tongue, and then you won't be so ready to ask questions. There!"

"Me ask questions!" exclaimed the old carrier in an ill-used tone. "As
if I ever did. Well, never mind, he'll know better some day."

The old man sniffed several times quite severely, and sat bolt upright
at the side of the cart, looking out at his horse's ears, and left us to
ourselves. Bob's fit of melancholy was over, and he was ready to make
remarks upon everything he saw; but neither Bigley nor I spoke, for we
were intent upon something the latter told me.

"I don't want to tell tales," he said to me in a low tone, "but father
makes me miserable."

"But do you think it is so bad as you say?"

Bigley nodded.

"He goes and sits on a stone with his spy-glass where he can see them,
but they can't see him, and he stops there watching for hours everything
they do, and comes back looking very serious and queer."

"Well, what does it matter?" I said. "He won't hurt us. He can't,
because he is my father's tenant, and if he did he'd have to go."

"Don't talk like that, Sep," whispered Bigley. "It's bad enough now,
and it would be worse then."

"I say, what chaps you two are!" cried Bob Chowne. "Why don't you talk
to a fellow?"

No one answered, and Bob turned sulky and went and sat on the front of
the cart, where he began to whistle.

"What do you mean by being worse?" I said.

Bigley shook his head.

"I don't know; I can't say," he whispered. "I mean I don't want father
to be very cross."

"I say, Big," I whispered. "Your father really is a smuggler, isn't
he?"

Bigley looked sharply round to gaze at old Teggley Grey and Bob Chowne,
creeping as he did so nearer to the tail-board of the cart, and I
followed him.

"I oughtn't to tell," he whispered back.

"But you'll tell me. I won't say a word to a soul," I said.

"Well, I don't know. I'm not sure, but--"

Bigley paused, and looked round again before putting his lips close to
my ear and whispering softly:

"I think he is."

"I'm sure of it," I whispered back; "and I know he goes out in his
lugger to meet French boats and Dutch boats, and makes no end of money
by smuggling."

"Who told you that?" whispered Bigley fiercely.

"Nobody. It's what everybody says of him. They all say that he'll be
caught and hanged some day for it--hung in chains; but of course I hope
he won't, Big, because of you."

"It's all nonsense. It isn't true," said Bigley indignantly, "and tho