"It is because I do know it, Tom, or can guess it, that I am at your side now. I want to persuade you to pause and think before you go any farther."

"You must tell me plainer what you mean, Mr. Heywood," said the forgeman.

"Well, then, plainly, you are endangering your body and your soul, your temporal interests and your spiritual interests, my friend; and I ask you, Tom, to consider your ways and be wise.' "You must speak more plainly still, sir," was all the reply Tom Carey made.

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Why should I? But I will if I must," said the evangelist. "You are going now to 'The Squirrel

"Ah! are you sure of that?"

"I believe that you are. I met Carter and others not long since, and he told me he was going there, and made no secret of what was to follow."

"Oh! if he didn't, there's no reason why I should. I am going to join the party at 'The Squirrel,'" said Carey, composedly. 66 And will go, you

Tom?"

"To-night? yes. I have promised; and you would not have me break my word, would you now, Mr. Heywood?" said the forgeman.

"There are some promises which it is not worse to break than to keep, Tom; and I was in hopes that before now you would have come to the conclusion that you would take up your cross and follow the dear Lord, though it might be at the sacrifice of your worldly pleasures or friendships. You told me to speak plainly, Tom," added the preacher.

"I don't mind your speaking plainly, Mr. Heywood; I can bear it from you, for you are a good friend and a true man. As to pleasures," continued Tom, speaking earnestly, "do you think that I have any pleasure in going along with such men as I shall meet presently? And as to taking up the cross-but I will speak

of that in a minute or two, when we have done with the danger. You spoke of danger, Mr. Heywood; what danger?”

"I did not refer to any particular danger in this night's work, Tom, whatever it may be, but the general and constant danger there must be in law-breaking."

"I have faced that danger too often to fear it, sir," said Carey, laughing; "and, begging your pardon, it is a danger of the law's own making, and the law has no right to make it.”

"Where no law is, there is no transgression,' my friend," said the preacher; "but," added he, "we have gone over that matter before, and we need not discuss it now."

"As you please, Mr. Heywood," said the forgeman: "I am not over-fond of arguing, and there isn't much use in it that I can see. But you talked of danger, sir: you don't take account that there's danger in two ways—as great danger in giving up as in going on; more, perhaps."

"You mean danger from your present companions—I won't call them friends."

"That is what I do mean. How much would my safety be worth, Mr. Heywood, do you think, now, supposing I were to turn from these free-trade jobs and set my face against them altogether?"

"I am afraid you are right, Tom," said the preacher, sadly. "You would be suspected, at any rate."

"No doubt of it, sir; and the first mishap there was I should be more than suspected."

Heywood very well knew this. There were instances known in which men who were suspected of having informed against their smuggling companions and betrayed their plans had been cruelly used; others in which known traitors had been compelled to abscond and to quit the country-side altogether, to save their lives from deeply seated revenge; and there was one case, of a distant date certainly, but very well authenticated, in which a

wretched exciseman, who had incurred the vengeance of the smugglers by acting the part of a spy, had been put to a dreadful death as a punishment for his perfidy, his murderers escaping for want of proof of the crime having been committed.

"You don't say anything, sir," said Carey, presently, after two or three minutes' silence.

"What more can I say than I have already said, my friend ?” said the preacher, sadly.

"True, sir: I think I know all your arguments by heart," replied the forgeman.

"The less reason why I should repeat them, Tom,” rejoined John Heywood. "Your mind is made up, I fear, and only ONE can turn it. I must leave it in His hands to show you, in His own good time, what you ought to do."

"Mr. Heywood," said the forgeman, more softly than he had hitherto spoken, "you said something just now about taking up the cross. What that may be with others it is not for me to say, but I think I can give a guess what it means to me. It means being jeered at and aggravated in a hundred ways that you don't know of, sir-though you know a great deal, I allow-and having one's temper put up by all sorts of provocations from my fellowworkmen. This is one part of the cross I should have to take up, Mr. Heywood."

"It is the common lot of all true disciples, Tom," said the evangelist. "All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.' It was so in the day of the apostles: it is so now."

"No doubt, sir; and I don't put my case, or what would be mine if I made up my mind, as you say, Mr. Heywood-I don't put it as being uncommon or out of the way, but as being true, and wanting to be looked at. You know what you yourself have told me, sir, about counting the cost; and, if I might say so, I have been trying to do this."

"I am glad to hear it, my friend. Well, you speak of persecution as being one part of the cross, your cross; what is the other, Tom?"

"Just that danger of which we were speaking, sir. It would take but little to put one like me out of the way. I know too many secrets, Mr. Heywood; and if my following Christ tells me to leave off these doings-as I don't doubt it would do in the end -I should be a marked man, and the first job that goes crooked would be laid to me. Now, I put it to you, Mr. Heywood, how much or how little my life would be worth then?"

The preacher paused a minute before he replied, with quiet fervour, "You know what the Master says, Tom: Fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."" "You think, then, sir," said Carey, "there's that much wickedness in smuggling, that a man who has anything to do with it must go to perdition, must be lost for ever in the next world?"

"I never put the matter in a way so uncharitable; nor would I rashly judge of any man's state in the sight of God, Tom,” said the startled preacher. "After all," he added, "what I think is a very small and light thing. To his own Master every man must stand or fall. But I may say this, my friend, that smuggling and religion don't match well with each other, don't mix well together."

"Just so, sir," replied Tom, as though assenting to a self-evident proposition; "but we are pretty near within hail of 'The Squirrel' now, Mr. Heywood; and I suppose you don't mean to go on much farther."

"You wish me to leave you, then, to your own wilful wanderings from the right way, Tom," said the preacher, mournfully. "To my own way to-night, Mr. Heywood," said Tom, stopping in his course, and grasping the hand of his spiritual mentor. "Look here, sir," he continued: "I made this engagement

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some time ago-it does not matter when; but I made it, and I'll stick to it. If I believed there was any sin against God (setting aside its breaking man's foolish and wicked laws) in doing what I am going to do, I would leave it undone and take the consequences. But I can't see it so maybe it will come to me some day; but it isn't yet. Stop, sir: this is not all I have got to say;" for Heywood was turning away silent and sorrowful. Though I don't see it wrong as some people do, I have seen this much in it, that, before this night, I had made up my mind, as you say, Mr. Heywood, that I would never, after this one time, have anything more to do with this sort of traffic. If it brings a cross, I'll bear it, and pray to God to help me bear it, sir. If it is only for the company it brings me into, I have done with it, Mr. Heywood; and, as a true and honest man, and a Christian, as I hope I am, and know I want to be, you may trust me, sir, when I say that this is my last night of smuggling."

Saying this, the forgeman relinquished the hand he had been holding, and before the preacher could make any reply he was lost in the midnight gloom.

CHAPTER XXXV.

WHICHWHICH BAY AND THE SMUGGLERS' RUN.

THE scenery at Whichwhich Bay is sufficiently grand, but extremely desolate. As the spectator stands on the lonely beach, facing the sea, which spreads in an unbroken, wide expanse before him, he might easily fancy himself cut off from further intercourse with the world. Occasionally, indeed, a sail may loom in the distance; but careful mariners shun a near approach to the rocky and dangerous coast.