ment,--he amused
himself by poking the fire, and watching the ruddy glow which the flames
threw on the fog from the open door. In this innocent occupation a great
weariness overcame him, and he fell asleep.

He was awakened at midnight by a loud "halloo," which seemed to proceed
directly from the sea. Thinking it might be the cry of some boatman lost
in the fog, he walked to the edge of the cliff, but the thick veil that
covered sea and land rendered all objects at the distance of a few feet
indistinguishable. He heard, however, the regular strokes of oars rising
and falling on the water. The halloo was repeated. He was clearing his
throat to reply, when to his surprise an answer came apparently from the
very cabin he had quitted. Hastily retracing his steps, he was the more
amazed, on reaching the open door, to find a stranger warming himself by
the fire. Stepping back far enough to conceal his own person, he took a
good look at the intruder.

He was a man of about forty, with a cadaverous face. But the oddity
of his dress attracted the broker's attention more than his lugubrious
physiognomy. His legs were hid in enormously wide trousers descending
to his knee, where they met long boots of sealskin. A pea-jacket with
exaggerated cuffs, almost as large as the breeches, covered his chest,
and around his waist a monstrous belt, with a buckle like a dentist's
sign, supported two trumpet-mouthed pistols and a curved hanger. He wore
a long queue, which depended half-way down his back. As the firelight
fell on his ingenuous countenance the broker observed with some concern
that this queue was formed entirely of a kind of tobacco, known as
pigtail or twist. Its effect, the broker remarked, was much heightened
when in a moment of thoughtful abstraction the apparition bit off a
portion of it, and rolled it as a quid into the cavernous recesses of
his jaws.

Meanwhile, the nearer splash of oars indicated the approach of the
unseen boat. The broker had barely time to conceal himself behind the
cabin before a number of uncouth-looking figures clambered up the hill
toward the ruined rendezvous. They were dressed like the previous comer,
who, as they passed through the open door, exchanged greetings with
each in antique phraseology, bestowing at the same time some
familiar nickname. Flash-in-the-Pan, Spitter-of-Frogs, Malmsey Butt,
Latheyard-Will, and Mark-the-Pinker, were the few sobriquets the broker
remembered. Whether these ti