rock which had been precipitated from the cliff above, either with the body or after it. The mass was now encrusted with small shell-fish, and tasselled with tangle and seaweed; but still its shape and substance were different from those of the other rocks which lay scattered around. His voluntary walks, it will readily be believed, had never led to this spot; so that finding himself now there for the first time after the terrible catastrophe, the scene at once recurred to his mind with all its accompaniments of horror. He remembered how, like a guilty thing, gliding from the neighbouring place of concealment, he had mingled with eagerness, yet with caution, among the terrified group who surrounded the corpse, dreading lest any one should ask from whence he came. He remembered, too, with what conscious fear he had avoided gazing upon that ghastly spectacle. The wild scream of his patron, "My bairn! my bairn!" again rang in his ears. "Good God!" he exclaimed, "and is all I have gained worth the agony of that moment, and the thousand anxious fears and horrors which have since embittered my life!-Oh how I wish that I lay where that wretched man lies, and that he stood here in life and health!-But these regrets are all too late."

Stifling, therefore, his feelings, he crept forward to the cave, which was so near the spot where the body was found, that the smugglers might have heard from their hiding-place the various conjectures of the bystanders concerning the fate of their victim. But nothing could be more completely concealed than the entrance to their asylum. The opening, not larger than that of a fox-earth, lay in the face of the cliff directly behind a large black rock, or rather upright stone, which served at once to conceal it from strangers, and as a mark to point out its situation to those who used it as a place of retreat. The space between the stone and the cliff was exceedingly narrow, and being heaped with sand and other rubbish, the most minute search would not have discovered the mouth of the cavern, without removing those substances which the tide had drifted before it. For the purpose of further concealment, it was usual with the contraband traders who frequented this haunt, after they had entered, to stuff the mouth with withered seaweed loosely piled together as if carried there by the waves. Dirk Hatteraick had not forgotten this precaution.

Glossin, though a bold and hardy man, felt his heart throb, and his knees knock together, when he prepared to enter this

When he was but ten years old, he persuaded another Satan's limb of an English bastard like himself to steal my lugger's khan-boat-what do you call it-to return to his country, as he called it—fire him! Before we could overtake them, they had the skiff out of channel as far as the Deurloo-the boat might have been lost."

"I wish to Heaven she had-with him in her!" ejaculated Glossin.

"Why, I was so angry myself, that, sapperment! I did give him a tip over the side-but split him-the comical little devil swam like a duck; so I made him swim astern for a mile to teach him manners, and then took him in when he was sinking. By the knocking Nicholas! he'll plague you, now he's come over the herring-pond! When he was so high, he had the spirit of thunder and lightning."

"How did he get back from India?”

Why, how should I know?—the house there was done up, and that gave us a shake at Middleburgh, I think—so they sent me again to see what could be done among my old acquaintances here--for we held old stories were done away and forgotten. So I had got a pretty trade on foot within the last two trips; but that stupid houndsfoot schelm, Brown, has knocked it on the head again, I suppose, with getting himself shot by the colonel-man."

"Why were you not with them?”

"Why, you see-sapperment! I fear nothing-but it was too far within land, and I might have been scented." "True. But to return to this youngster

'Ay, ay, donner and blitzen! he's your affair," said the Captain.

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How do you really know that he is in this country ? ” "Why, Gabriel saw him up among the hills."

"Gabriel! who is he?"

"A fellow from the gipsies, that, about eighteen years since, was pressed on board that d-d fellow Pritchard's sloop-ofwar. It was he came off and gave us warning that the Shark was coming round upon us the day Kennedy was done; and he told us how Kennedy had given the information. The gipsies and Kennedy had some quarrel besides. This Gab went to the East Indies in the same ship with your younker, and, sapperment! knew him well, though the other did not remember him. Gab kept out of his eye though, as he had served the States against England, and was a deserter to boot;

and he sent us word directly, that we might know of his being here-though it does not concern us a rope's end."

"So, then, really, and in sober earnest, he is actually in this country, Hatteraick, between friend and friend?" asked Glossin seriously.

"Wetter and donner, yaw! What do you take me for?"

"For a bloodthirsty, fearless miscreant!" thought Glossin internally; but said aloud, "And which of your people was it that shot young Hazlewood?"

"Sturm-wetter!" said the Captain, "do ye think we were mad?-none of us, man-Gott! the country was too hot for the trade already with that d-d frolic of Brown's, attacking what you call Woodbourne House."

Why, I am told," said Glossin, "it was Brown who shot Hazlewood?"

"Not our lieutenant, I promise you; for he was laid six feet deep at Derncleugh the day before the thing happened.— Tausend deyvils, man! do ye think that he could rise out of the earth to shoot another man?"

A light here began to break upon Glossin's confusion of ideas. "Did you not say that the younker, as you call him, goes by the name of Brown?”

