lilly White ?" he again repeated, in tones 
 of increasing simplicity. 
 
 " Lilly White," I repeated in my turn, taking 
 off my hat, and bowing profoundly to his in- 
 veterately black beard, whiskers, eyebrows, hair, 
 and, if the darkness did not deceive me, 
 skin. When I recovered my upright position, 
 our eyes again met, very intelligently, and a 
 second time I smiled, but he was still posed 
 and watchful. " Come," I continued, " let 
 me set you at rest, if indeed you can value the 
 words of a gentleman — I mean you no harm. 
 I have had a notion, since I came here, how 
 matters stood, on every side of us, and yet it 
 has not occurred to me to make others as wise 
 as myself; now I am sure of more than I was 
 before I strolled into the garden this evening, 
 and still—" 
 
 " Mr. Mutford, ivas it the act of the gentle- 
 man you insist you are, and promise you will
 
 282 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 be, to — " so far Mr. Linnock got in his inter- 
 ruption ; I finished the sentence. 
 
 " To hsten to you and Martha at the door ? 
 Mr. Linnock, my good Sir, you must forgive 
 me that. My situation was a doubtful, if not 
 a perilous one ; at the mercy of your liege men 
 — mark, I do not say it is, now that I have 
 placed myself under the protection of a gen- 
 tleman whose fame — ." I was bowing down 
 to my knees again ; he smiled at last, nay, 
 chuckled, and took my arm, while he said, — 
 
 " Enough of it, enough of it, Mr. Mutford — 
 here, out of doors, I mean — but I request the 
 pleasure of your company in the house — Sam — " 
 the apprentice joined us — " say, very well, and 
 that old girl will take a run as soon as the 
 Lieutenant bids us good-night, for the round — 
 go along, now."" 
 
 Looking rather puzzled, perhaps, at receiving 
 his message in my presence, Geeson, after a 
 moment's pause, disappeared among the trees. 
 Mr. Linnock again pressed me to accompany 
 him towards his dwelling. I agreed. He led 
 me cautiously into the garden; there peered 
 round him to every side ; approached its door ; 
 avoided it, however, and turned to a corner of
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 283 
 
 the garden near the back wall of the house. 
 I saw him look down observantly at what 
 seemed to me only one of the oblong little 
 flower-beds, edged with box. He took a kind 
 of grappling-iron out of his pocket ; fast- 
 ened it in the edge that defined, at that place, 
 the gravelled walk upon which we stood ; pulled 
 with some eiFort, in a bent posture ; the flower- 
 bed moved to him, leaving its other three bor- 
 ders of box stationary ; and I was soon edified 
 with the sight of a few stone steps descending 
 into the wide aperture then disclosed, a dull 
 lamp burning at their foot. 
 
 " This is the way into the house, for the 
 present, Sir," he said ; " will you step down .''" 
 " We are goin^ to visit the store-rooms ?" I 
 asked, hesitating a little, I believe. 
 
 " Some of them may come in our way," he 
 replied, " for when obliged to decline any com- 
 pany I may not like, in the parlour, I am not 
 ashamed to spend a little time among my 
 goods." 
 
 " Show the way, then, for I fully rely on 
 you," I rejoined, following him. 
 
 " You may. Sir, when I do the same by 
 you," and Mr, Linnock restored the innocent
 
 284 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 flowers to their places, over our heads, descend- 
 ed the steps, and took up the dull lamp. 
 
 I found myself in a narrow passage of solid 
 stone-work. We trod softly onward, and ar- 
 rived at a small oak-door, strongly bolted, and 
 also locked, as was proved to me by Mr. Lin- 
 nock opening it with a small and curious key, 
 selected from a bunch, of which none were much 
 larger or less remarkably shaped. Passing the 
 door, he locked it again on the inside, and shot 
 other bolts, and now we were at the bottom of a 
 second flight of stone steps, more numerous, 
 however, than those leading from the garden, 
 and much narrower. We ascended, perhaps, 
 thirty of them, and stood in a kind of corridor, 
 tiled, and running to a great distance, at 
 either hand, and I thought, turning off" at an- 
 gles, in the remote darkness. Upon the walls 
 were shelves well stocked with bales, great and 
 small ; and no more than room for one person 
 to walk forward was left on the floor, so abun- 
 dant was the rich smuggler's stock of " heavy 
 articles," or " good 'uns," or, in still plainer 
 English, small tubs of eau-de-vie, and hollands* 
 Mr. Linnock held up his lamp and passed it from 
 right to left, over his head, looking gravely at me.
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 285 
 
 " I know,"" I said, " one of the store-rooms, 
 or the beginning of one — : pray, do we now 
 stand under the roof of your hospitable house?" 
 
