asant, and full of moving interest. Often one of his Majesty's
cutters, Swordfish, Kestrel, or Albatross, would swoop in with all
sail set, and hover, while the skipper came ashore to see the "Ancient
Carroway," as this vigilant officer was called; and sometimes even
a sloop of war, armed brigantine, or light corvette, prowling for
recruits, or cruising for their training, would run in under the Head,
and overhaul every wind-bound ship with a very high hand.

"Ancient Carroway"--as old friends called him, and even young people
who had never seen him--was famous upon this coast now for nearly
three degrees of latitude. He had dwelled here long, and in highly
good content, hospitably treated by his neighbors, and himself more
hospitable than his wife could wish, until two troubles in his life
arose, and from year to year grew worse and worse. One of these troubles
was the growth of mouths in number and size, that required to be filled;
and the other trouble was the rampant growth of smuggling, and the glory
of that upstart Robin Lyth. Now let it be lawful to take that subject
first.

Fair Robin, though not at all anxious for fame, but modestly willing
to decline it, had not been successful--though he worked so much by
night--in preserving sweet obscurity. His character was public, and set
on high by fortune, to be gazed at from wholly different points of view.
From their narrow and lime-eyed outlook the coast-guard beheld in
him the latest incarnation of Old Nick; yet they hated him only in an
abstract manner, and as men feel toward that evil one. Magistrates also,
and the large protective powers, were arrayed against him, yet happy to
abstain from laying hands, when their hands were their own, upon him.
And many of the farmers, who should have been his warmest friends and
best customers, were now so attached to their king and country, by
bellicose warmth and army contracts, that instead of a guinea for a
four-gallon anker, they would offer three crowns, or the exciseman.
And not only conscience, but short cash, after three bad harvests,
constrained them.

Yet the staple of public opinion was sound, as it must be where women
predominate. The best of women could not see why they should not have
anything they wanted for less than it cost the maker. To gaze at a
sister woman better dressed at half the money was simply to abjure every
lofty principle. And to go to church with a counterfeit on, when the
genuine lace was in