en him upon the
point.

"What's the town?" asked Ezra.

"Eastbourne," the fisherman answered shortly, and lounged away into the
bows, while his son remained at the tiller.

The two fugitives had their breakfast; but as it consisted of nothing
more appetising than tinned corned-beef and ships' biscuits, and as
neither of them had much inclination for food, it was not a very lengthy
meal. Then they sat in the sheets once more, watching the grand
panorama of green woodland and swelling down and towering cliff, which
passed before them on the one side while on the other the great ocean
highway was dotted with every variety of vessel, from the Portland ketch
or the Sunderland brig, with its cargo of coals, to the majestic
four-masted liner which swept past, with the green waves swirling round
her forefoot and breaking away into a fork of eddying waters in her
wake.

Ezra cautioned his father to sit down, for he observed a row of curious
faces gazing at them over the quarter of one great vessel.

"Our dress isn't quite what you would expect to see in a fishing-boat,"
he said. "There is no use setting tongues wagging." There was still a
fresh breeze, and the little boat continued to fly before it at the rate
of six or eight knots. "This wind is a lucky chance," Ezra remarked,
rather to himself than to his companion.

"It is the working of Providence," answered John Girdlestone, with an
earnestness which showed that his mind still retained its habitual
peculiarity.

By ten o'clock they were abreast of the long stone terraces of Hastings;
at half-past eleven they saw the masts of the fishing-smacks of
Winchelsea. By one they were rounding the sharp bold promontory of
Dungeness. They kept further to sea after that, so that the long white
wall and the spires of Folkestone and of Dover lay far on the horizon.
On the other side a dim haze upon the blue water marked the position of
the French coast. It was nearly five, and the sun was beginning to sink
down again in the west, when the fisherman, after gazing steadily ahead
for some time, with his horny hand shading his eyes, touched Ezra on the
sleeve.

"See them breakers over there," he said, pointing over the starboard
bow. Far away Ezra could see a long roll of foam breaking the monotony
of the broad stretch of ocean. "Them's the Goodwins," he went on; "and
them craft ahead is at anchor in the Downs."

The vessels in question were miles away, but Ezra brighten