the stiff stalks of the salt-lavender, they called,
and for some time I pretended not to hear
them. At last I turned, and then I hopped
and skipped towards them readily enough.
They asked me where I lived, and I pointed
to the town. They asked me if I was not
afraid that Bony would catch me, if I came so
far from home. This frightened me very
much; but I said I did not think Bony was
anywhere here. They told me that if he was
not here now, he would be very soon, and
that they had come to prevent Bony catching
little girls and boys. I asked how they were
going to prevent it, and they told me that
they were come to live at the barracks; that
some of them would always be keeping watch
on the rocks, or along the hills, and that they
were to make great fires, that might be seen
many miles off, whenever Bony should make
his appearance. They wanted now to find a
convenient place, the top of some rock, where
such a fire might be made; and to see
how a good path could be made along the
shore, without interruption, that soldiers
might always be walking and watching, and
that the townspeople might feel safe. I
promised to show them a very fine rock, where
they might make a big fire, if they would follow
me; and I turned towards the moor; but
the strangers were so perverse that they
would look along the coast first. They did not
mind getting wet, I saw; they were so earnest
in examining the place. They consulted
together, and looked about, and went to the
edge, where the wet part became a quicksand
on the beach; and I gathered that they
thought that by some means the swamp must
be made passable. At last, my rock caught
their attention; and nothing would serve
them but they must go up it. I wanted now
to slip away, and run round below to give
warning; but they took me between them to
show them the way, as they said, and amused
themselves by swinging me over the muddy
places, till in a few minutes we were all on
the rock. The moment I obtained my release,
I shot away homewards. It was a great
relief to me to find my mother sitting before the
door, mending a net, and Jos cleaning out the
boat in a harmless sort of way; for the soldiers
were peeping down upon us from above, and
nothing could pass without their seeing it.

"Why, here is a village,—a fishing village!"
we heard one of them say. When they came
down, they asked me why I did not tell them
there was a village here; to which I replied
that they found they could see it for
themselves. They shook their heads with great
gravity; told my mother that I had pretended
to come from the town, and that they were
afraid I was in partnership with " Bony."
They asked my mother if that was her
husband's boat; and when they had heard the
sad story about my father, they went up to
Jos, who was still in the boat, and asked him
if he had brought home anything.

"Here, look," cried my mother; " if you
want any lobsters, here are some now just out
of the boat."

"Lobsters," said one of them. " Ah! that's
good. Let's see your lobsters."

My mother produced some which she had,
two days before, despaired of selling.

"Why, they are as red as we are! " cried
the soldiers. " Do you think we don't know
fresh lobsters from boiled ?"

My mother coolly protested that the boat
had not been back an hour, and that the
lobsters were just out of it: two assertions
which were literally true; for the lobsters
had been offered for sale on board the
smuggler, and not received. I heard the strangers
say to each other that they had got among a
parcel of cheats, and that they never had been
fixed in such a neighbourhood. The town
was full of beggars; the country was moor
or swamp, and this filthy village seemed a
good match for the rest.

By this time, the fishermen's wives began
to show themselves from their respective
houses; some bringing out fish for sale, and
all carefully shutting their doors behind them.
Most or all would willingly have cheated;
but one or two had sense to perceive that the
soldiers knew fresh fish from stale. They
bought a little; examined the situation of
the hamlet thoroughly, expressed their
disgust at the dell which stretched back from
the cottages, between the rocks, and
disappeared at the further end of it. This
dell might have been very pretty; and a
stranger now and then, coming upon it from
behind, pronounced that it was very pretty:
but it would not bear a second look. Heaps
of garbage lay there; and it was so over-
strewn with the dirt of every sort that was
thrown there by everybody, that only patches
of the natural green of its really good soil
showed themselves in places. Many a load of
unsaleable fish was cast out there, to save the
trouble of burying it in the sands.

In the evening, down came two officers
from the barracks, evidently directed by our
visitors of the morning. The lieutenant
carried a glass; and long and careful was their
survey of the points of the coast, and then,
their gaze out to sea.

"There are four of them," said I; " and
two more south-west."

"Four what ? " asked the lieutenant, fixing
his glass again.

"Four sail to the south-east," said I.

"There's only three," declared Bill Oulton,
positively, coming up breathless, to obtain his
share of the stranger's notice.

"There are four," I protested. "Two
brigs .    .    ."

"To be sure," Bill put in; " two brigs and
a schooner."

"And further out," I declared, " so that I
can see only her topsails, there is a large ship."

I appealed to the lieutenant to know
whether it was not so. He handed his glass
to his companion, owning that he could not