Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.Charley Blount—Peter a Prisoner—Trusty’s Assistants—In Hiding.“I want to know your name and all about you,” said Margery, addressing the young stranger, who, having eaten a very good breakfast, and obtained permission to use his tongue, had had his clothes dried, and having dressed in them, looked every inch a midshipman, and spoke like one also.“Why, you see, Miss Margery, for I understand that is what you are called, that matter is quickly settled. My name is Charles, or rather Charley Blount. My father and mother are dead, and I was sent away early to sea, and have been at sea ever since, and as I am very fond of it I know more about it than most lads of my age. I was on my fifth voyage home from India in the ‘Durham Castle,’ and expected before long to become a mate, when just in the chops of the Channel, our rigging being slack, we lost all our masts, and at the same time the ship sprung a leak. We little knew how bad it was, but instead of getting up jury-masts, with which we might have steered the ship up Channel, the crew were compelled to work at the pumps; but the leaks gained on us, and so the poor old ship went down, with upwards of a hundred people on board.”“Dreadful!” exclaimed Margery. “But how did you escape from the ship?”“A few of us, when we found that nothing could save the ship, hurriedly put together a small raft, but very few of the rest seemed inclined to venture on it. Just as the ship was going down I sprang on to it with five others; they lost their hold, and were washed off; I retained mine, and was washed on shore, and now I think that I have told you all about myself that you will care to know.”“Oh no! not by half!” answered Margery. “I want to know why the black boy is so much attached to you, and how it was that papa when he picked him up did not see you?”“That I can easily account for,” answered Charley, “as the ship went down a thick fog came on, and I had drifted by up Channel; that is to say, nearly east, before the boat coming more from the north had reached the spot; and as to honest, faithful Crambo, I once upon a time picked him out of the water as he last night helped to pick me out, and he has ever since stuck by me, and I assure you that I value his friendship.”“Oh yes! I can easily understand that,” said Margery. “I am reading about a very interesting person, a great traveller, who had a black servant called Friday, and they lived together on a desert island for a long time—it must have been very delightful—but at last they got away. I have not read the book through yet, but when I have I will tell you more about it, and perhaps Stephen Ludlow will lend it to you. I will ask him, for I am sure that you will like it.”“Perhaps I may have read it, Miss Margery, already,” said Charley, smiling. “If it is the ‘Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,’ I have.”“Yes, yes! that is the very book!” exclaimed Margery, “how could you guess so quickly?”“Because I know of no other book with a man Friday in it, or one so interesting,” said Charley; “but I must tell you one thing. Friday is always spoken of as a black, but that is a mistake, as the inhabitants of all the islands in the part of the Pacific where Robinson Crusoe is supposed to have been wrecked are light brown people; some are very light. Many of them are civilised, and have become Christians, but in those days they were perfect savages, and some of them were cannibals.”“How dreadful!” exclaimed Margery. “But have you been out in those seas?”“Yes!” answered the midshipman, “I once came home that way, and we touched at several islands. They are very beautiful, and I should much like to go out there again.”“So should I,” said Margery, and she sighed. She would like to have told him all about Jack, but he was as yet too great a stranger to her to allow her to speak to him on a subject which was to her almost sacred, so she said nothing; she did not even tell him that she had had a brother Jack, who had gone to sea and been lost.Charley Blount soon became a great favourite of the inmates of the Tower, as also with most of the neighbours. His history seemed a sad one, and yet he was as merry and happy a fellow as ever lived. He had but few friends on whom he had any claim, and they were in India; the only one he had had in England, an aunt, was dead. She was the sister of his father—a maiden lady of true piety, who had indeed instructed him in the way he should go, and Charley Blount had not departed from it. This was the reason he was so merry and happy. His happiness was within himself. Captain Askew delighted in him. He seemed to him what his own boy would have been, and it was with inward satisfaction he heard that he had no friends in England to whom he could go.