e about the law than she
did. I accordingly set off for the Hard, where I was sure to find
several friends among the watermen. I had not got far when I met Jim
Pulley, looking very disconsolate.

"What is the matter, Jim," I asked.

"We've lost the wherry!" he exclaimed, nearly blubbering. "Two big
fellows came down, and, asking what boat she was, told me to step
ashore: and when I said I wouldn't for them, or for any one but you,
they took me, crop and heels, and trundled me out of her."

"That is only what I feared," I said. "I was coming down to find some
one to advise us what to do."

"Then you couldn't ask any better man than Bob Fox, he's been in prison
half a score of times for smuggling and such like, so he must know a
mighty deal about law," he answered.

We soon found Bob Fox, who was considered an oracle on the Hard, and a
number of men gathered round while he expressed his opinion.

"Why, you see, mates, it's just this," he said, extending one of his
hands to enforce his remarks; "you must either give in or go to prison
when they brings anything agen you, and that, maybe, is the cheapest in
the end; or, as there's always a lawyer on t'other side, you must set
another lawyer on to fight him, and that's what I'd advise to be done in
this here case. Now I knows a chap, one Lawyer Chalk, who's as sharp as
a needle, and if any man can help young Peter and his sister to keep
what is their own he'll do it. I'm ready to come down with some shiners
to pay him, for, you see, these lawyer folk don't argify for nothing,
and I'm sure some on you who loves justice will help Jack and Polly
Trawl's children; so round goes the hat."

Suiting the action to the word, Bob, taking off his tarpaulin, threw a
handful of silver into it, and his example being followed by a number of
other men, he grasped me by the hand, and set off forthwith to consult
Lawyer Chalk.

We quickly reached his office. Mr Chalk, a quiet-looking little man,
with easy familiar manners, which won the confidence of his illiterate
constituents, knowing Bob Fox well, received us graciously. His eyes
glittered as he heard the money chink in Bob's pocket.

"It's all as clear as a pikestaff," he observed, when he heard what I
had got to say. "They must prove first that this fellow who has turned
up is Tom Swatridge's nephew; then that he is his heir-at-law, and
finally that the house and boat belonged to the deceased. Now
possession is nine-t