the best fashion I could."

"Well, sir, the lads say as they're all werry glad to see you again,"
continued the gunner; "and they hopes you're going to give them some
fun."

"I hope I am," replied Hilary; "but I can't feel sure, for they are
slippery fellows we are after, and we may get there to find them gone."

Meanwhile, in accordance with Hilary's advice, which the lieutenant had
adopted as his own idea, the cutter was sailing east in search of an
opening in the cliff, through which the party could reach the higher
ground; and, after going four or five miles, this was found, the party
landed, and the cutter then sailed on to get rid of the boatload of
prisoners she towed behind, some eight or ten miles farther away.

Hilary felt himself again, as, after he had said a few words to his men,
they started off inland, mounting a rugged pathway, and then journeying
due north.

It was rather puzzling, and the young officer did not anticipate finding
the old hall without some trouble; but he had an idea that it lay to the
east of the smugglers' landing-place, as well as some miles inland.

Hilary's first idea was to get upon one of the ridges, from which he
hoped to recognise the hills which he had looked upon from his prison.
Failing this he meant to search until he did find it, when a happy
thought struck him.

He remembered the dam he had seen, and the great plashing water-wheel.
There was, of course, the little river, and if he could find that he
could track it up to the mill, from whence the old hall would be
visible.

The place seemed singularly uncultivated, and it was some time before
they came upon a cottage, where an old woman looked at them curiously.

"River? Oh, yes, there's the little river runs down in the hollow," she
replied, in answer to Hilary's questions. It was upon his tongue's end
to ask the old woman about the hall; but a moment's reflection told him
the cottagers anywhere near the sea would be either favourable to the
smugglers, or would hold them in such dread that they would be certain
to refuse all information. Even then he was not sure that the old woman
was not sending them upon a false scent.

This did not, however, prove to be the case, for after a walk of about a
couple of miles, through patches of woodland and along dells, where the
men seemed as happy as a pack of schoolboys, a ridge was reached, from
which the little streamlet could be seen; and making their way down to
it