ad an enlivening--effect.

The great wreaths of mist yielded rapidly as the sun rose higher, the
rays shooting through and through, making clear roads which flashed with
light, and, as the clouds rolled away like the grey smoke of the sun's
fire, the distant cliffs, which towered up steep and straight, like some
titanic wall, came peering out now in patches bright with green and
golden grey.

Archibald Raystoke--midshipman aboard His Majesty the king's cutter,
stationed off the Freestone coast, to put a stop to the doings of a
smuggler whose career the Government had thought it high time to
notice--drew in a long breath, and forgot all about hunger and cold in
the promise of a glorious day.

It was impossible to think of such trifling things in the full burst of
so much beauty, for, as the sun rose higher, the sea, which had been
blood-red and golden, began to turn of a vivid blue deeper than the
clear sky overhead; the mist wreaths grew thinner and more transparent,
and the pearly glistening foam, which followed the breaking of each wave
at the foot of the mighty cliffs, added fresh beauty to the glorious
scene.

"Look here, Dirty Dick," began the middy, who burst out into a hearty
fit of laughter as he saw the broad-shouldered sailor give his face a
rub with the back of his hands, and look at them one after the other.

"Does it come off, Dick?" he said.

"Nay, sir; nothin' comes off," said the man dolefully. "'Tis my natur
too, but it seems werry hard to be called dirty, when you arn't."

"There, I beg pardon, Dick, and I will not call you so any more."

"Thankye, sir; I s'pose you mean it, but you'll let it out again soon as
you forget."

"No, I will not, Dick. But, I say, look here: you are a cheat, though,
are you not?"

"Me, sir? No!" cried the man excitedly.

"I mean about the Lincolnshire coast. Confess it isn't half so
beautiful as this."

"Oh, yes it is, sir. It's so much flatter. Why, you can't hardly find
a place to land here, without getting your boat stove in."

"If all's true, the smugglers know how to land things," said Archibald,
as he gazed thoughtfully at the cliffs.

"Oh, them! O' course, sir, they can go up the cliffs, and over 'em like
flies in sugar basins. They get a spar over the edge, with a reg'lar
pulley, and lets down over the boats, and then up the kegs and bales
comes."

"Ah, well, we must catch them at it some day, Dick, and then there'll be
lots o' prize-money