rticularly to the hatred and
ill-will of the operators concerned in such affairs, and a plot was laid
by a few of the most daring and determined of them to establish one of
their depositories on Orr's Island, and to implicate the family of
Pennel himself in the trade. This would accomplish two purposes, as they
hoped,--it would be a mortification and defeat to him,--a revenge which
they coveted; and it would, they thought, insure his silence and
complicity for the strongest reasons.

The situation and characteristics of Orr's Island peculiarly fitted it
for the carrying out of a scheme of this kind, and for this purpose we
must try to give our readers a more definite idea of it.

The traveler who wants a ride through scenery of more varied and
singular beauty than can ordinarily be found on the shores of any land
whatever, should start some fine clear day along the clean sandy road,
ribboned with strips of green grass, that leads through the flat
pitch-pine forests of Brunswick toward the sea. As he approaches the
salt water, a succession of the most beautiful and picturesque lakes
seems to be lying softly cradled in the arms of wild, rocky forest
shores, whose outlines are ever changing with the windings of the road.

At a distance of about six or eight miles from Brunswick he crosses an
arm of the sea, and comes upon the first of the interlacing group of
islands which beautifies the shore. A ride across this island is a
constant succession of pictures, whose wild and solitary beauty entirely
distances all power of description. The magnificence of the evergreen
forests,--their peculiar air of sombre stillness,--the rich
intermingling ever and anon of groves of birch, beech, and oak, in
picturesque knots and tufts, as if set for effect by some skillful
landscape-gardener,--produce a sort of strange dreamy wonder; while the
sea, breaking forth both on the right hand and the left of the road into
the most romantic glimpses, seems to flash and glitter like some strange
gem which every moment shows itself through the framework of a new
setting. Here and there little secluded coves push in from the sea,
around which lie soft tracts of green meadow-land, hemmed in and guarded
by rocky pine-crowned ridges. In such sheltered spots may be seen neat
white houses, nestling like sheltered doves in the beautiful solitude.

When one has ridden nearly to the end of Great Island, which is about
four miles across, he sees rising befo