“Then, Charley, you must make this old Tower your home, as long as you can keep off the salt water,” he answered. “We are grave, old-fashioned people, but we’ll do our best to make your stay with us pleasant.”Charley assured his friends that he knew when he was in good quarters, and that he should be in no hurry to go away. It naturally occurred to the captain that his young guest would like a companion occasionally, so he sent a note inviting Stephen Ludlow to come over and spend a day at the tower, hoping also that Mr Ludlow would invite Charley in return.Margery was very anxious to see Stephen to thank him for his book, and to tell him how much she liked it. An idea had also occurred to her which she proposed broaching to him on the first opportunity.Blind Peter was the general messenger as well as the purveyor of small wares in the neighbourhood, and as he happened to call that day, Becky took the captain’s note down to him to carry.“It’s just to ask the young master at Ludlow to come over for a day,” she observed, as she gave it to him.“Then just, Becky, do you give him a hint not to wander away from the Tower while he is here, and tell him to go back by the way he went the last time, mind that,” said Peter.“I’ll do as you tell me, Master Peter,” answered Becky. “But what’s in the wind that makes you say that? You know I am not a woman to go and prattle about other people’s affairs, but I should just like to know, that I should, Master Peter.”Blind Peter turned his sightless orbs towards Becky, while a smile played round his lips.“I’ll tell you what, Becky,” he answered, “there’s an old saying, that a secret is no longer a secret if it’s in the keeping of more than one person; so, do ye see, I think as I’ve got it I’d better keep it. Not but what I own that you are a right sensible woman, Mistress Becky, and it’s for your good as much as for my own that I don’t tell it to you.”Becky was not satisfied, but she knew Peter of old, and that, as she said of him, “he was as close as wax, and if he was determined not to do a thing no mortal power could make him do it.” She made up her mind to abide her time, in the hope that after all she might discover the secret. Blind Peter having received the note, set off on his journey, promising to deliver it either that night or the following morning.Peter’s reception at the hall was always very different to that at the tower, yet he did not refuse the crust of bread and mug of water offered to him at the former, but meekly took it, and went on his way with a thankful heart. On this occasion, having delivered the note at the hall, and finding that both Mr Ludlow and his son were out, he continued his journey. It was towards evening, as he was within a mile or so of the little public-house, near the coast, at which he intended to sleep, that he was overtaken by a man in a cart.“Ah, Peter! is that you?” said the driver. “Just get in, and I’ll put you and your dog and your wares down wherever you may wish to stop.”“Thank you for your offer, Dick Herring—for I know you by your voice,—but my legs are well accustomed to carry me; and they’ll do so as long as I need their services, I hope.”“Oh, nonsense, man; there’s a storm brewing, and you’ll be wet to the skin, if you keep to your legs; but just do you get in, and I’ll whisk you along to your journey’s end in no time,” answered Dick Herring.“That’s kind of you, Dick, anyhow,” said Peter; “but as to the storm, I don’t feel as if one was coming, and I’m not often deceived.”“Just now you are, though, depend on’t, mate. Come, step in, I want to do you a service, and it isn’t the like of me that would do you a harm,” said Herring, in a persuasive tone.Peter, who was in reality very tired from his long walk, was glad to have a lift, and his doubts as to Herring’s intentions, which from certain circumstances known to him he entertained, having been quieted, he stepped up to the cart to get in. In an instant he felt himself lifted up by strong arms, and placed on a seat next to another man who had not before spoken, and the cart drove on at a rapid rate.In vain he begged that poor old Trusty might be lifted in with him. “The dog has four legs, and can run as fast as the horse; we can’t stop for him,” said the man, in a gruff and feigned voice, though Peter thought that he recognised it as that of a notorious smuggler living not far off.“I told you, Peter, that I’d whisk you along pretty quickly over the road, and I am doing so, you’ll allow,” observed Herring, in a tone which the blind man did not like, but he said nothing. He was, however, after some time, convinced that they had gone much farther than the two miles which he calculated would take him to the inn where he had proposed sleeping. He became aware, too, that the cart had altered its direction, by the feeling of the wind on his face. On they went at a rapid rate for some time, when Peter inquired why they were conveying him from the place to which he wished to go.