on the handle. Before I could decipher
them, however, Seth Brown, the youngest son,
who sat near rne, and who had watched me,
suddenly thrust out his broad bony hand,
wrested the fork from me, and tossed it across
the table: growling out something about "a
spy." I was really too much astonished to
resent this rudeness, but Daddy Brown
instantly exclaimed in a harsh tone, "For shame,
Seth! you're drunk, boy. Ask the stranger's
pardon, or——." Daddy Brown did not finish
the sentence, but his brows corrugated into an
ugly frown, and he shook his fist at his youngest
son, who gave me back the fork with a very bad
grace, muttering that he meant no harm—" 'twar
a joke." This was odd, and another trivial
circumstance happened soon after. One of the
girls who sat near me, a merry black-haired
maiden, like her sisters, with a loud laugh and
a nut-brown cheek, wore a very pretty brooch,
mounted in gold, and delicately executed in
enamel, in Louis Quinze style. I happened to
praise the beauty of this costly ornament, to the
evident gratification of the wearer, until I
hazarded the remark that " the workmanship was
probably French. I never saw such a brooch in
an American jeweller's."

"That's tellins!" answered the girl in a
sharp tone.

"Phœbe!" exclaimed her mother in a
deprecatory fashion. Her father gave one of
his oily laughs. " Our island gals," said he,
"don't understand your town ways, Britisher.
The gewgaw glittery thing was honestly come
by, you may take your oath of it. And that's
all that matters the vally of a pinch of
gunpowder, whether French or not French."

I parted from the Browns cordially enough,
but the more I thought of them the queerer
they seemed. Were they really fishermen, I
wondered, in spite of all the nets and many-
hooked lines ostentatiously displayed around
their dwelling? Had those sharp whale-boats
no other use than to carry Japhet and Seth to
the banks where coalfish and catfish, jewfish
and sunfish, were plenty? There were things
to be seen in that house of Mr. Brown's, which
contrasted forcibly with the oaken benches and
clumsy furniture. Silk curtains to the small-
paned windows, one or two arm-chairs of frayed
velvet, a beautiful Indian cabinet in rare wood
inlaid with ivory, and, above all, a small, but
handsome mirror, whose richly carved and gilded
frame jarred with the coarse coloured prints
that were hung on the same wall. Very odd,
all this. To be sure, these expensive objects
might be relics of Mr. Brown's seafaring days,
treasures picked up in the course of his wanderings.
And yet—I doubted.

About a week after, something confirmed my
doubts. An officer arrived suddenly—a lieutenant
in the United States navy—who had been
charged with the duty of inspecting all the
lighthouses on the Atlantic coast. He found
nothing to blame at Cape Hatteras.

"Your lamps and lantern are in pattern order,
Mr. Halford," said the lieutenant, very good-
humouredly, " and your reflectors do you credit.

I wish I had always the power to say as much;
but the fact is, Uncle Sam has some shocking
bargains along the coast. No accident here, in
your time, hey?"

"Accident?" said I, rather perplexed.

"Ah, yes, it's best to call them by that name;"
said the lieutenant, dryly: " they are rather
famous for their frequency hereabouts, especially
in rough or foggy weather. Ships often
mistake the lights and run ashore, and are lost—
and no wonder, if people will fasten lanterns
to horses, and keep moving along the beach, so
as to delude poor wretches at sea. I see, Mr.
Halford, by your face, that you are surprised.
Briefly, then, there are gangs of as rascally
wreckers, not a hundred miles off, as ever
a country was cursed with. Take care they
don't play you a trick some night, that's
all."

But nothing whatever occurred, during the
long hot summer, to justify the lieutenant's
warning. Autumn came, and with it the season
of violent gales, heavy rains, and fogs of blinding
thickness. I heard rumours of a few wrecks,
on remote parts of the chain of sandy islets,
but no such misfortune occurred in my own
neighbourhood. Day after day I saw ships pass
safely by, under shortened canvass, and fighting
their way bravely through the angry sea. Night
after night my beacon lights answered the friendly
blaze to north and south, and along the wave-
lashed coast-line the signs of danger were shown,
not in vain. By this time I was getting heartily
sick of my employment. I had saved a little
money. I had made many sketches, and had
much improved in my colouring and taste, by
dint of study and practice. And as I found my
isolation tedious to the last degree, I had written
to the authorities to inform them of my intention
to resign, as soon as my successor should be
ready to assume my duties.

On a blustering and dark autumnal day,
when the clouds were driving fast across the
threatening sky, and the waves rolled in with a
hoarse murmur, I suddenly came, in the course
of a lonely ramble along the beach, upon two
men. They were standing in a little hollow
between two hillocks of loose sand, gazing out
earnestly to seaward. My eyes instinctively
followed the direction of theirs, and I saw a
large ship under double reefed topsails, with
her courses brailed up, staggering along the
coast line, with her bows turned southwards.
The wind was unfavourable to her, and she
had much ado to make very slow progress
indeed, by dint of incessant tacks. The two men
on the shore, not noticing me, as my footsteps
fell noiselessly on the soft sand, conversed in
loud, unguarded tones. " There she goes on the
larboard tack again. At that rate she'll beat
about till dark, and never make ten cables'
length of way;" said the younger and taller of
the two.

"She can't fetch Ocracock Inlet, with the
wind where it is, and like to freshen;" observed
the other, in an oily, insinuating voice which I