l schools of pilchards arrive in the
Channel as early as the month of May, and remain far into the winter,
till the water becomes too cool for their constitutions, when they
return eastwards to seek a warmer climate in the depths of the Atlantic,
or swim off to some unknown region, where they may deposit their spawn
or obtain the food on which they exist. Little, however, is known of
the causes which guide their movements, and the Cornish fishermen remain
satisfied by knowing the fact that the beautiful little fish which
enables them to support themselves and their families are sent annually
by their benignant Creator to visit their coasts, and seldom trouble
themselves to make any further inquiries on the subject.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

Two more years passed away--Nelly had become a pretty young woman,
modest and good as she was attractive in her personal appearance. She
had admirers in plenty besides Eban Cowan, who continued, as in his
younger days, to pay her all the attention in his power, and openly
declared to his companions his purpose of making her his wife.

By this means he kept some at a distance who were afraid to encounter
him as a rival, for they well knew his fierce and determined
disposition, of which he had on several occasions given evidence. Every
one knew that he and his father were leagued with the most desperate
gang of smugglers on the coast, and two or three times when acting as
leader of a party he had had fierce encounters with the coast-guard, and
on each occasion by his judgment and courage had succeeded in carrying
off the goods which had been landed to a place of safety He frequently
also had made trips in a smuggling lugger, of which his father was part
owner, to the coast of France. He was looked upon as a hardy and expert
seaman, as well as a good fisherman. Had he, indeed, kept to the latter
calling, with the boats he owned he would have become an independent, if
not a wealthy man. But ill-gotten gains go fast, and in his smuggling
enterprises, though he was often successful, yet he lost in the end more
than he gained.

Nelly, though flattered by the attention paid her, showed no preference
for any of her admirers. She had a good-natured word or a joke for all
of them, but always managed to make them hold their tongues when they
appeared to be growing serious. How she might have acted without the
sage Dame Lanreath to advise her, or had she not felt that she could not
consent