discovered the two marked half-crowns, the three marked shillings, a brass-barrelled pistol, which were now in court. 'Me and Mr. Bevil, the apprentice, found the money in the box; and we called my papa from the shop, and we fetched Mr. Beales, the constable, who lives over the way; and when that little monster came back from school, we seized upon him, and brought him before your worships, and hanging is what I said he would always come to,' shrieks my enemy Miss Rudge.

Why, I have the key of that box in my pocket now!' I cried out.

'We had means of opening of it,' says Miss Rudge, looking very red.

Oh,

doctor.

6

if you have another key-,' interposes the

We broke it open with the tongs and poker,' says Miss Rudge, me and Edward did I mean Mr. Bevil, the apprentice.'

When? said I, in a great tremor.

When? When you was at school, you little miscreant! Half an hour before you came back to dinner.'

'Tom Parrot, Tom Parrot !' I cried. 'Call Tom Parrot, gentlemen. For goodness' sake call Tom!' I said, my heart beating so that I could hardly speak.

'Here I am, Denny!' pipes Tom in the crowd; and presently he comes up to their honours on the bench.

Speak to Tom, doctor, dear Doctor Barnard !' I continued. 'Tom, when did I show you my pistol? 'Just before ten o'clock school.'

6 What did I do ? '

You unlocked your box, took the pistol out of a handkerchief, showed it to me, and two flints, a powder-horn, a bullet-mould and some bullets, and put them back again, and locked the box.'

'Was there any money in the box?'

'There was nothing in the box but the pistol, and the bullets and things. I looked into it. It was as empty as my hand.'

And Denis Duval has been sitting by you in school ever since ?

6

Ever since-except when I was called up and caned for my Corderius,' says Tom, with a roguish look; and there was a great laughter and shout of applause from our

boys of Pocock's when this testimony was given in their schoolfellow's favour.

My kind doctor held his hand over the railing to me, and when I took it, my heart was so full that my eyes overflowed. I thought of little Agnes. What would she have felt if her Denis had been committed as a thief? I had such a rapture of thanks and gratitude that I think the pleasure of the acquittal was more than equivalent to the anguish of the accusation. What a shout all Pocock's

boys set up, as I went out of the justice-room! We trooped joyfully down the stairs, and there were fresh shouts and huzzays as we got down to the market. I saw Mr. Joe Weston buying corn at a stall. He only looked at me once. His grinding teeth and his clenched ridingwhip did not frighten me in the least now.

CHAPTER VII

THE LAST OF MY SCHOOLDAYS

As our joyful procession of boys passed by Partlett's the pastrycook's, one of the boys-Samuel Arbin-I remember the fellow well-a greedy boy, with a large beard and whiskers, though only fifteen years old-insisted that I ought to stand treat, in consequence of my victory over my enemies. As far as a groat went, I said I was ready : for that was all the money I had.

This

'Oh, you storyteller ! cries the other. 'What have you done with your three guineas which you were bragging about and showing to the boys at school? I suppose they were in the box when it was broken open.' Samuel Arbin was one of the boys who had jeered when I was taken in charge by the constable, and would have liked me to be guilty, I almost think. I am afraid I had bragged about my money when I possessed it, and may have shown my shining gold pieces to some of the boys in school.

6

'I know what he has done with his money!' broke in my steadfast crony Tom Parrot. He has given away every shilling of it to a poor family who wanted it, and nobody ever knew you give away a shilling, Samuel Arbin,' he says.

'Unless he could get eighteenpence by it!' sang out another little voice.

Tom Parrot, I'll break every bone in your body, as sure as my name is Arbin!' cried the other, in a fury. Sam Arbin,' said I, 'after you have finished Tom, you must try me ; or we'll do it now, if you like.' To say the truth, I had long had an inclination to try my hand against Arbin. He was an ill friend to me, and amongst the younger boys a bully and a usurer to boot. The rest called out, A ring! a ring! Let us go on the green and have it out!' being in their innocent years always ready for a fight.

But this one was never to come off and (except in later days, when I went to revisit the old place, and ask for a half-holiday for my young successors at Pocock's) I was never again to see the ancient schoolroom. While we boys were brawling in the market-place before the pastrycook's door, Dr. Barnard came up, and our quarrel was hushed in a moment.

What! fighting and quarrelling already?' says the doctor, sternly.

6

'It wasn't Denny's fault, sir!' cried out several of the boys. It was Arbin began.' And, indeed, I can say for myself that in all the quarrels I have had in life, and they have not been few, I consider I always have been in the right.