"Of Brown? yaw-Vanbeest Brown; old Vanbeest Brown, of our Vanbeest and Vanbruggen, gave him his own namehe did."

"Then," said Glossin, rubbing his hands, "it is he, by Heaven, who has committed this crime!"

"And what have we to do with that?" demanded Hatteraick. Glossin paused, and, fertile in expedients, hastily ran over his project in his own mind, and then drew near the smuggler with a confidential air. "You know, my dear Hatteraick, it is our principal business to get rid of this young man?”

"Umh!" answered Dirk Hatteraick.

"Not," continued Glossin-"not that I would wish any personal harm to him-if-if-if we can do without. Now, he is liable to be seized upon by justice, both as bearing the same name with your lieutenant, who was engaged in that affair at Woodbourne, and for firing at young Hazlewood with intent to kill or wound."

'Ay, ay," said Dirk Hatteraick; "but what good will that do you? He'll be loose again as soon as he shows himself to carry other colours."

"True, my dear Dirk; well noticed, my friend Hatteraick! But there is ground enough for a temporary imprisonment till he fetch his proofs from England or elsewhere, my good friend. I understand the law, Captain Hatteraick, and I'll take it upon me, simple Gilbert Glossin of Ellangowan, justice of peace for the county of to refuse his bail, if he should offer the best in the country, until he is brought up for a second examination-now where d'ye think I'll incarcerate him?" Hagel and wetter! what do I care?"

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Stay, my friend-you do care a great deal. Do you know your goods, that were seized and carried to Woodbourne, are now lying in the Custom-house at Portanferry?" (a small fishing-town)." Now I will commit this younker" "When you have caught him?”

Ay, ay, when I have caught him; I shall not be long about that I will commit him to the Workhouse, or Bridewell, which you know is beside the Custom-house."

"Yaw, the Rasp-house; I know it very well."

"I will take care that the red-coats are dispersed through the country; you land at night with the crew of your lugger, receive your own goods, and carry the younker Brown with you back to Flushing. Won't that do?"

"Ay, carry him to Flushing," said the Captain, "or-to America ?"

"Ay, ay, my friend.”

"Or-to Jericho?"

"Psha! Wherever you have a mind."

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'Ay, or-pitch him overboard?”

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Nay, I advise no violence."

Nein, nein-you leave that to me.

Sturm-wetter! I know

you of old. But, hark ye, what am I, Dirk Hatteraick, to be the better of this?"

Why, is it not your interest as well as mine?" said Glossin; "besides, I set you free this morning."

"You set me free !-Donner and deyvil! I set myself free. Besides, it was all in the way of your profession, and happened a long time ago, ha, ha, ha!"

"Pshaw! pshaw! don't let us jest; I am not against making a handsome compliment-but it's your affair as well as mine."

"What do you talk of my affair? is it not you that keep the younker's whole estate from him? Dirk Hatteraick never touched a stiver of his rents."

"Hush-hush-I tell you it shall be a joint business." "Why, will ye give me half the kitt?"

"What, half the estate?-d'ye mean we should set up house together at Ellangowan, and take the barony, ridge about?" "Sturm-wetter, no! but you might give me half the value -half the gelt. Live with you? nein-I would have a lusthaus of mine own on the Middleburgh dyke, and a blumengarten like a burgomaster's."

"Ay, and a wooden lion at the door, and a painted sentinel in the garden, with a pipe in his mouth!-But, hark ye, Hatteraick; what will all the tulips, and flower-gardens, and pleasure-houses in the Netherlands do for you, if you are hanged here in Scotland?"

Hatteraick's countenance fell. "Der deyvil! hanged?" "Ay, hanged, meinheer Captain. The devil can scarce save Dirk Hatteraick from being hanged for a murderer and kidnapper, if the younker of Ellangowan should settle in this country, and if the gallant Captain chances to be caught here re-establishing his fair trade! And I won't say, but, as peace is now so much talked of, their High Mightinesses may not hand him over to oblige their new allies, even if he remained in faderland."

"Poz hagel blitzen and donner!

true."

I-I doubt you say

"Not," said Glossin, perceiving he had made the desired impression, "not that I am against being civil;" and he slid into Hatteraick's passive hand a bank-note of some value.

"Is this all?" said the smuggler; "you had the price of half a cargo for winking at our job, and made us do your business too."

"But, my good friend, you forget-in this case you will recover all your own goods."

"Ay, at the risk of all our own necks-we could do that without you."

"I doubt that, Captain Hatteraick," said Glossin dryly, because you would probably find a dozen red-coats at the Custom-house, whom it must be my business, if we agree about this matter, to have removed. Come, come, I will be as liberal as I can, but you should have a conscience."

"Now strafe mich der deyfel!-this provokes me more than all the rest!-You rob and you murder, and you want me to rob and murder, and play the silver-cooper, or kidnapper, as you call it, a dozen times over, and then, hagel