“We’ve a good reason, Master Peter,” answered Dick Herring, in a still more disagreeable tone than before; “you know a thing or two more than you ought to know, and we intend to keep you out of harm’s way for a day or two; and that’s the fact, if it pleases you to know it.”Peter was aware that expostulation was useless, so he resigned himself to his fate, believing that Herring, though a daring smuggler and utterly lawless, would do him no personal harm. He felt the cart go up and down several rough places, and he was certain that it doubled several times, and had made a full circuit more than once. The object of the smugglers, it was evident, was to mislead him and to make him suppose that he had gone a long distance. He kept his own counsel, however, and in a short time the cart stopped, and he was told to get out. He called Trusty to come and lead him, but no Trusty came.“The dog couldn’t quite keep up with us, and maybe he has lost his way,” said Herring. “But never do you mind, Peter, I’ll lead you; here, take my arm.”Poor Peter did as he was directed, and then he found himself going up some very rough stone steps, and then he knew by the change of air that he had been led through a doorway into a room, and that there were people in it, though they did not speak; and then Dick led him into another room, and told him to sit down on a chair, and that he must make up his mind to remain there for some days to come, and that if he promised to be quiet and to behave well, he should be well treated. Saying this, the smuggler walked out of the room, and bolted the door behind him.Peter immediately got up and felt about the room. It contained, he ascertained, a low pallet bed, a table and a chair, and had a small lattice window, with a bar across it; but it was so small that even without the bar he could scarcely have got through it had he wished. He opened the window gently. He could hear the sough of the sea on the beach, far down below him. “I thought as much,” he said to himself, “they have brought me to old Dame Herring’s cottage, upon Eastdown Cliff. I was here as a boy more than once, and could find my way from it easy enough, if I had Trusty’s help to keep me from any pits or holes dug of late. I know the reason why this has been done. They suspect that I know what I do know, and perhaps more, and they want to keep me out of the way till they have carried out their undertaking. However, they might have treated me worse; so I’ll not complain, but try and take matters easily.”Saying this he took off his wallet and the knapsack which contained his wares, and threw himself at his length on the bed, intending to go to sleep. He had not lain there very long when the door opened and some person looked in, and placing something on the table retired again, bolting the door. In a short time several people came into the larger room, most of whom Peter knew by their heavy tread were men in large boots.“Well! Mother Herring, do you promise us success in our venture, we’ve been waiting long enough for it?” said one of the new comers in a gruff voice.“If you do as I bid you this time you will succeed,” answered an old woman, whom by her cracked, harsh voice, Peter, even had she not been named, would at once have recognised. “But, as I before told you, if you want to make all secure, get hold of the son of old Ludlow. He dotes on the boy, and you would have the father in your power, if you could get hold of the son.”“So we should, long ago, if it hadn’t been for blind Peter; howsomedever, we can keep him quiet for some time.”“I mind the time before the captain came to the Tower, the matter was much more easier than it now is,” said an old man, whom Peter knew as a daring smuggler all his life. “That was a first-rate place, I believe you.”“Then why not get rid of the captain and his family?” croaked out old Mother Herring; “what business has he to come interfering with people’s rights?”“More easily said, Mother Herring, than done,” exclaimed another of the party. “The captain is a tough old bird, not to be driven from his perch in a hurry.”“Ha! ha! ha! May be I’ll put you up to a trick or two, my sons, that’ll make the place too hot to hold him,” croaked out the old woman. “Just you be guided by me, and all will go right, depend on that;” and she gave way to a fit of laughter which almost choked her.Peter did not hear more of consequence just then, but he had heard enough to show him that the smugglers were prepared to run a cargo of contraband goods on the coast, and in case of failure they wished to get young Stephen Ludlow into their power, that they might make terms with his father. Had it not been for Peter, who had been long aware of their object, they might ere this have accomplished it, and he now guessed that they had discovered that it was owing to him that they had not hitherto succeeded. At length Peter, being very tired from his long walk, to sleep. He had a notion that the people in the next room were taking supper, and indulging in a carouse, of the materials for which their calling afforded them an ample supply.The smugglers were drinking when Peter went to sleep, and when he again woke some were still at the table, and talking loudly and wildly, though others had, apparently overcome by the liquor, dropped off to sleep. They spoke as men do when the wine is in their heads, without fear or caution. The wildest