or something over, with a thick wood intervening, and sloping gradually to a deep valley, were situated the furnace and forge of our earlier chapters, with their chain of ponds. Beyond these was Hurlock Chase. It is necessary to bear these localities in mind, to obtain a clear understanding of the events about to be recorded.

We have already stated that it was two hours past midnight before Harry Rivers and Mr. Wainfleet found it convenient to tear themselves away from the hospitality of "The George Inn," and, under the postilionage of old Wimsett, commenced their drive to the Priory. The night was cloudy and moonless; and as the road-never very smooth at its best estate-was now saturated with recent rains, and deeply rutted with the transit of heavily laden harvest-waggons, the progress of the travellers was necessarily slow. Indeed, after an hour's labour, scarcely four miles of the journey had been achieved.

Hitherto, however, perfect silence had reigned around the travellers, save the sounds common to night everywhere in the country; and Rivers delicately reminded his companion of the fears he had expressed of being interrupted.

“Don't brag yet, Mr. Rivers: don't halloo till you are out of the wood, sir," returned the lawyer.

He had scarcely uttered the words when a sudden commotion in the road, and an equally sudden stoppage of their vehicle, caused both the travellers to start. To let down one of the windows of the crazy chaise, and to shout out to the postilion, demanding to know what was the matter, was the work of a moment with Rivers; while Mr. Wainfleet's hand, instinctively thrust into the breast-pocket of his outer coat, proved that he had not forgotten to provide for self-protection, after his wont.

Meanwhile the trampling of feet and the sound of strange voices increased; and in the midst of this hubbub the door of the post-chaise was violently thrown open.

"Stand back, you villains!" shouted the valorous old lawyer, as he sprung into the road, pointing his pistol at a dusky form before him that he took for a robber, but which proved to be the branchless and dead trunk of a tree by the road-side; and before he could correct his aim his hand was gently but forcibly borne down by a man who had stepped to his side.

"Don't you know friends from foes, Mr. Wainfleet?" demanded the intruder.

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Pretty sort of friends, in my opinion," said the lawyer, struggling to free his hand, which the other wisely had taken into custody; "pretty sort of friends, to be stopping peaceable subjects on the king's highway. But is it Moses Lee? I know your voice, I think, though I can't make out your face.”

"We are all Lees; and I am Moses," said the man.

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Oh, then we are all right, I suppose, Mr. Rivers. Where are you, Harry? Don't do anything rash if you can help it. I do suppose we are among friends, after all; though what you mean by stopping us in this way, Moses, is more than I can guess, unless you mean to warn us that there is danger in going on.”

"We want your help, and Master Harry's too," said the gipsy, respectfully enough, but sternly; "and you must come with us quickly. There has been too much time lost already; but we heard your booby-hutch coming along, so I and Tim and Phil waited for you while the others are gone on. Mr. Rivers "-this to Harry, whom by this time Moses recognised through the gloom-"I needn't ask you to lend a hand, for I know you will. So will you, Mr. Wainfleet."

"Pho! pho! this is some of your smuggling business, Moses. Lend a hand! said he; no, no, friend."

“You'll only be sorry for it once if you don't, and that will be all your life after, gentlemen," said Moses, earnestly. "Master Harry, you don't want Tom Carey to be murdered, do you ?”

"Murdered! Eh, what?" exclaimed the lawyer; "and

"Murdered! Tom Carey murdered!” cried Rivers.

"Murdered, Yes. I can't stop to tell you more, only that, according to my guess, the smuggling party have had a regular dressing; and that a lot of the runaways, mostly the forgemen, have hunted out Tom Carey, and are hauling him now to the furnace down there, because they think he is the informer; and

The travellers did not need to hear more. The legend was rife enough then (it may be forgotten now) of the fate which was supposed to have befallen an exciseman a long time before, under circumstances somewhat similar to those of Tom Carey: how, in some hour of exasperation, the smugglers had accidentally fallen in with him, had dragged him to an iron-furnace, and that, thenceforward, nothing more was known or seen of the unhappy wretch, whose shrieks, however, had been heard breaking the stillness of the night, by the terrified inhabitants of the valley. Both search and inquisition were made in vain; and the inference was, that the traitor (for the exciseman, if we remember right, had previously been bribed by the smugglers) had perished by the doom threatened to the three Jewish youths by the Babylonish tyrant.

