one with their
buttons!"

"Don't be cheeky, Jack," remonstrated the landlord, in a melancholy and
pathetic way.

"A Custum 'Us officer knows what to do with his Buttons," said the Jack,
repeating the obnoxious word with the greatest contempt, "when they
comes betwixt him and his own light. A four and two sitters don't go
hanging and hovering, up with one tide and down with another, and both
with and against another, without there being Custum 'Us at the bottom
of it." Saying which he went out in disdain; and the landlord, having no
one to reply upon, found it impracticable to pursue the subject.

This dialogue made us all uneasy, and me very uneasy. The dismal wind
was muttering round the house, the tide was flapping at the shore, and
I had a feeling that we were caged and threatened. A four-oared galley
hovering about in so unusual a way as to attract this notice was an ugly
circumstance that I could not get rid of. When I had induced Provis to
go up to bed, I went outside with my two companions (Startop by this
time knew the state of the case), and held another council. Whether we
should remain at the house until near the steamer's time, which would
be about one in the afternoon, or whether we should put off early in the
morning, was the question we discussed. On the whole we deemed it the
better course to lie where we were, until within an hour or so of the
steamer's time, and then to get out in her track, and drift easily with
the tide. Having settled to do this, we returned into the house and went
to bed.

I lay down with the greater part of my clothes on, and slept well for a
few hours. When I awoke, the wind had risen, and the sign of the house
(the Ship) was creaking and banging about, with noises that startled
me. Rising softly, for my charge lay fast asleep, I looked out of the
window. It commanded the causeway where we had hauled up our boat, and,
as my eyes adapted themselves to the light of the clouded moon, I saw
two men looking into her. They passed by under the window, looking at
nothing else, and they did not go down to the landing-place which I
could discern to be empty, but struck across the marsh in the direction
of the Nore.

My first impulse was to call up Herbert, and show him the two men going
away. But reflecting, before I got into his room, which was at the back
of the house and adjoined mine, that he and Startop had had a harder day
than I, and were fatigued, I forbore. Going back to my