proposals were made to carry out their objects. One man suggested that if they could get rid of their two principal opponents, Mr Ludlow and Captain Askew, they would have no one to interfere with them. The idea was taken up by others, who did not scruple to talk of murder; though, tipsy as they were, when they spoke of so awful a deed, they sank their voices so low that Peter did not clearly hear all they said. His ear, however, caught one or two ominous expressions, such as—“over the cliff,” “sink him out at sea,” “entice him from the house,” “the sooner the better.” These words convinced him that the speakers would not scruple to commit the most atrocious crime if they fancied it would advance their interests. They made him also very anxious to get away to warn those who were threatened of their danger.But how to get away was the question. He might fancy that no one was observing him, and yet be watched the whole time. One thing he hoped was that Herring and his associates, trusting to his blindness, fancied that he did not know where he had been carried to, and that he could not possibly get away. By degrees the speakers dropped off, and the loud snores which came from the room showed that the occupants were mostly asleep. He hoped that all might be so. Considering what he should do kept him broad awake. He had not remained so long, when his attention was drawn to a scratching under the window. The night was warm, and the lattice had been left open. He went to the window and put out his hand, and directly he did so he felt it licked by the tongue of his faithful Trusty. He put down his hand still further, and calling the animal by name, it leaped up and he was able to drag it in. Poor Trusty showed his delight at meeting his master by jumping up and licking his face and hands all over. “But can you help me out of this, good Trusty?” said Peter, whispering in the dog’s ear.Trusty, as if he understood the meaning, immediately went to the window, and leaped up on the sill.“He thinks that I can get out,” said Peter to himself. “He is seldom wrong—I will try.” Suiting the action to the word, he put his head out between the bars. “Where my head can go my body can follow, but my body must go first just now.”After twisting his body a variety of ways, he worked his way between the bars, to which he held on while he lowered himself to the ground. The leading-string was still attached to Trusty’s collar, and taking it in his hand, he said, “Go on, Trusty.” Trusty, pulling hard, led the way, as if he was conscious that there was danger in delay, and Peter set off as fast as he could venture to move.No sound came from the cottage, and he had every reason to hope that he should completely effect his escape. Trusty, that good sagacious dog, worthy of his name, pulled on as if he well knew that it was important to leave old Dame Herring’s cottage far behind before daybreak. Peter decided on going first to the tower, that he might consult with the captain, to whom he knew he could speak as to a friend. Should he go to Mr Ludlow, he was afraid that the magistrate would perhaps immediately send off to Dame Herring’s Cottage, and attempt to apprehend the whole body of smugglers. “If he does, what will be the advantage? None at all. I know what I heard, but I cannot swear to the voices of any one of them and they will all escape, and revenge themselves on me; not that I care for that if I can do others a service, but it’s hard to suffer and do no good to any one.”The captain was an early riser. He had scarcely been a minute on foot when he heard blind Peter knocking at the door. Peter was admitted, and his story soon told. “I will consider what is to be done, and will give due warning to Mr Ludlow,” answered the captain. “But one thing is certain, Peter, that you must lie by for a while, and take up your abode in the tower. The ruffians would treat you with little ceremony if they were to catch you as you were wandering about the country, but they would scarcely venture to molest you while you are here—indeed, there is no reason that they should know that you are here.”There was a small vacant room on the ground-floor of the Tower—into this the captain conducted Peter, and told him that he must consider himself a prisoner there till the smugglers were captured or driven out of the country, and it was safe for him again to go out by himself. He promised him, however, that he should not be without visitors, and that Margery and Charley Blount should come and read to him.Captain Askew, having made these arrangements for the safety of the poor blind man, considered how he could warn Mr Ludlow of the danger threatening Charley Blount was the best messenger he could select. The hall was nine miles off, but Charley said that the distance was nothing, and that he would be there and back by dinner-time; so having received his instructions he set off, with a stout stick in his hand, in high spirits, observing that should the smugglers wish to stop him, they would have to run very fast before he was caught.