 My conductor gave me to understand that we 
 did : " This," he added, laying his hand on the 
 wall to our right, " this is the outer wall of 
 my house." 
 
 " And Ma's," I said, laying my hand on the 
 confronting one, " is what ignorant people, 
 dwelling inside, suppose to be that ?" 
 
 He nodded assent. I proceeded to demand 
 if his ware-rooms had any communication with 
 the more inhabited apartments of his mansion, 
 and he informed me that most certainly they 
 had not. We resumed our progress, and arriv- 
 ed at one of the points where I had supposed 
 that the passage continued at an angle, but I 
 found I had deceived myself; it ended in a 
 straight line, and a step-ladder now invited us 
 to mount higher up. Again I was curious 
 enough to inquire if we could traverse, in this 
 manner, the whole extent of the house; but I 
 ought to have foreseen the silliness of the ques- 
 tion ; and he enabled me to do so, by remarking, 
 that a secret passage, like this, could be con- 
 trived with perfect avoidance of suspicion, in-
 
 286 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 side the gable- wall alone, where it would not 
 have to encounter the windows which afforded 
 light to the interior of the edifice. To make up 
 for the want of extent, in a continued line, how- 
 ever, I found, after ascending the step-ladder I 
 have mentioned, a second corridor, of dimen- 
 sions equal to the first — nay, by means of an- 
 other ladder, a third ; and still, goods met my 
 eye, in great quantities, and I doubted not, of 
 great value. 
 
 At the foot of yet another ladder, Mr. Lin- 
 nock left his sad lamp, for a flood of brilliant 
 light, falling through the square orifice we 
 were now about to climb to, rendered its mea- 
 gre aid no longer necessary. And when we had 
 mounted into the immediate influence of this 
 light, I found myself in a passage nearly three 
 times as wide as those we had left below, with 
 the bare joists and tiles of the house over our 
 heads, two chairs and a table in a clear space, 
 among heaps and a litter of bales and packages ; 
 a comfortable bed at either end of the apart- 
 ment — as, I suppose I must call it — large ac- 
 count books on shelves, and a glass lamp of 
 great magnitude hanging by a chain from the 
 roof. " Here, on a level with the hattocks," 
 observed Mr. Linnock, still whispering, " we
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 287 
 
 thought we could poach a little more room 
 without suspicion, than we durst venture on 
 lower down in the house, as a private bed might 
 be necessary, of an odd time." 
 
 " Your establishment is very complete/"* I 
 remarked, " and must have cost you some, 
 money." 
 
 "A trifle, Mr. Mutford; but it pays, Sir; it 
 pays, I thank Heaven." 
 
 " Has it yet been visited by any one you 
 didn't care to see in it .P" 
 
 " No, indeed, Sir, though such like folk as 
 you mean have now and then been inside, in 
 the house." 
 
 " Do you never fear that a secret, neces- 
 sarily confided to a great many, may be di- 
 vulged to your disadvantage .''" 
 
 " It is not confided to a great many, Mr. 
 Mutford ; along with my wife and daughters, 
 and my brothers, there is but one friend of 
 t'other trade could find out that flower-bed in 
 the garden for you." 
 
 " Martha Hugget ?" 
 
 " You have a guess, Sir." 
 
 " She must be paid well for her fidelity and 
 general good services." 
 
 " Why, yes ; but as much out of liking as to
 
 288 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 bribe her, and the little girl would be true if 
 she gained less — 'tis in her ; I call her a down- 
 right good un, Mr. Mutford ; besides, she has 
 her own reasons for doing her best for t'other 
 trade; she loves none that don't love it." 
 
