day.

As soon as poor Farmer Hamlyn had passed away, Coppinger made himself
master and controller of the house and all in it, even to the smallest
domestic affairs. Dinah he persuaded to marry him at once, and hardly had
she done so, when all the evil in his character made itself known, and as
though to make up for having so long suppressed his wicked passions,
he utterly threw off all appearance of goodness or respectability, and
poor respectable Farmer Hamlyn's quiet, happy home became a den of thieves
and vagabonds, and a meeting-place for all the lawless characters in the
county.

Then it very soon came out that the whole country-side was infested with a
body of smugglers, wreckers, poachers, robbers, and murderers, over all of
whom 'Cruel Coppinger,' as he came to be called by the honest people in
the neighbourhood, was captain and ringleader.

He and his gang worked their own wicked will, and the poor inhabitants of
the place were completely in their power, for there were no magistrates,
or rich men of power in that part, and no revenue officer dared show
himself. The clergyman was scared into silence, and Coppinger and his
band ruled the country-side.

Very soon a regular system of smuggling was carried on. All sorts of
strange vessels appeared on that part of the coast, and were guided by
signals to a safe creek or cove, where they were unloaded, and the
valuable, illegal spoil brought in and hidden in the huge caves, which no
one but Coppinger and his crew dared to enter, for it would have meant
torture and death.

By and by one particular vessel, the 'Black Prince,' Coppinger's own,
which he had had built for him in Denmark, became a perfect terror to all
the other vessels in the parts she frequented. Coppinger and his crew
sailed the seas as though they belonged to them, robbing, murdering,
and doing every evil thing they could think of.

If a vessel chased them, they led her into such dangerous parts of the
coast that her whole crew invariably perished, while the 'Black Prince'
glided out by some intricate passage, and got safely off. If one of the
poor landsmen offended any of the gang, away he was dragged to Coppinger's
vessel, and there made to serve until he was ransomed, and as the people
were almost reduced to beggary by the rogues, there was very little chance
of the poor fellow's ever being free again.

Wealth poured into their clutches, and Coppinger soon began to have
enormous quantiti