“I want to know your name and all about you,” said Margery, addressing the young stranger, who, having eaten a very good breakfast, and obtained permission to use his tongue, had had his clothes dried, and having dressed in them, looked every inch a midshipman, and spoke like one also.

“Why, you see, Miss Margery, for I understand that is what you are called, that matter is quickly settled. My name is Charles, or rather Charley Blount. My father and mother are dead, and I was sent away early to sea, and have been at sea ever since, and as I am very fond of it I know more about it than most lads of my age. I was on my fifth voyage home from India in the ‘Durham Castle,’ and expected before long to become a mate, when just in the chops of the Channel, our rigging being slack, we lost all our masts, and at the same time the ship sprung a leak. We little knew how bad it was, but instead of getting up jury-masts, with which we might have steered the ship up Channel, the crew were compelled to work at the pumps; but the leaks gained on us, and so the poor old ship went down, with upwards of a hundred people on board.”

“Dreadful!” exclaimed Margery. “But how did you escape from the ship?”

“A few of us, when we found that nothing could save the ship, hurriedly put together a small raft, but very few of the rest seemed inclined to venture on it. Just as the ship was going down I sprang on to it with five others; they lost their hold, and were washed off; I retained mine, and was washed on shore, and now I think that I have told you all about myself that you will care to know.”

“Oh no! not by half!” answered Margery. “I want to know why the black boy is so much attached to you, and how it was that papa when he picked him up did not see you?”

“That I can easily account for,” answered Charley, “as the ship went down a thick fog came on, and I had drifted by up Channel; that is to say, nearly east, before the boat coming more from the north had reached the spot; and as to honest, faithful Crambo, I once upon a time picked him out of the water as he last night helped to pick me out, and he has ever since stuck by me, and I assure you that I value his friendship.”

“Oh yes! I can easily understand that,” said Margery. “I am reading about a very interesting person, a great traveller, who had a black servant called Friday, and they lived together on a desert island for a long time—it must have been very delightful—but at last they got away. I have not read the book through yet, but when I have I will tell you more about it, and perhaps Stephen Ludlow will lend it to you. I will ask him, for I am sure that you will like it.”

“Perhaps I may have read it, Miss Margery, already,” said Charley, smiling. “If it is the ‘Life and Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,’ I have.”

“Yes, yes! that is the very book!” exclaimed Margery, “how could you guess so quickly?”

“Because I know of no other book with a man Friday in it, or one so interesting,” said Charley; “but I must tell you one thing. Friday is always spoken of as a black, but that is a mistake, as the inhabitants of all the islands in the part of the Pacific where Robinson Crusoe is supposed to have been wrecked are light brown people; some are very light. Many of them are civilised, and have become Christians, but in those days they were perfect savages, and some of them were cannibals.”

“How dreadful!” exclaimed Margery. “But have you been out in those seas?”

“Yes!” answered the midshipman, “I once came home that way, and we touched at several islands. They are very beautiful, and I should much like to go out there again.”

“So should I,” said Margery, and she sighed. She would like to have told him all about Jack, but he was as yet too great a stranger to her to allow her to speak to him on a subject which was to her almost sacred, so she said nothing; she did not even tell him that she had had a brother Jack, who had gone to sea and been lost.

Charley Blount soon became a great favourite of the inmates of the Tower, as also with most of the neighbours. His history seemed a sad one, and yet he was as merry and happy a fellow as ever lived. He had but few friends on whom he had any claim, and they were in India; the only one he had had in England, an aunt, was dead. She was the sister of his father—a maiden lady of true piety, who had indeed instructed him in the way he should go, and Charley Blount had not departed from it. This was the reason he was so merry and happy. His happiness was within himself. Captain Askew delighted in him. He seemed to him what his own boy would have been, and it was with inward satisfaction he heard that he had no friends in England to whom he could go.

“Then, Charley, you must make this old Tower your home, as long as you can keep off the salt water,” he answered. “We are grave, old-fashioned people, but we’ll do our best to make your stay with us pleasant.”

Charley assured his friends that he knew when he was in good quarters, and that he should be in no hurry to go away. It naturally occurred to the captain that his young guest would like a companion occasionally, so he sent a note inviting Stephen Ludlow to come over and spend a day at the tower, hoping also that Mr Ludlow would invite Charley in return.

Margery was very anxious to see Stephen to thank him for his book, and to tell him how much she liked it. An idea had also occurred to her which she proposed broaching to him on the first opportunity.

Blind Peter was the general messenger as well as the purveyor of small wares in the neighbourhood, and as he happened to call that day, Becky took the captain’s note down to him to carry.

“It’s just to ask the young master at Ludlow to come over for a day,” she observed, as she gave it to him.

“Then just, Becky, do you give him a hint not to wander away from the Tower while he is here, and tell him to go back by the way he went the last time, mind that,” said Peter.

“I’ll do as you tell me, Master Peter,” answered Becky. “But what’s in the wind that makes you say that? You know I am not a woman to go and prattle about other people’s affairs, but I should just like to know, that I should, Master Peter.”

