walked side by side, and after awhile she said in a low tone, and
with still downcast eyes: 'My mother lived servant in your family
once, sir.'

'The deuce! Your name is Ransome, then, I suspect.'

'Yes, sir--Mary Ransome.' A sad sigh accompanied these words. I pitied
the poor girl from my heart, but having nothing very consolatory to
suggest, I held my peace.

'There is mother!' she cried in an almost joyful tone. She pointed to
a woman standing in the open doorway of a mean dwelling at no great
distance, in apparently anxious expectation. Mary Ransome hastened
forwards, and whispered a few sentences to her mother, who fondly
embraced her.

'I am very grateful to you, sir, for seeing Mary safely home. You do
not, I daresay, remember me?'

'You are greatly changed, I perceive, and not by years alone.'

'Ah, sir!' Tears started to the eyes of both mother and daughter.
'Would you,' added the woman, 'step in a moment. Perhaps a few words
from you might have effect.' She looked, whilst thus speaking, at her
weak, consumptive-looking husband, who was seated by the fireplace
with a large green baize-covered Bible open before him on a round
table. There is no sermon so impressive as that which gleams from an
apparently yawning and inevitable grave; and none, too, more quickly
forgotten, if by any resource of art, and reinvigoration of nature,
the tombward progress be arrested, and life pulsate joyously again. I
was about to make some remark upon the suicidal folly of persisting in
a course which almost necessarily led to misery and ruin, when the but
partially-closed doorway was darkened by the burly figure of Wyatt.

'A very nice company, by jingo!' growled the ruffian; 'you only want
the doctor to be quite complete. But hark ye, Ransome,' he continued,
addressing the sick man, who cowered beneath his scowling gaze like a
beaten hound--'mind and keep a still tongue in that calf's head of
yourn, or else prepare yourself to--to take--to take--what follows.
You know me as well as I do you. Good-night.'

With this caution, the fellow disappeared; and after a few words,
which the unfortunate family were too frightened to listen to, or
scarcely to hear, I also went my way.

The information received from Dr Lee relative to the contemplated run
near Hurst Castle proved strictly accurate. The surprise of the
smugglers was in consequence complete, and the goods, the value of
which was considerable, were easily secured. There