'Come along with me, Denny,' says the doctor, taking me by the shoulder: and he led me away and we took a walk in the town together: and as we passed old Ypres Tower, which was built by King Stephen, they say, and was a fort in old days, but is used as the town prison now, Suppose you had been looking from behind those bars now, Denny, and awaiting your trial at assizes? would not have been a pleasant plight,' Dr. Barnard said. 'But I was innocent, sir! You know I was !'

Yours

'Yes. Praise be where praise is due. But if you had · not providentially been able to prove your innocence-if you and your friend Parrot had not happened to inspect your box, you would have been in yonder place. Ha! there is the bell ringing for afternoon service, which my good friend Dr. Wing keeps up. What say you? Shall we go and-and-offer up our thanks, Denny-for the-the immense peril from which-you have been delivered ? '

I remember how my dear friend's voice trembled as he spoke, and two or three drops fell from his kind eyes on my hand, which he held. I followed him into the church. Indeed and indeed I was thankful for my deliverance from a great danger, and even more thankful to have the regard of the true gentleman, the wise and tender friend, who was there to guide, and cheer, and help me.

As we read the last psalm appointed for that evening service, I remember how the good man, bowing his own head, put his hand upon mine; and we recited together the psalm of thanks to the Highest who had had respect unto the lowly, and who had stretched forth His hand upon the furiousness of my enemies, and whose right hand had saved me.

Dr. Wing recognized and greeted his comrade when service was over and the one doctor presented me to the other, who had been one of the magistrates on the bench at the time of my trial. Dr. Wing asked us into his house, where dinner was served at four o'clock, and of course the transactions of the morning were again discussed. What could be the reason of the persecution against me? Who instigated it? There were matters connected with this story regarding which I could not speak. Should I do so, I must betray secrets which were not mine, and which implicated I knew not whom, and regarding which I must hold my peace. Now, they are secrets no more. That old society of smugglers is dissolved long ago nay, I shall have to tell presently how I helped myself to break it up. Grandfather, Rudge, the chevalier, the gentlemen of the Priory, were all connected in that great smuggling society of which I have spoken; which had its dépôts all along the coast and inland, and its correspondents from Dunkirk to Havre de Grâce. I have said as a boy how I had been on some of these 'fishing' expeditions; and how, mainly by the effect of my dear doctor's advice, I had withdrawn from all participation in this lawless and wicked life. When Bevil called me coward for refusing to take a share in a night-cruise, a quarrel ensued between us, ending in that battle royal which left us all sprawling, and cuffing and kicking each other on the kitchen floor. Was it rage at the injury to her sweetheart's teeth, or hatred against myself, which induced my sweet Miss Sukey to propagate calumnies

against me? The provocation I had given certainly did not seem to warrant such a deadly enmity as a prosecution and a perjury showed must exist. Howbeit, here was a reason for the anger of the grocer's daughter and apprentice. They would injure me in any way they could; and (as in the before-mentioned case of the bellows) take the first weapon at hand to overthrow me.

As magistrates of the county, and knowing a great deal of what was happening round about them, and the character of their parishioners and neighbours, the two gentlemen could not, then, press me too closely. Smuggled silk and lace, rum and brandy? Who had not these in his possession along the Sussex and Kent coast? 'And, Wing, will you promise me there are no ribbons in your house but such as have paid duty ?' asks one doctor of the other. 'My good friend, it is lucky my wife has gone to her tea-table,' replies Dr. Wing, or I would not answer for the peace being kept.'

My dear Wing, continues Dr. Barnard, this brandy punch is excellent, and is worthy of being smuggled. To run an anker of brandy seems no monstrous crime; but when men engage in these lawless ventures at all, who knows how far the evil will go? I buy ten kegs of brandy from a French fishing-boat, I land it under a lie on the coast, I send it inland ever so far, be it from here to York, and all my consignees lie and swindle. I land it, and lie to the revenue officer. Under a lie (that is, a mutual secrecy), I sell it to the landlord of the "Bell at Maidstone, say where a good friend of ours, Denny, looked at his pistols. You remember the day when his brother received the charge of shot in his face? My landlord sells it to a customer under a lie. We are all engaged in crime, conspiracy, and falsehood; nay, if the revenue looks too closely after us, we out with our pistols, and to crime and conspiracy add murder. Do you suppose men engaged in lying every day will scruple about a false oath in a witnessbox? Crime engenders crime, sir. Round about us, Wing, I know there exists a vast confederacy of fraud, greed, and rebellion. I name no names, sir. I fear men high placed in the world's esteem, and largely endowed with its riches too, are concerned in the pursuit of this godless traffic of smuggling, and to what does it not lead them? To falsehood, to wickedness, to murder, to——'