for her. I wish my father knew."

He need not have troubled himself to wish, for Farmer Shackle was lying
down, hidden behind some stones on the top of the cliff, watching what
was going on, with his brow rugged. He had heard enough of the
conversation, after being attracted to the place by the action of his
cows, to know that the kegs had been discovered, and he smiled as he
made out that his boy and man were quite staunch, and would not say a
word.

"Won't get anything out o' them," he muttered, as he watched the
returning boats. "Shall I tell old Graeme? No; that would only scare
him. They'll land a party, and come and search; but they won't dare to
go to the Hoze, so I'll leave the stuff there and chance it."

Having made up his mind to this, he lay behind the stones watching till
he had seen Ram, Jemmy, and the cow on board the cutter and the boats
made fast; after which, as he could see that the lieutenant was busy
with his glass, he waited his opportunity, got a cow between him and the
sea, and then with raised stick began to drive the cattle from the
neighbourhood of the precipice, his action seeming perfectly natural,
and raising no suspicion in the officer's breast.

Farmer Shackle was quite right, for it was not long before a boat,
well-filled with men, under the command of the midshipman and the
master, put off from the cutter, and began to row west to the little
cove, through whose narrow entrance a boat could pass to lie on the
surface of a cup-shaped depression, at whose head a limpid stream of
water gurgled over the cleanly-washed shingle below the great chalk
cliffs.

Shackle saw them go, and, guessing their destination, chuckled; for in
their ignorance the search party were going to make a journey of twelve
or fourteen miles round each way, when any one accustomed to the place
would have made the trip in less than two.

"Well, let 'em go," said Shackle; "but if they do find out, I'd better
have my two boats out at sea," and he thought of his luggers lying in
the little cup-like cove. "Nay there's no hurry; people won't be too
eager to tell 'em whose boats they are, and I might want to get away."

He remained thinking about his son for a few minutes and then his
countenance lightened.

"Tchah!" he said; "they won't eat him, and they can't do anything but
keep him. They've found three kegs--that's all. Wish I'd been behind
the man who forgot 'em! He wouldn't forget that in a hurry."