Blind Peter turned his sightless orbs towards Becky, while a smile played round his lips.

“I’ll tell you what, Becky,” he answered, “there’s an old saying, that a secret is no longer a secret if it’s in the keeping of more than one person; so, do ye see, I think as I’ve got it I’d better keep it. Not but what I own that you are a right sensible woman, Mistress Becky, and it’s for your good as much as for my own that I don’t tell it to you.”

Becky was not satisfied, but she knew Peter of old, and that, as she said of him, “he was as close as wax, and if he was determined not to do a thing no mortal power could make him do it.” She made up her mind to abide her time, in the hope that after all she might discover the secret. Blind Peter having received the note, set off on his journey, promising to deliver it either that night or the following morning.

Peter’s reception at the hall was always very different to that at the tower, yet he did not refuse the crust of bread and mug of water offered to him at the former, but meekly took it, and went on his way with a thankful heart. On this occasion, having delivered the note at the hall, and finding that both Mr Ludlow and his son were out, he continued his journey. It was towards evening, as he was within a mile or so of the little public-house, near the coast, at which he intended to sleep, that he was overtaken by a man in a cart.

“Ah, Peter! is that you?” said the driver. “Just get in, and I’ll put you and your dog and your wares down wherever you may wish to stop.”

“Thank you for your offer, Dick Herring—for I know you by your voice,—but my legs are well accustomed to carry me; and they’ll do so as long as I need their services, I hope.”

“Oh, nonsense, man; there’s a storm brewing, and you’ll be wet to the skin, if you keep to your legs; but just do you get in, and I’ll whisk you along to your journey’s end in no time,” answered Dick Herring.

“That’s kind of you, Dick, anyhow,” said Peter; “but as to the storm, I don’t feel as if one was coming, and I’m not often deceived.”

“Just now you are, though, depend on’t, mate. Come, step in, I want to do you a service, and it isn’t the like of me that would do you a harm,” said Herring, in a persuasive tone.

Peter, who was in reality very tired from his long walk, was glad to have a lift, and his doubts as to Herring’s intentions, which from certain circumstances known to him he entertained, having been quieted, he stepped up to the cart to get in. In an instant he felt himself lifted up by strong arms, and placed on a seat next to another man who had not before spoken, and the cart drove on at a rapid rate.

In vain he begged that poor old Trusty might be lifted in with him. “The dog has four legs, and can run as fast as the horse; we can’t stop for him,” said the man, in a gruff and feigned voice, though Peter thought that he recognised it as that of a notorious smuggler living not far off.

“I told you, Peter, that I’d whisk you along pretty quickly over the road, and I am doing so, you’ll allow,” observed Herring, in a tone which the blind man did not like, but he said nothing. He was, however, after some time, convinced that they had gone much farther than the two miles which he calculated would take him to the inn where he had proposed sleeping. He became aware, too, that the cart had altered its direction, by the feeling of the wind on his face. On they went at a rapid rate for some time, when Peter inquired why they were conveying him from the place to which he wished to go.

“We’ve a good reason, Master Peter,” answered Dick Herring, in a still more disagreeable tone than before; “you know a thing or two more than you ought to know, and we intend to keep you out of harm’s way for a day or two; and that’s the fact, if it pleases you to know it.”

Peter was aware that expostulation was useless, so he resigned himself to his fate, believing that Herring, though a daring smuggler and utterly lawless, would do him no personal harm. He felt the cart go up and down several rough places, and he was certain that it doubled several times, and had made a full circuit more than once. The object of the smugglers, it was evident, was to mislead him and to make him suppose that he had gone a long distance. He kept his own counsel, however, and in a short time the cart stopped, and he was told to get out. He called Trusty to come and lead him, but no Trusty came.

“The dog couldn’t quite keep up with us, and maybe he has lost his way,” said Herring. “But never do you mind, Peter, I’ll lead you; here, take my arm.”

Poor Peter did as he was directed, and then he found himself going up some very rough stone steps, and then he knew by the change of air that he had been led through a doorway into a room, and that there were people in it, though they did not speak; and then Dick led him into another room, and told him to sit down on a chair, and that he must make up his mind to remain there for some days to come, and that if he promised to be quiet and to behave well, he should be well treated. Saying this, the smuggler walked out of the room, and bolted the door behind him.

