down on your knees and thank God, as the good book teaches you, that you hadn't committed a great crime."

"That's as you may like to put it, Moses," muttered Carter in a low voice, so as scarcely to be overheard; "but there was a time when you wouldn't have thought much of putting a traitor and an informer out of the way; and you know it.'

"But I would have caught him first," rejoined Moses, in the same cautious tones, and drawing Carter a little aside; "and you have got the wrong man, Will, that's all. If you want to get the right one, after to-night's work, which I don't think you will, his name is William Crickett."

"I tell you what it is, friends," continued the gipsy, who seemed to have risen in importance by his night's good work, and who now turned to his friends: "there has been a bit of a mistake made, and a little fright given, but no harm done, after all, and none meant that we know of."

"No what, friend Lee? No harm, quotha!" shouted the old lawyer, who still handled his pistols cautiously: "a pretty judge you must be of harm! No harm meant, eh?"

"Not a bit of it, I tell you, Mr. Wainfleet," retorted the gipsy, boldly, and taking up the defence (for reasons of his own) of his friends of the furnace and forge, who stood with folded arms and doubtful-looking faces, but silent. "Say that they fancied Tom Carey had done them wrong, and were a-mind to give him a fright, as I said, and were carrying the joke a little too farwell, here they are now, to say they are sorry for it, and to ask him to make it up; and here's Tom Carey, with not a hair of his head hurt, to say 'twas a mistake altogether; and here's Master Harry Rivers come home again, and nobody to throw up a hat and say 'Hooray;' and I am ashamed of you, Will Carter, for turning sulky. As to Bob Phillips there"-Moses pointed to the recumbent forgeman as he spoke "I don't wonder at him : he always was sulky; and, besides he has got a settler: but for

you, Carter and Jones, and the rest of you-when there's Tom Carey here himself to say that he bears you no malice-I am ashamed of you all."

This singular speech produced its effect. When it was ended Tom Carey, released from his bonds, and his mouth ungagged, stepped forward supported by Harry Rivers. By the imperfect light of the furnace-fire, mingling with the grey dawn of the September morning, now breaking, it was not difficult to see that he was labouring under strong emotions; but he controlled them and spoke.

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Friends," he said to his former fellow-workmen, “I honestly forgive you all that you have done to me this night. What you meant to do, or didn't mean to do, is past and gone. I'll never bear a thought of malice for it: I'll only ask and beg of you to thank God for having been stopped from what you might have done. And now I'll tell you what I would have told you before, but you wouldn't hear me. I never had a thought of betraying any of you, nor of informing against you. I know nothing of what has been done this night anywhere else, and I don't want to know. I haven't liked your ways and your going against the laws, though I used to be as bad and wild as any of you before I learnt better from the Bible, and I have told you so plainly when I have had it put to me; but as to informing against you, I never have done it; and all I have more to say is, that I pray God to give you grace, all of you, my old friends, to see the error of your ways, as I have done of mine; and so there's my hand, Will Carter. And thanks to you, dear, good friends, for having come to my help when it seemed that I needed it."

Tom offered his hand to Carter as he spoke, and it was tightly grasped, but no more words were spoken; and before the sun had risen the scene of the intended tragedy was silent and deserted, save by the men whose duty it was to watch and feed the furnace-fire.

CHAPTER LXII.

WINDING-UP.

A FEW more paragraphs will bring our story to an end.

On leaving the ironworks Tom Carey was conveyed by his deliverers to Samuel Austin's, where, after convincing his sister and his friends that he was safe, he left his brother Zeke, and parted from the gipsies with many heartfelt thanks (and generous promises from Harry Rivers and Mr. Wainfleet) for the services they had rendered; and then he took a seat in the post-chaise (which had been waiting there two or three hours), and accompanied his friend Harry and the old lawyer to the Priory. Our readers already know what awaited them there; which gave occasion to Mr. Wainfleet to say that he wasn't a bit surprised, for he had long known of Mr. Crickett's connection with the smuggling gang, though it was no business of his, and had also always believed the old butler to be a rascal, and a hypocrite to boot.

It was long before Melly and Prissy Fleming could be brought to think ill of the old servant, whom they had ever believed to be almost faultless; and even (after the shock caused by his sudden and violent death had subsided) when they had undeniable proof of his baseness and dishonesty laid before them they begged that the subject might thenceforward be dropped. "We do not wish to think uncharitably of the dead, do we, Prissy?" said Melly, mournfully. And Prissy, wiping the tears from her eyes, answered "No, sister."

But the catastrophe of which they had been eye-witnesses strengthened and confirmed the determination of the two sisters

to give up the Priory to its rightful owners, and to take possession (as tenants) of Leanacre Farm. All remonstrances on the part of Harry Rivers, backed by the persuasions and caustic though good-natured ridicule of Mr. Peter Wainfleet, were of no avail, and only showed that it is possible for the most amiable of womanhood to be sometimes exceedingly determined. The removal, therefore, took place very soon after the burial of William Crickett; and the Priory opened its gates to receive Harry and Rose, who never returned to their Canadian forest life, but disposed of their property there to so much advantage that Harry was enabled to revive the former splendour of the Priory, and to take rank with the neighbouring gentry.

The Priory itself underwent many alterations and improvements, and the old ruins were levelled to the ground. They should never be used again, their owner said, as the haunts of law-breakers.

Melly and Prissy lived many years happily at Leanacre Farm (which no longer deserved its ill-omened name), with Tom Carey for their factotum. During their lives an unbroken intercourse was maintained with the Priory, and after their death the farm became Tom Carey's by the gift of his munificent friend and former companion. He never married, being faithful to the memory of his beloved Mary, and after the death of his mother, and of Samuel Austin and his wife, his blind sister Marty was his dearest companion and housekeeper. We are getting on too fast and far with our records, however, and must call back.

The capture of the bulk of the contraband goods by the custom-house officers, on the night of the run, was the means of breaking up the smuggling interest on that part of the coast for many years; although, probably in consideration of the extraordinary value of the seizure, unusual leniency was dealt out to the smugglers who were taken prisoners. But these were but the subordinate actors in the drama: the principals suffered