t give way at last. However, I need
not instruct you about that; and you must not stop any longer."

"Miss Anerley, I will not encroach upon your kindness. You have said
things that I never shall forget. On the Continent I meet very many
ladies who tell me good things, and make me better; but not at all as
you have done. A minute of talk with you is worth an hour with anybody
else. But I fear that you laugh at me all the while, and are only too
glad to be rid of me. Good-by. May I kiss your hand? God bless you!"

Mary had no time to say a single word, or even to express her ideas by
a look, before Robin Lyth, with all his bright apparel, was "conspicuous
by his absence." As a diving bird disappears from a gun, or a trout from
a shadow on his hover, or even a debtor from his creditor, so the great
free-trader had vanished into lightsome air, and left emptiness behind
him.

The young maid, having been prepared to yield him a few yards more of
good advice, if he held out for another corner, now could only say to
herself that she never had met such a wonderful man. So active, strong,
and astonishingly brave; so thoroughly acquainted with foreign lands,
yet superior to their ladies; so able to see all the meaning of good
words, and to value them when offered quietly; so sweet in his manner,
and voice, and looks; and with all his fame so unpretending, and--much
as it frightened her to think it--really seeming to be afraid of her.

CHAPTER XIII

GRUMBLING AND GROWLING

While these successful runs went on, and great authorities smiled at
seeing the little authorities set at naught, and men of the revenue
smote their breasts for not being born good smugglers, and the general
public was well pleased, and congratulated them cordially upon their
accomplishment of naught, one man there was whose noble spirit chafed
and knew no comfort. He strode up and down at Coast-guard Point, and
communed with himself, while Robin held sweet converse in the lane.

"Why was I born?" the sad Carroway cried; "why was I thoroughly
educated and trained in both services of the king, expected to rise, and
beginning to rise, till a vile bit of splinter stopped me, and then sent
down to this hole of a place to starve, and be laughed at, and baffled
by a boy? Another lucky run, and the revenue bamboozled, and the whole
of us sent upon a wild-goose chase! Every gapper-mouth zany grinning
at me, and scoundrels swearing that I get my share! And t