Peter immediately got up and felt about the room. It contained, he ascertained, a low pallet bed, a table and a chair, and had a small lattice window, with a bar across it; but it was so small that even without the bar he could scarcely have got through it had he wished. He opened the window gently. He could hear the sough of the sea on the beach, far down below him. “I thought as much,” he said to himself, “they have brought me to old Dame Herring’s cottage, upon Eastdown Cliff. I was here as a boy more than once, and could find my way from it easy enough, if I had Trusty’s help to keep me from any pits or holes dug of late. I know the reason why this has been done. They suspect that I know what I do know, and perhaps more, and they want to keep me out of the way till they have carried out their undertaking. However, they might have treated me worse; so I’ll not complain, but try and take matters easily.”

Saying this he took off his wallet and the knapsack which contained his wares, and threw himself at his length on the bed, intending to go to sleep. He had not lain there very long when the door opened and some person looked in, and placing something on the table retired again, bolting the door. In a short time several people came into the larger room, most of whom Peter knew by their heavy tread were men in large boots.

“Well! Mother Herring, do you promise us success in our venture, we’ve been waiting long enough for it?” said one of the new comers in a gruff voice.

“If you do as I bid you this time you will succeed,” answered an old woman, whom by her cracked, harsh voice, Peter, even had she not been named, would at once have recognised. “But, as I before told you, if you want to make all secure, get hold of the son of old Ludlow. He dotes on the boy, and you would have the father in your power, if you could get hold of the son.”

“So we should, long ago, if it hadn’t been for blind Peter; howsomedever, we can keep him quiet for some time.”

“I mind the time before the captain came to the Tower, the matter was much more easier than it now is,” said an old man, whom Peter knew as a daring smuggler all his life. “That was a first-rate place, I believe you.”

“Then why not get rid of the captain and his family?” croaked out old Mother Herring; “what business has he to come interfering with people’s rights?”

“More easily said, Mother Herring, than done,” exclaimed another of the party. “The captain is a tough old bird, not to be driven from his perch in a hurry.”

“Ha! ha! ha! May be I’ll put you up to a trick or two, my sons, that’ll make the place too hot to hold him,” croaked out the old woman. “Just you be guided by me, and all will go right, depend on that;” and she gave way to a fit of laughter which almost choked her.

Peter did not hear more of consequence just then, but he had heard enough to show him that the smugglers were prepared to run a cargo of contraband goods on the coast, and in case of failure they wished to get young Stephen Ludlow into their power, that they might make terms with his father. Had it not been for Peter, who had been long aware of their object, they might ere this have accomplished it, and he now guessed that they had discovered that it was owing to him that they had not hitherto succeeded. At length Peter, being very tired from his long walk, to sleep. He had a notion that the people in the next room were taking supper, and indulging in a carouse, of the materials for which their calling afforded them an ample supply.

The smugglers were drinking when Peter went to sleep, and when he again woke some were still at the table, and talking loudly and wildly, though others had, apparently overcome by the liquor, dropped off to sleep. They spoke as men do when the wine is in their heads, without fear or caution. The wildest proposals were made to carry out their objects. One man suggested that if they could get rid of their two principal opponents, Mr Ludlow and Captain Askew, they would have no one to interfere with them. The idea was taken up by others, who did not scruple to talk of murder; though, tipsy as they were, when they spoke of so awful a deed, they sank their voices so low that Peter did not clearly hear all they said. His ear, however, caught one or two ominous expressions, such as—“over the cliff,” “sink him out at sea,” “entice him from the house,” “the sooner the better.” These words convinced him that the speakers would not scruple to commit the most atrocious crime if they fancied it would advance their interests. They made him also very anxious to get away to warn those who were threatened of their danger.

But how to get away was the question. He might fancy that no one was observing him, and yet be watched the whole time. One thing he hoped was that Herring and his associates, trusting to his blindness, fancied that he did not know where he had been carried to, and that he could not possibly get away. By degrees the speakers dropped off, and the loud snores which came from the room showed that the occupants were mostly asleep. He hoped that all might be so. Considering what he should do kept him broad awake. He had not remained so long, when his attention was drawn to a scratching under the window. The night was warm, and the lattice had been left open. He went to the window and put out his hand, and directly he did so he felt it licked by the tongue of his faithful Trusty. He put down his hand still further, and calling the animal by name, it leaped up and he was able to drag it in. Poor Trusty showed his delight at meeting his master by jumping up and licking his face and hands all over. “But can you help me out of this, good Trusty?” said Peter, whispering in the dog’s ear.

