ea itself seemed quieter and lonelier; north
where the twilight held far into the night, to be back by two of the
morning; north by John o' Groats and the Pentland Skerries; till one
June day found us turned far down the wild west coast; a colorless
cruise behind us, with never a storm, a pirate ship, nor a sight of the
jolly roger.

At the end of the day of which I speak we were lying in toward shore,
and I was aft with a pipe for company, when Sandy came from behind the
pile of sail-cloth against which I sat to say that the brig would have
to lay by for repairs and to inquire what I thought of going ashore for
an adventure.

"Where are we?" I asked.

"Somewhere above Landgore. 'Tis the very place for treasure," he added,
with a laugh.

"There's nothing would suit me better than a night ashore," said I with
truth, for I had had enough of the drink, the slack language, and the
rough sea life, and looked forward to the land with a pleasant hurry of
thoughts.

The moon shone bright in a sky of plain dark blue, making a path of
swaying gold toward the beach, where we could see the water curl upon
the sands like suds. A little back was a steep rise of granite rocks,
with gorse and heather growing on the sides, at the bottom of which
some gipsies, or free-traders, had built a great fire, and we heard
them singing a drunken catch in chorus, and saw them whirling round and
round the fire in a circle, as we stepped ashore from the boat.

An ugly silence fell as we approached them, and their women drew off,
thinking that we were government men, no doubt; but finding that we had
no weightier business than to get some information as to our
whereabouts, one of them gave us word that the path up the cliff led to
the Cuckoo Tavern, kept by Mother Dickenson, where we could obtain what
refreshment we needed as well as lodgment for the night. We had gone
some fifty feet when one of the men cried after us:

"An' if luck's wi' ye, ye may have a glyff of the handsomest lass in
Scotland," at which a woman cuffed him with a ringing sound. There
followed a muttered curse and a roar of laughter, which was the last we
had of them.

The path up the cliff twisted and roved in such a manner to avoid the
many boulders that the inn-light proved little better than a
will-o'-the-wisp to guide us, and it was in a breathless condition that
we reached the quaint low house, which was both neat and comfortable,
seeming peculiarly so perhaps afte