 " Pray tell me her reasons.*" 
 
 " With all my heart; but take a chair, Sir; 
 
 and as I keep you from supper below "" he 
 
 did not end the sentence in words, contenting 
 himself with extracting a bottle of champaign 
 from a cupboard, laying glasses, untwisting 
 the wire, nicking the cord, touching the cork, 
 and helping me to a glass ; and when he had 
 pledged me in another, Mr. Linnock continued, 
 
 " Little Martha, you see, Sir, kept company, 
 ever since she was a girl of fourteen, with a 
 young man of the village, an honest, respectable 
 lad, and one I liked ; and I will say for him, as 
 clever a hand on the shingles of a dark night, 
 and plenty of work to do, as ever I had in pay. 
 Well, Sir, the Miss Molly was seen too near 
 shore one evening, and though she got off clear, 
 — as has always been her fortune, I thank Pro- 
 vidence — there was a bit of a row between some 
 men-o'-war's men and a few of our lads, and 
 Fred, fetched one of the blue-jackets what I
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 289 
 
 call rather a nasty knuckle somewhere between 
 the eyes ; and they had him up for it, and the 
 judge said he ought to be hanged, because, 
 d'you see, Sir, another man-o-war's man hap- 
 pened to have been shot at." 
 
 "And as the judge is generally a good opinion 
 in these cases," I said, " hanged Master Fred. 
 was, I presume .P"" 
 
 " Why no. Sir, not out-an-out. Interest was 
 made, and an excellent character — not better 
 than he deserved — given of Fred; and the 
 Irishman — these rough-an'-ready chaps on the 
 coast be almost all Paddies, Mr. Mutford — he 
 recovered from the shot, which was a mere 
 nothing to talk about, and none of Fred's busi- 
 ness into the bargain ; and so they forgave him 
 the swinging, and sent him to Van's land for 
 fourteen years ; and that 's why Martha Hug- 
 gett has no demur to lend a hand, now and then, 
 to t'other trade, Sir." 
 
 '• And I don't wonder, if she loved poor 
 Fred." 
 
 " Loved him better than her own eyes, and 
 he her the same ; they were to have been mar- 
 ried the very day he sailed, Sir ; and 'tis for 
 love to him that Martha has refused many a 
 
 VOL. L O
 
 'J 
 
 290 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 good offer since, and never goes for a walk with 
 our boys, like other girls of her age ; and I 'm 
 mistaken if she don't be off after him some day, 
 and soon ; only waiting to grow richer, I fancy.' 
 
 " Very disinterested of her not to weigh the 
 odium of marrying him against her preference 
 for him." 
 
 " Odium ? as how, Mr. Mutford ?"' 
 
 " Why, he is a transported convict." 
 
 " To be sure, as they call it, so he is : but, 
 bless you, Sir, we see no odium in that, here on 
 the coast, when it comes only of our lawful 
 business. Had Fred robbed, or cheated, or 
 committed any one crime, why then 'twould be 
 another thing, you know ; but it isn't his fault, 
 is it, if people will punish him, just as if he 
 had, Mr. Mutford.'' Odium! — I should like 
 to hear Martha talk of that, and her own bro- 
 ther come home from a seven years' trip only 
 the other day. For that matter, few of the 
 honestest families in her street have escaped — 
 ('tis a dangerous trade. Sir, is t'other trade, now 
 and then.) — escaped bad treatment on the same 
 account. People call me a fortunate man, Mr. m 
 
 Mutford, and I don't mean to deny as much ; I 
 
 but I myself — (allow me to fill for you. Sir,) *
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 291 
 
 — I have a brother abroad these thirteen years, 
 and he 's to stay abroad for life, they say." 
 
 " And perhaps your chief motive for trading 
 with the Miss Molly, has been supplied by 
 their harsh conduct towards that brother, Mr. 
 Linnock ?' 
 
 This harmless question produced a surprising 
 change in the smuggler. Hitherto my regards 
 had been fixed on a face (the blackest, even in 
 the full light of the lamp, as well as the broad- 
 est, and in every way the largest, I had ever 
 seen among that race of mankind called white,) 
 of which the heavy brows, small eyes, pursy 
 forehead, and wide, thick-lipped mouth, pre- 
 sented only a plodding, in-earnest, dullishly- 
 clever, (will you accept the compound.'') and 
 absolutely honest expression. Now, Mr. Lin- 
 nock suddenly raised his immense head, open- 
 ed his eyes, allowed his brows to descend 
 slowly into a scowl, and drew in his lips and 
 shut them hardly, ere he replied to me in two 
 words only — " No, Sir." 
 
 " Do not let me innocently hurt you or 
 offend you," I said : " I withdraw my question, 
 if it is too free." 
 
