ter a short consultation at
the door, one of them returned, and desired me to throw on a fisherman's
dreadnought which was smoking beside the fire; and follow him. Against
this, however, I vehemently protested.

"Why, lookye, sir," said the fellow, smoothing his tone into something
like civility, "there is no use in that thing there against about fifty
of us; but you must come along."

I asked him, could he suppose, that I was any thing like a spy, or that,
if I gave my word, I should not keep it?

"No," said the fellow. "I believe you to be a gentleman; but what a
story shall we have for the captain if we tell him that we left a
stranger behind us--and, begging your pardon, sir, we know more about
you than what the women here told us--and that after he heard all our
plans for the night's work, we left him to go off to the custom-house,
with his story for the surveyor."

This seemed rational enough, but I still held my garrison. The fellow's
face flushed, and, with something of an oath, he went to the door, gave
a whistle, and returned next minute with a dozen powerful fellows, all
armed. Contest was now useless, and I agreed to go with them until they
met the "captain," who was then to settle the question of my liberty,
The women curtseyed me to the door, as if they rather regretted the loss
of their companion, and were at least not much pleased by being cut off
from further inroads on a purse which had begun by paying so handsomely,
not knowing, that it was utterly stript; and we marched to the point of
waiting for the bark from Calais.

The storm had actually increased in violence, and the howling of the
wind, and thunder of the billows on the shore, were tremendous. Not a
word was spoken, and if it had been, the roar would have prevented it
from being heard, the night was pitch dark, and the winding paths along
which we rather slid than walked, would not have been easy to find
during the day. But custom is every thing: my party strode along with
the security of perfect knowledge. The country, too, seemed alive round
us. The cottages, it is true, were all silent and shut up, as we hurried
through; but many a light we saw from the lowly cottage, and many a
whistle we heard over the wild heath. Cows' horns were also in evident
requisition for trumpets, and in the intervals of the gusts I could
often hear the creaking of cart-wheels in the distance. It is to be
remembered that this was notoriously _the_ smuggling c