nd on his superstitious
fears.

The days came and went; the trees put on their glorious autumn tints,
and then gradually grew bare and lifeless, while we boys went on with
our accustomed round of school life, labouring at our desks, and
larking with unbounded stock of animal spirits in the playground. I
can recollect no event of any particular consequence having happened
during this time, except that one day Miles received a letter from home
which contained news of interest to us both. In those times, before
the introduction of the penny post, letters were less frequent and more
highly prized than they are to-day; and I think I can see my friend now
as he came down the schoolroom waving above his head the oblong packet
sealed with a yellow wafer.

"For me!" he cried. "Hurray! now I shall hear what's been happening in
our part of the world."

He flung himself down on the end of a bench, tore open the packet, and
for some moments was absorbed in reading its contents. Suddenly I saw
the expression of his face change, his mouth opened, and his eye ran
more rapidly from line to line.

"Phew! Well, I never!" he exclaimed.

"What is it?" I asked; "anything to do with your uncle Nicholas?"

"No; it's about old Lewis," he answered. Then, after scanning the
letter rapidly to the end of the page, he let it fall and raised his
head. "I say," he began, "what d'you think's happened? Why, there's
been a fight down at Rockymouth between the smugglers and the
preventive men; quite a serious affair--two fellows badly injured."

"Was old Lewis one of them--that man whom we saw hiding in your copse,
and in whose boat we went fishing?"

"Yes, rather: he seems to have been the leading spirit, and has got
into worse trouble than the rest, poor beggar! As far as I can
understand from my mother's account, it must have happened in this way.
One of the land gang was bribed, and turned informer, so by that means
the coastguard knew the exact time and place of the run. It happened
in that same little cove where we used to go and bathe. The spirit was
landed, and the carriers were just shouldering their tubs to make off
inland, when an armed party appeared on the beach and ordered them to
surrender. Then there was a pretty how-de-do! Some of the gang threw
down their loads and tried to bolt. Most of these got away in the
darkness. But the old hands, enraged at the thought of losing the
stuff just as it had come into their po