 " 'Tis not too free, Mr. Mutford, since we
 
 292 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 sit here together ; it does not offend me ; and 
 if it hurts me, that 's no fault of yours. But I 
 tell you. No, Sir : — it was not the misfortune of 
 the brother I \e spoken of — he left me since 
 I began the trade; — no; — but I have another 
 brother, an honest shopkeeper at Brighton, and 
 he had to do with it, though not a great deal. 
 He came this way, after meeting a small trader 
 down at the village — the most considerable man 
 of his day, however ; and my brother had a 
 good lot of light articles on his person and in 
 his trunk, that night when we gave him a bed. 
 Well, he was followed to my house, the goods 
 seized, and he and I both fined a sum beyond 
 our ability to pay. I was nothing but a farmer 
 then ; ay, and a struggling one ; and my wife 
 poorly, and my two girls infants. They sold 
 every thing on my fields, live and dead stock, 
 and growing crop, and every thing under my 
 roof, to my wife''s bed, and my little girls' 
 cradles ; and, to make an end of it, put me in 
 gaol for the balance of the fine, which all I was 
 worth in the world would not discharge. And 
 that was what did it, Mr. Mutford ! I got out 
 among them at last, after being on my oath to 
 myself that I would have back what they took
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 293 
 
 from me — and I had ; ay, and what they took 
 from my Brighton brother, too. — If ever you 
 go to that town, look out for liis shop, and 
 when you get into it, Mr. Mutford, look about 
 you. 'Tis as richly stocked as any shop in 
 Brighton ; and he has ten times as much as 
 what you can see, waiting for a turn ; and every 
 article under his roof is — smuggled. And 'tis 
 a good joke to meet the great people you do 
 sometimes meet buj'ing of him ; ladies, and of 
 an odd time one or two, perhaps, that are too 
 high even to be called 'your ladyship:' ha, 
 ha, Mr. Mutford, I Ve lived to see all that, and 
 thank them for it ;" and the bitterness and 
 roughness of Mr. Linnock's short laugh told 
 me the revengeful triumph of his heart. 
 
 " Is Sam Geeson a favourite of yours .^" I 
 asked. He nearly relapsed into his usual man- 
 ner and character of face, while he answered, 
 " Um — hardly : but Ave want the chap often ; 
 and his liking for the trade makes us sure of 
 him. He is no credit to us, however; and I 
 don't want you to praise his reasons for getting 
 in among us, Mr. Mutford." 
 
 I requested my host to be more explicit. 
 
 " Why, the truth is, the apprentice took to 
 
 o 3
 
 294 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 Mother trade, at first, after breaking the cage 
 for a little matter of poaching : — bat I won't be 
 so hard on him neither ; they were too much 
 so, p'rhaps : he says, himself, it was only a 
 rabbit, and that he knocked it on the head one 
 night that his old mother had no supper, and 
 nothing in the house for next day's dinner 
 either; and you'll try at it a long time. Sir, 
 before you '11 make Sam sure that he has not 
 a bit of a right to the four-footed creatures 
 that run wild for every man to catch if he can, 
 as it were ; not the same as a horse, or a cow, 
 or a sheep, that you buy and sell, and spend 
 money to feed. But no matter for that. He 
 was but a great boy, then, just articled to a 
 carpenter, and the accident quite turned his 
 mind from living at home with his mother ; so 
 we let him do what he could aboard the Miss 
 Molly, for a trip or two, till the gentlefolk for- 
 gave him ; and then he did not go home as 
 good a boy as we found him : for, you see, Sir, 
 if a chap will turn out bad, the t'other trade 
 gives him opportunities, as well as any other. 
 And it was after he had been some time at 
 work among shavings again, that Sam did some- 
 thing worse than chase a rabbit or a hare, to
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 295 
 
 make him run off to the Miss Molly a second 
 time." 
 
 *"' No act of real dishonesty, I hope ?" 
 
 " A girl took her oath before the magistrates 
 that he was her child's father, Sir; the parish 
 was after him ; and so he came back to us." 
 
 *' Did he dispute the girl's assertion ?" 
 
 " No, Sir ; but he must either have married 
 her, or supported her and the child, without, 
 or gone to the tread-mill, you know." 
 
 " Well, and he is a scoundrel, indeed, for 
 not marrying her, at once." 
 
