mate with a class of men living on the coast, who, though they
professed to be fishermen, either made smuggling their chief business,
or were ready on all occasions to help the smugglers. Tom knew very
little about their proceedings; indeed, brought up as he had been, had
he done so, it is not likely that he would have looked on them with much
horror. Captain Askew, of course, knew that there was a good deal of
smuggling on the coast, but, except in the case of a few notorious
characters, he did not know who were the individuals engaged in it.
Jack was a favourite with both revenue men and smugglers, and the latter
knew that, should he by chance learn anything of their proceedings, he
would not betray them. He used to go off with them when they went out
fishing, sometimes with Tom, and sometimes alone, and soon became a very
expert boat sailor. One thing is very certain, that his associates did
Jack no good. We know from Scripture that "Evil communications corrupt
good manners," and, though undeservedly, he got the character of being a
wild lad, likely some day to get into trouble.

Such was the opinion formed of him by Mr Ludlow, his father's landlord,
who consequently seldom invited him to his house, nor did he encourage
any intimacy between him and his son, which he would probably otherwise
have done. Mr Ludlow, who was a country magistrate, was a stern,
self-opinionated, and narrow-minded man, with very little of the milk of
human kindness in his composition. He believed, among other things,
that he could put down smuggling by force, and he was engaged in an
effort to accomplish the task. Stephen, his son, was rather younger
than Jack, a good-looking boy, but he was conceited, headstrong, and not
good tempered.

He occasionally went over to Stormount, where he was always welcomed,
but he and Jack were not especially good friends; indeed, their pursuits
were so different, that even then they did not see much of each other.
It happened one day that Jack, having betaken himself to the beach,
found some of his friends going off a in boat, and begged to go with
them. One or two objected, others said--"Let him come, he's true as
gold, he'll not peach."

"Yes, yes, for do ye not see if we get into trouble, they'll not be hard
on us for his sake."

This decided the matter. Jack did not hear these remarks, and went.
The boat sailed off till she was out of sight of land, when she met with
a long white lugger, an