good. Certainly it looked and smelled very
good; and the biggest men seemed, after one
basonful, to have had as much as they could
eat; but when we told my mother about it,
she used to give us each a bit of bread, and
divide a herring between us, and say it was
just the same thing which way we ate it, and
she saw no use in the trouble of stewing. I
did long to try sometimes, when I was almost
as hungry as ever after dinner; and there
was always a fire of driftwood burning on the
sands, and I could have managed with our
iron pot: but my mother said she would not
have us go near the fire. We often did,
however, when she was busy elsewhere. I have
roasted a potato in that sly way many a
time, though I never could be sure of time
enough to try the experiment of stewing my
bread.

One day, when Jos had been up the moor,
he brought home two plovers' eggs; and we
roasted them, and got behind the rock to eat
them. I do not remember that we were
at all ashamed of such sly doings, or that we
ever had any shame about anything; but I
do remember, heartily, the goodness of those
eggs, and how I used to dream, almost every
night, of finding plovers' eggs on the moor.
We were often missing for hours, Jos and
I, while out on this hunt; but we tried
for so many months in vain, that we grew
tired, and gave it up. We were so very
ignorant as not to know that the eggs of wild
birds are not to be found all the year round.

One day, the news spread that the French
prisoners were going away. They were to
be moved higher up the country; because it
was thought that Bony was really coming at
last, after having been talked of so long; and
it was not safe to have any Frenchmen so
near the coast as that he might let them out
of prison, and have them for soldiers. We
were all very sorry at first about their going.
The grown people said there would be nobody
now to buy any fish; and the children had
liked the amusement of seeing them cook, and
cut pretty toys with their knives out of common
meat bones; and also of hearing their
talk to each other, which sounded a curious
jabber to us. I cried desperately because my
mother would not let me go to see them off.
As I said at the beginning, the day of their
departure was among the most remarkable of
all my childhood. But my mother had some
trading to do, and she wanted us to help.
She had known for some time that soldiers
were coming to the barracks, after which the
secret trading—in plain words, smuggling,—
would be difficult, if not impossible to manage.
But few days more of comparative liberty
remained, before the soldiers would be coming
down to watch and defend the coast against
the French; and of these few days, the most
favourable was that when all eyes—even
those of the Preventive Service men—would
be fixed on the departure of the prisoners.

I well knew what my share of the day's
work would be;—a dull one enough. I
happened to have remarkably good sight; a gift
which is highly valued on the coast. If few
or none of my other powers were trained, that
one was. My father had had it when he was
young; but I believe his spirit-drinking had
spoiled it. He could neither see so far as I
could with the natural sight, nor fix a glass
steadily, for some time before he was carried
away; and he used to put me between his
knees, and make me count the sails out at sea,
and find out when anybody was in the marsh,
or coming down from the moor. Now I knew
I should have to watch while the smuggling
sloop was creeping in, under the shore, and
while our boat was stealing out to meet her;
and while the goods were landed. It was a
favourable day for the business, but all the
more dull for me, from its being a calm sea
fog. As I sat on the rock which rose behind
our cottage to the height of forty feet or so, I
could see pretty clearly over the dark moor,
and could just make out the barracks, with
the crowd collected there: but I could see no
sail on the water, and had lost sight of the
bows of our own boat, while I could still see
neighbour Glassford, who was steering her,
sitting in the stern. I could hear the dipping
of the oars, after he had disappeared; and
when they were returning from the sloop, I
knew it by the dipping of the oars again. I
did not see the sloop at all; but I knew she
must have been very near,—not only because
the boat came back so soon, but because I am
sure I heard the murmur of voices, careful as
smugglers are to speak low while about their
business.

After the second return of the boat, I could
see through the fog the dim figures, moving
like spectres, of my mother and Jos below the
rock, carrying in the goods, no doubt. It was
very dull on my perch, looking out upon
nothing at all; so I thought I would go down
and help. Before I had taken the first step
down, I fancied I heard something very sweet
—far, far away. Then I lost it; and then it
came again,—some music, swelling gently on
the still air. It was military music. In
straining my sight, I saw something red on
the dark moor, beyond the barracks. It was
near noon now; and there was some break in
the fog which allowed the sun to touch the
furthest ridges; and in a minute or two, I
saw a little flash. The soldiers, with their
bayonets, were certainly coming to the
barracks almost before the Frenchmen were gone.
I skipped down the rock to tell my mother
this. I hoped she would let me bustle about
and help her, as the soldiers would so soon be
down upon us; and she did let me carry in
some large loaves, with a hard crust, which I
knew well enough had little crumb within,
but plenty of silk stockings. We ranged the
brown loaves on the shelf; and then Jos and
I hung a great net about a square package of
silks, and doubled it over, so that anybody
would have sworn that we had a pile of nets