 " Sam does not think so. Sir, nor the girl 
 either. If he married her, with only one child, 
 the parish would not be bound to relieve them, 
 and they could not get, between them, enough 
 for a living — not without very hard work, of 
 one kind or another, at least — and neither he 
 nor she are in love with that. But I believe 
 it is agreed between Sam and her to marry — 
 when she shall be a mother a second time — -Joi- 
 with two children the parish MUST take them.'''' 
 
 "Yes," I said, " that is the law, I know; and 
 do not you think, Mr. Linnock, that this same 
 law must be of great assistance to Sam's notions 
 of morality ?''"'
 
 296 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 The smuggler, as if taken completely out of 
 his element, did not answer ; no, nor eVen smile; 
 but merely gave me a nonplussed shake of his 
 massive head. 
 
 " And I know something of Sam's sweet- 
 heart,"" I resumed. 
 
 " You do. Sir ; but, if I may make so free, 
 the less you or your friends know of her in 
 future, the better : I don't talk altogether on 
 Sam's account ; but she 's not what I call a 
 good 'un." 
 
 I thanked the honest smuggler, assuring him 
 that we had got a good character with the 
 girl, and having come quite strangers into the 
 village, could only go by what was told us. But 
 do you remember my former objections to Miss 
 Lucy, Graves? 
 
 Again I changed the subject with ray kind 
 host. " Come, now, Mr. Linnock, I have but 
 a few more questions to trouble you with, at 
 present ; and first, who is The Don ?" 
 
 He looked steadily — too steadily — at me, 
 with the same expression I had noticed in the 
 orchard. I returned his studious stare without 
 shrinking. And thus we sat silently, for a 
 minute, and at last he was pleased to speak. 
 
 " Mr. Mutford ; after what you happened to
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 297 
 
 hear at the orchard door, I have been forced to 
 trust you, for my own sake, many steps farther 
 than you then gained on us. Since we sat 
 down here, I have been hoping I might trust 
 you for your own sake. You want to have 
 your last question answered ; ay, and as you 
 gave notice, other questions after it ; and if 
 you knew but all, it concerns you much to be 
 dealt openly with about the Don, and — for I 
 guess your mind, Sir — the lady in the house, 
 too. Let me take a liberty — but a well-meant 
 one — you also want the means of righting your- 
 self, and your father, and your sister, Mr. 
 Mutford — don't look astonished. Sir, for I know 
 something of all that : in plain English, Sir, 
 you want money, and plenty of it ; and now let 
 me make an end. If you close with a bargain 
 I should like to drive with you, you shall be 
 told all you ought to know about the Don and 
 the lady ; and you shall have money, and plenty 
 of it : to say nothing of — of — "" 
 
 " Freeing myself of all suspicions of hinting 
 at any of the late information which I have been 
 so fortunate as to acquire ?" I added for him, 
 reading the thought plainly on his brow, and 
 in his tones and manner. 
 
 Why, yes ; even that, Mr. Mutford." 
 
 ((
 
 298 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 " To go on methodically, then. What is the 
 bargain you wish to drive ?*" 
 
 *' Since you heard INIartha and me speak of 
 the Don, Sir, you also heard us say that he used 
 to be useful to us ?" 
 
 " Yes, as a kind of respectable representa- 
 tive of commerce on the other side of the 
 Channel." 
 
 " That 's it. But we have lost sight of him, 
 and want as good a man in his stead." 
 
 " And pay me the compliment of thinking I 
 might serve your turn .?" 
 
 " Yes, Mr. INIutford ; and I like this plain 
 way of doing business." 
 
 " Then, to humour your liking, Mr. Linnock, 
 I answer, just as plainly, that the thing can't 
 be : keep your secret of the Don and the lady ; 
 I must try to get at it some other way : and 
 keep your money too ; and that too, I will try 
 for some other way." 
 
 " Now you are offended, Mr. Mutford." 
 
 " Not I, on my conscience, Mr. Linnock." 
 
 " But you mean what you say. Sir .''" 
 
 " To the letter." 
 
 "Out and out .?" 
 
 " Out and out."
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 299 
 
 " Won't even think it over ?" 
 
 " With a view to debate it — no." 
 
 " The Don was a gentleman, Sir." 
 
 " I make no doubt." 
 
 " And not of your mind." 
 
 " I can't help him." 
 
