Part 9 (2/2)

When Scrivings left the outlook with Dan on watch, he betook himself to this cottage, in order to complete arrangements for landing the cargo, every bale and tub of which they had meant to haul up from Daddy's Hole to the plains above, then to cart them away inland.

But he found his ten men ready, and even the horses and carts in waiting. They were hired conveyances. The smugglers found no difficulty in getting help to secure their booty in those days, when many even of the resident gentry of England sympathized with contraband trade. So there was nothing to be done but to wait.

It was a lonely enough spot where the little cottage stood among rocks and woodland. Lovely as well as lonely and wild; though I fear its beauties alone did nothing to recommend the place to the favour of ”Capting” Scrivings and his merry men.

The night waned. The moon rose higher and higher. The men in the bothy, having eaten and drunk, had got tired at last of card-playing, and nearly all were curled up and asleep.

The sentry had seated himself on a stone outside, and he too was nodding, lulled into dreamland by the sough of the wind among the solemn pines.

The wind favoured Fairlie's party, who, as stealthily as Indians, crept towards the cottage from the rear.

The sentry was neatly seized and quickly gagged, and next moment the lieutenant, sword in hand, his men behind him, had rushed into the dimly-lit bothy.

”Surrender in the king's name! The first who stirs is a dead man!”

It was beautifully done. Not a show of resistance was or could be made, and in less than an hour Tom Fairlie, with his crestfallen prisoners, had reached the harbour, where they were welcomed by a hearty cheer, which awakened the echoes of the rocks and a good many of the inhabitants of the village of Torquay.[A]

[A] The town now shows a bolder front.

And now Captain Jack Mackenzie shook hands right heartily with his friend Tom Fairlie.

”Splendid night's work, Tom,” he said. ”A thousand thanks! Now the saucy _Tonneraire_ may be called ready for sea.”

Splendid night's work was it? Well, we now-a-days would think this impressment cruel--cruel to take men away from their homes and avocations, perhaps never to see their country more. Yet it must be admitted that smugglers like these, who had so long defied the law, richly deserved their fate.

CHAPTER X.

IN THE MOON'S BRIGHT WAKE.

”Now welcome every sea delight-- The cruise with eager watchful days, The skilful chase by glimmering night, The well-worked s.h.i.+p, the gallant fight, The loved commander's praise!”--_Old Song._

It was not without a tinge of sorrow at his heart that Jack Mackenzie stood on his own quarter-deck and saw the chalky cliffs of England fading far astern, as the gloom of eventide fast deepened into night. He was not the one to give way to useless grief, but he could not help contrasting the hope and joyfulness with which he had last left home with his present state of mind. He was not a post-captain then certainly, but he had that--or thought he had--for which he would gladly now take the epaulettes from off his shoulders and fling them in the sea--namely, the love of the only girl he ever thought worth living for.

But she-- Well, no matter; that was past and gone. His love had been all a dream, a happy dream enough while it lasted, while his heart had been to her a toy. But then his father, his good old careless-hearted father. Wrecked and ruined! That he was in difficulties Jack had known for years, but he never knew how deep these were, nor that they had so entwined themselves around the roots of the old homestead, that to get rid of the former was to tear up the latter and cast all its old a.s.sociations to the four winds of heaven. Dear old homestead! Somehow Jack had dreamt he would always have it to go home to on every return voyage, always have his father there to welcome him back, always--

”Hallo!” said a voice at his side, ”what is all this reverie about, Jack?”

Tom laid his hand gently, half timidly on his arm as he spoke. Half timidly, I say, because it would not do for even the men to note a shadow of familiarity on p.o.o.p or quarter-deck betwixt a commander and his captain.

Jack smiled somewhat sadly.

”I daresay, Tom,” he replied, ”it was very wrong, but I was just breathing one last sigh for lost love and home. Oh, I don't care for Grantley Hall so much; but then there is sister, and poor father, and it seems rather hard he should take service again. There is just enough saved out of the wreck for them to live on.”

”Yes; and you'll win a fortune yet, mayhap an earldom, Jack--”

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