ere certain that a cargo was going to be landed. Surely it is possible
to stand aside from it all without being suspected of having gone over to
the enemy. No gold that they could give me would tempt me to say a word
that would lead to the failure of a landing, and surely there can be no
great offence in declining to act longer as a watcher."

The old man shook his head.

"A wilful man must have his way," he said; "but I know our fellows better
than you do, and I foresee that serious trouble is likely to come of
this."

"Well, if it must be, it must," the boy said doggedly. "I mean, if I live,
to be a good man, and now that I know that it is wrong to cheat the
revenue I will have no more to do with it. It would be a nice reward for
all the pains Miss Warden has spent upon me to turn round and do what she
tells me is wrong."

John Hammond was getting to the age when few things excite more than a
feeble surprise. He felt that the loss of the boy's assistance would be a
heavy one, for he had done no small share of the work for the past two
years. But he had more than once lately talked to his wife of the
necessity for selling his boat and nets and remaining at home. With this
decision she quite agreed, feeling that he was indeed becoming incapable
of doing the work, and every time he had gone out in anything but the
calmest weather she had been filled with apprehension as to what would
happen if a storm were to blow up. He was really sorry for the boy, being
convinced that harm would befall him as the result of this, to him,
astonishing decision. To John Hammond smuggling appeared to be quite
justifiable. The village had always been noted as a nest of smugglers, and
to him it came as natural as fishing. It was a pity, a grievous pity, that
the boy should have taken so strange a fancy.

He was a good boy, a hard-working boy, and the only fault he had to find
with him was his unaccountable liking for study. John could neither read
nor write, and for the life of him could not see what good came of it. He
had always got on well without it, and when the school was first started
he and many others shook their heads gravely over it, and regarded it as a
fad of the parson's. Still, as it only affected children too young to be
useful in the boats, they offered no active opposition, and in time the
school had come to be regarded as chiefly a place where the youngsters
were kept out of their mothers' way when washing and cooking