 " Well, Mr. Mutford ;" his eyes fell, and 
 again I saw on his brow that which it con- 
 cerned perhaps even my personal comforts, if 
 not safety — (notwithstanding all our interchange 
 of confidence) — to reply to, forthv/ith. 
 
 " And well, Mr. Linnock. Now you begin 
 to ask yourself over again, what security you 
 have against a breach of confidence on my 
 part ?" — he did not say a word, nor move his 
 eyes from the table : " I will tell you. Along 
 with the word of a man who has never conscious- 
 ly broken his word, my refusal in my present 
 situation — I mean my situation at this moment, 
 — my blunt refusal of an offer from you, by a 
 seeming acceptance of which — and mark you, 
 the seeming alone would answer my purposes — 
 I could ensure your permission to return home 
 to my sick father and my unprotected sister, with- 
 out suspicion of any kind. Measure, by my 
 straightforward No, to your tempting proposal.
 
 300 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 my whole probable character, and you will be 
 able to trust your interests, and those of your 
 family, by whom I have been so kindly treated, 
 to my own sense of honour and humanity — and, 
 (I will add, though I do object to succeed the 
 Don — ) also to my sense of the provocation 
 you have received to engage in your present 
 trade, and my little sympathy with part of the 
 system you war against." 
 
 " Then we have done talking,"" said the 
 Smuggler, suddenly laying his hand on mine ; 
 " I will not doubt you, Mr. Mutford. And 
 now, it is time, and more than time, that you 
 and your friend were out of my house, you 
 know for what reasons — and on your way to 
 your own homes, Sir. So — master-mate!" he 
 called to the other end of the secret apart- 
 ment, but called only in a peculiarly hard whis- 
 per — " Master-mate ! farmer Bob, I say I" 
 
 Something huge stirred on the bed at that 
 extreme of the attic, and presently a man moved 
 lazily off it, and came towards us. As he ad- 
 vanced, I sa^' an individual of about thirty, 
 and of great height, naturally, poking his head 
 forward, and a little from side to side, and 
 bending his body from the hips ; he was fleshy, 
 very fleshy, though not exactly fat ; rather in-
 
 THE SMUGGLER. 301 
 
 kneed ; and the poking head was covered with 
 short, silky hair, almost white, and he had large 
 eye-brows, and long eye-lashes, of the same 
 colour, and his face seemed made of white wax, 
 without a tint of red in the cheeks, and very 
 little in his pendant under lip. I must add, 
 that if my host's face and features seemed ex- 
 aggerated, his excelled them, and yet he ap- 
 peared neither stupid nor unapprehensive ; on 
 the contrary, there was a kind of shrewdness 
 in his weak, winking, pale, and ever-smiling 
 e3'es, and also in his superabundance of ever- 
 smiling lip. 
 
 " My brother, Sir — master-mate, or farmer 
 Bob, according to occasion — my third and 
 youngest brother ; a little sleepy, after two 
 nights loss of rest, as you see." 
 
 " But now, at last," I replied, gazing wist- 
 fully at the head and face which nodded and 
 smiled to me — " surely now at last, I be- 
 hold " 
 
 " No, Mr. Mutford," said Linnock, smiling 
 too, " your first impression, taken from my face, 
 
 was the correct one ; 'tis me. Sir, they call " 
 
 here he passed his hand over his ebon chin — " 'tis 
 me they call Lilly White, at your service." 
 
 VOL. L P
 
 302 THE SMUGGLER. 
 
 I could not help laughing, nor did the very 
 dissimilar brothers refuse to join me. 
 
 " But we must be doing, Sir," resumed my 
 Lilly — " Bob, look out till you see Mr. Mut- 
 ford and the Lieutenant well off the premises, 
 and then you know where to find Martha, to 
 give her a word. Come, Mr. Mutford." 
 
 We descended to the door which communi- 
 cated with the treacherous flower-bed in the 
 garden ; in a few moments I stood in the open 
 air. 
 
 *' Now, Sir, join the merry folks in the par- 
 lour, giving what account you can of your 
 hour's absence, I will be with you and them as 
 soon as possible." He took leave of me at the 
 garden door, and not exactly knowing what 
 he meant to do, I walked across the yard into 
 the house. 
 
 END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. 
 
 LONDON : 
 PRINTED EY SAMUEL EENTLET, 
 
 Dorset-Street, Fleet-street.
 
 1