sparkling sea, without becoming the focus of
a score of telescopes. The ladies have not
so far to walk; a secluded bay close by, on
the other side, is dedicated to them; where
the innocent sea-gulls and soft white waves
are alone spectators of their curtsies and
taking of hands.

Our population consists almost entirely of
fishermen, of whom more than one possesses a
considerable property acquired in other ways
than oyster-dredging or lobster-catching, in
the good old times of Saucy Susans and
smuggling runs. Scarcliff, we boast, owned
in those times at least one as tidy lugger
as ever gave the go-by to her Majesty's
revenue-cutters; and there was scarcely a
cottage where the purest French brandy
could not be procured under the unconscious
title of skim milk (from the duty being taken
off, I suppose), or a farm-house where a
casual reference to cabbage crops, failed to
produce the choicest of Havannah cigars.
The gains of the free-trader must, indeed,
have been enormous, to admit of such
universal bribery; and the popularity of his
profession was great in proportion. What if
the horses of the yeoman next the sea were
haled out in the dead midnight to carry a
cargo twenty miles across the moorland,
thence to be conveyed still further
beyond the reach of suspicion? A keg or
two left in their manger atoned for the dirt
and weariness of the cattle. What if a coast-
guardsman or so, more officious in their
duties than need be, got occasionally spilt
over the cliffs in the darkness, and by
mistake? Some few victims must be sacrificed
to every system, even to that of the contraband
trade; whose theory was that of the
Jeremy Bentham,and had in view the greatest
happiness of the greatest possible number.

It was thus that old Jacob Ashfield—who
flourished at Scarcliff at the commencement of
this present century—got so respected. I did
not know him personally until long after his
palmy time; and, still hale and vigorous old
fellow as he was and is, he was changed
enough from him who had the strongest
arm and steadiest eye of any betwixt the
Humber and the Wash. He lived by the
streamlet's side that runs along the eastern
gully down to the village. The place
was suited to the owner; a huge fall and
lasher leapt and eddied before the cottage
door with thunder enough to deafen an ear
unaccustomed to the turmoil; and there
were indeed many things done and said by
old Jacob and his visitors, which would not
have sounded well to listeners, even if they
had understood their meaning; for, as the
law has an infinite amount of vain repetition
and foolish jargon, in order to confuse clients
and keep a lucrative business in professional
hands, so had these evaders of the law a
dictionary of their own, and were indebted
for much of their language neither to Johnson,
nor to Webster, nor (slang as their
expressions often were) to Walker himself.
More than once, on dark and wintry nights,
the officers of excise have cooled their heels
for hours on the little wooden bridge that
spanned the torrent, so difficult did they find
it to make known their presence to the
proprietor; while he and his family were
breaking up a barrel or two which might
have given them offence, and letting many a
gallon of white ale mix with the foaming
flood, to make trout and grilse and salmon
exceedingly drunk and astonished, between
Watersleap and Scarcliff Bay.

Jack Ashfield, a boy of about twenty
years of age, and his sister Kitty—the
prettiest woman, say the old people, ever
seen in these parts, by far—assisted their
father well and willingly; often and often,
through the dark October nights, did Jack
sit upon the slippery heather of the great
sloping heights of Sleamouth Cove, showing
the light of his lantern to the sea,
and shading it from the land, to guide the
lugger's course; and whenever charming
Kitty's petticoats seemed a trifle more stiffly
quilted than usual, when she rode into the
market-town with her basket, it was generally
attributed to the presence of cigars. Although
thus notorious from their youth up, as
opposing themselves to his Majesty's excise
laws, they were in all other respects perfectly
honest and well-conducted, and redeemed, by
their good-nature and pleasant looks, the
rough behaviour and buccaneering appearance
of old Jacob. His life had been a
chequered one, and not, in any of its
patterns, favourable to the development of
gentleness or respectability; he had been
a pressed man under Nelson, and had fought
against the grain and against the French
for years, but behaving gallantly enough
at all times, and especially at Trafalgar.
He had an enormous belief and gloried
exceedingly in his great commander. When
he heard that Cronstadt was not to be
attacked in the late war, he got very
excited, and blasphemed—as was his
custom on most occasions—uninterruptedly
for a week or two. He never knew,
poor old fellow, when he was guilty of his
frightful expressions, but used them in the
old man-of-war style, interjectionally, and
for emphasis.

"If old Nelly had been alive, he'd not have
waited for orders from home, nor nothing,
but he'd have gone in leading the line, and
the fleet 'ud have followed, mark ye, although
they had to sail over his sunken ships. Why,
when Villainouve heard that the command:
had been given to Old Nelly, he calls his
admirals, captains, lieutenants, and what not,
on to his quarter-deck, and says he, 'We are
all dead men!'"

And then, amidst a dropping fire of
imprecations, old Jacob would point out upon the
sand with his staff the way in which the
enemy's line was broken in the great battle