Probably this legend crossed the minds of both Mr. Wainfleet and Rivers; for, after a very few more words spoken, and brief directions being given to the postilion to ride on gently to the Wash, and there await their return, the knights-errant commanded the gipsies to lead on; and, plunging after them into the woods that bordered on the road, "thoro' brake and thoro' briar," they were all soon lost to the hearing (to say nothing of the sight) of old Wimsett, whose drowsy faculties, having been for a brief space roused by the interruption, soon settled down again into their normal condition, as he applied his heavy-thonged whip to his horses' flanks, and urged them forwards to the Wash.

CHAPTER LIX.

THE NIGHT OF THE SMUGGLERS' RUN-THE FIRST-FRUITS OF

TREACHERY.

BEFORE following out the adventure entered upon by the travellers in our last chapter, it is necessary to glance rapidly at events which had by few hours preceded it, in another part of the field on which the interest of our story has been mainly centred.

Early in the evening "The Squirrel" began to receive its secret guests, among the first of whom was the almost ubiquitous and indefatigable plotter Mr. Wincheap, with old Luke, of whom we have heretofore spoken, and Carter, the foreman of the ironworks. Having on a former occasion given a sufficient specimen of the conversation of these men, we shall content ourselves with observing that care seemed to hang more heavily than usual over them all. Possibly the greatness of the venture of the night had something to do in sobering their thoughts; for it was whispered among them that goods to the value of twenty thousand pounds were that night to be landed from the smuggling cutter, and dispersed in the various hides. But, besides this, an instinctive feeling of insecurity weighed on their spirits. They were not quite sure that they had baffled their natural enemies and persecutors with regard to the time and spot of the intended landing, while they knew that those enemies and persecutors had for some days been more than commonly on the alert. One circumstance particularly puzzled and perplexed Mr. Wincheap; namely, that the subordinate officer whom he had heavily bribed to assist in misleading his superiors had suddenly disappeared, having been despatched, as it seemed, to another station. This might be a mere coincidence, for these shiftings often occurred;

but it looked rather black, old Luke thought, and Will Carter agreed with him.

Another thing worried Mr. Wincheap, and the guests of George Parsley in general: this was the absence of some of their confederates. They could account for that of Mr. Crickett, who bad forewarned Mr. Wincheap that he should be unable to leave the Priory that night; but others were also missing who ought to have been there, and who had probably been frightened back by the reports of the past few days. Among the absent ones was Moses Lee, concerning whose defection it is almost needless to say Mr. Wincheap had been kept in ignorance by the arch-traitor Crickett.

"It's most likely he is at Kittum's Corner with the horses,” said Wincheap, who did his best to keep up the courage of his coadjutors, but with indifferent success.

Later in the evening, however, others of the smuggling crew dropped in; and, as they reported that the coast was clear, and also brought intelligence that the entire force of the customhouse officers was directed towards Ladies' Cliff, the spirits of the whole party gradually rose. It may be remarked, in passing, that this intelligence was entirely unfounded, and had been industriously spread by the custom-house officers themselves.

The expedition had been planned for an earlier hour than on the former occasion we have described; so that soon after ten o'clock the party left "The Squirrel" to the charge of the landlord and Mr. Wincheap, expecting to fall in with other and yet more numerous reinforcements at Whichwhich Bay.

The further occurrences of that eventful evening, as far as the smugglers were concerned, may be briefly told. The landing of the goods was commenced without any reason for alarm, although extra precautions were used because of the unusual value of the contraband cargo. Already several detachments had left the beach with their horse-loads of packages, when suddenly, warning shouts