chimneys; showing the extent to which contraband
trade was carried on in the days of our fathers. Rumour says that there
is a considerable amount of business done in that way even in our own
days; but everybody knows what a story-teller Rumour is.

The only thing that gives any colour to the report is the fact that
there is still a pretty strong coast-guard force in that region; and one
may observe that whenever a boat comes to the beach a stout fellow in
the costume of a man-of-war's man, goes up to it and pries into all its
holes and corners, pulling about the ballast-bags and examining the same
in a cool matter-of-course manner that must be extremely irritating, one
would imagine, to the owner of the boat!

At night, too, if one chances to saunter along Deal beach by moonlight,
he will be sure to meet, ere long, with a portly personage of enormous
breadth, enveloped in many and heavy garments, with a brace of pistols
sticking out of his breast pockets, and a short cutlass by his side.
But whatever these sights and symptoms may imply, there can be no
question that smuggling now is not, by any means, what it was thirty or
forty years ago.

On the night of the storm, described in the last chapter, the only
individual in old Jeph's hovel was old Jeph himself. He was seated at
the inner end of it on a low chest near the stove, the light of which
shone brightly on his thin old face and long white locks, and threw a
gigantic black shadow on the wall behind. The old man was busily
engaged in forming a model boat out of a piece of wood with a clasp
knife. He muttered to himself as he went on with his work, occasionally
pausing to glance towards the door, the upper half of which was open and
revealed the dark storm raging without.

On one of these occasions old Jeph's eyes encountered those of a man
gazing in upon him.

"Is that you, Long Orrick? Come in; it's a cold night to stand out i'
the gale."

He said this heartily, and then resumed his work, as if he had forgotten
the presence of the other in an instant. It is not improbable that he
had, for Jeph was very old. He could not have been far short of ninety
years of age.

Long Orrick entered the hovel, and sat down on a bench opposite the old
man. He was a very tall, raw-boned, ill-favoured fellow, of great
muscular strength, and with a most forbidding countenance. He was clad
in oiled, rough-weather garments.

"You seem busy, old man," said he abruptly.