better sailor, a
better ship-builder, and a better fighter than the very best Englishman
ever born. However, his opinions mattered little, being (as we must
feel) absurd. Therefore let him go his way, and grumble, and reckon his
guilders. It was generally known that he could sink a ship with money;
and when such a man is insolent, who dares to contradict him?

The flotilla in the offing soon ploughed hissing furrows through the
misty waves. There were three craft, all of different rig--a schooner,
a ketch, and the said bilander. All were laden as heavily as speed and
safety would allow, and all were thoroughly well manned. They laid their
course for the Dogger Bank, where they would receive the latest news
of the disposition of the enemy. Robin Lyth, high admiral of smugglers,
kept to his favorite schooner, the Glimpse, which had often shown a
fading wake to fastest cutters. His squadron was made up by the ketch,
Good Hope, and the old Dutch coaster, Crown of Gold. This vessel, though
built for peaceful navigation and inland waters, had proved herself so
thoroughly at home in the roughest situations, and so swift of foot,
though round of cheek, that the smugglers gloried in her and the good
luck which sat upon her prow. They called her "the lugger," though her
rig was widely different from that, and her due title was "bilander."
She was very deeply laden now, and, having great capacity, appeared an
unusually tempting prize.

This grand armada of invasion made its way quite leisurely. Off the
Dogger Bank they waited for the last news, and received it, and the
whole of it was to their liking, though the fisherman who brought it
strongly advised them to put back again. But Captain Lyth had no such
thought, for the weather was most suitable for the bold scheme he had
hit upon. "This is my last run," he said, "and I mean to make it a good
one." Then he dressed himself as smartly as if he were going to meet
Mary Anerley, and sent a boat for the skippers of the Good Hope, and the
Crown of Gold, who came very promptly and held counsel in his cabin.

"I'm thinking that your notion is a very good one, captain," said the
master of the bilander, Brown, a dry old hand from Grimsby.

"Capital, capital; there never was a better," the master of the ketch
chimed in, "Nettlebones and Carroway--they will knock their heads
together!"

"The plan is clever enough," replied Robin, who was free from all
mock-modesty, "But you heard what t