d by the gravity of his companions as they
prepared for it. Sylvia was a little penitent for her rejection of
Mr. John's hospitality, now she found out how unavailing for its
purpose such rejection had been, and tried to make up by a modest
sweetness of farewell, which quite won his heart, and made him
praise her up to Hester in a way to which she, observant of all,
could not bring herself fully to respond. What business had the
pretty little creature to reject kindly-meant hospitality in the
pettish way she did, thought Hester. And, oh! what business had she
to be so ungrateful and to try and thwart Philip in his thoughtful
wish of escorting them through the streets of the rough, riotous
town? What did it all mean?

CHAPTER IV

PHILIP HEPBURN

The coast on that part of the island to which this story refers is
bordered by rocks and cliffs. The inland country immediately
adjacent to the coast is level, flat, and bleak; it is only where
the long stretch of dyke-enclosed fields terminates abruptly in a
sheer descent, and the stranger sees the ocean creeping up the sands
far below him, that he is aware on how great an elevation he has
been. Here and there, as I have said, a cleft in the level land
(thus running out into the sea in steep promontories) occurs--what
they would call a 'chine' in the Isle of Wight; but instead of the
soft south wind stealing up the woody ravine, as it does there, the
eastern breeze comes piping shrill and clear along these northern
chasms, keeping the trees that venture to grow on the sides down to
the mere height of scrubby brushwood. The descent to the shore
through these 'bottoms' is in most cases very abrupt, too much so
for a cartway, or even a bridle-path; but people can pass up and
down without difficulty, by the help of a few rude steps hewn here
and there out of the rock.

Sixty or seventy years ago (not to speak of much later times) the
farmers who owned or hired the land which lay directly on the summit
of these cliffs were smugglers to the extent of their power, only
partially checked by the coast-guard distributed, at pretty nearly
equal interspaces of eight miles, all along the north-eastern
seaboard. Still sea-wrack was a good manure, and there was no law
against carrying it up in great osier baskets for the purpose of
tillage, and many a secret thing was lodged in hidden crevices in
the rocks till the farmer sent trusty people down to the shore for a
good supply of