y," said his mother, "you are always so impetuous! I never
will believe in such good luck until I see it. But you have been a
wonderfully good brave boy, and your father may thank you for whatever
he has done. I shall not allow Geraldine to go; for she is not a good
child this morning. And of course I can not go myself, for your father
will come home absolutely starving. And it would not be right for the
little ones to go, if things are at all as you suppose. Now, if I let
you go yourself, you are not to go beyond the flag-staff. Keep far away
from the boats, remember; unless your father calls for you to run on any
errand. All the rest of you go in here, with your bread and milk, and
wait until I call you."

Mrs. Carroway locked all the little ones in a room from which they could
see nothing of the beach, with orders to Cissy, the next girl, to feed
them, and keep them all quiet till she came again. But while she was
busy, with a very lively stir, to fetch out whatever could be found of
fatness or grease that could be hoped to turn to gravy in the pan--for
Carroway, being so lean, loved fat, and to put a fish before him was an
insult to his bones--just at the moment when she had struck oil, in the
shape of a very fat chop, from forth a stew, which had beaten all
the children by stearine inertia--then at this moment, when she was
rejoicing, the latch of the door clicked, and a man came in.

"Whoever you are, you seem to me to make yourself very much at home,"
the lady said, sharply, without turning round, because she supposed it
to be a well-accustomed enemy, armed with that odious "little bill." The
intruder made no answer, and she turned to rate him thoroughly; but the
petulance of her eyes drew back before the sad stern gaze of his. "Who
are you, and what do you want?" she asked, with a yellow dish in one
hand, and a frying-pan in the other. "Geraldine, come here: that man
looks wild."

Her visitor did look wild enough, but without any menace in his
sorrowful dark eyes. "Can't the man speak?" she cried. "Are you mad, or
starving? We are not very rich; but we can give you bread, poor fellow.
Captain Carroway will be at home directly, and he will see what can be
done for you."

"Have you not heard of the thing that has been done?" the young man
asked her, word by word, and staying himself with one hand upon the
dresser, because he was trembling dreadfully.

"Yes, I have heard of it all. They have shot the smuggler