Trusty, as if he understood the meaning, immediately went to the window, and leaped up on the sill.

“He thinks that I can get out,” said Peter to himself. “He is seldom wrong—I will try.” Suiting the action to the word, he put his head out between the bars. “Where my head can go my body can follow, but my body must go first just now.”

After twisting his body a variety of ways, he worked his way between the bars, to which he held on while he lowered himself to the ground. The leading-string was still attached to Trusty’s collar, and taking it in his hand, he said, “Go on, Trusty.” Trusty, pulling hard, led the way, as if he was conscious that there was danger in delay, and Peter set off as fast as he could venture to move.

No sound came from the cottage, and he had every reason to hope that he should completely effect his escape. Trusty, that good sagacious dog, worthy of his name, pulled on as if he well knew that it was important to leave old Dame Herring’s cottage far behind before daybreak. Peter decided on going first to the tower, that he might consult with the captain, to whom he knew he could speak as to a friend. Should he go to Mr Ludlow, he was afraid that the magistrate would perhaps immediately send off to Dame Herring’s Cottage, and attempt to apprehend the whole body of smugglers. “If he does, what will be the advantage? None at all. I know what I heard, but I cannot swear to the voices of any one of them and they will all escape, and revenge themselves on me; not that I care for that if I can do others a service, but it’s hard to suffer and do no good to any one.”

The captain was an early riser. He had scarcely been a minute on foot when he heard blind Peter knocking at the door. Peter was admitted, and his story soon told. “I will consider what is to be done, and will give due warning to Mr Ludlow,” answered the captain. “But one thing is certain, Peter, that you must lie by for a while, and take up your abode in the tower. The ruffians would treat you with little ceremony if they were to catch you as you were wandering about the country, but they would scarcely venture to molest you while you are here—indeed, there is no reason that they should know that you are here.”

There was a small vacant room on the ground-floor of the Tower—into this the captain conducted Peter, and told him that he must consider himself a prisoner there till the smugglers were captured or driven out of the country, and it was safe for him again to go out by himself. He promised him, however, that he should not be without visitors, and that Margery and Charley Blount should come and read to him.

Captain Askew, having made these arrangements for the safety of the poor blind man, considered how he could warn Mr Ludlow of the danger threatening Charley Blount was the best messenger he could select. The hall was nine miles off, but Charley said that the distance was nothing, and that he would be there and back by dinner-time; so having received his instructions he set off, with a stout stick in his hand, in high spirits, observing that should the smugglers wish to stop him, they would have to run very fast before he was caught.

Chapter Five.Hopes—The Sailor’s Story—The Smugglers—Guests at the Tower—Ghosts.About an hour after Charley Blount had left the Tower, Stephen Ludlow trotted up on his pony, not having met the young sailor on the way. He said that he had come over early, to spend the day, and that if he was asked to sleep he might do so. Of this the captain was very glad as he did not wish him to run the risk of going back alone, and at the same time he had not sufficient confidence in his discretion to tell him what he had learned from Blind Peter; so he said, “I am very glad to receive you, my young friend; but I must exact a promise that you will not go beyond the open beach, or the downs in sight of the windows of the Tower, unless with Tom or me. I have my reasons, which I need not mention now.”Stephen thought this rather odd, but as he wished to stay, he readily gave the required promise. Margery had for some time been wishing to see him, to talk to him about the book he had lent her, and which she had now read completely through.“Oh, Stephen!” she exclaimed, when she saw him, “it is such a delightful book. I have never read anything I have liked half so much. It has given me an idea—but I cannot talk to you about it here. You must come out on the beach, and we will sit on a rock and look out over the sea, and then I shall be able to say all I wish.”So they went out together, and easily found a spot to suit Margery’s taste.“Well, Margery, what is it that you have to tell me about my old book?” said Stephen, in a tone which would have told her, had she not been herself so engrossed in her subject, that she was not likely to have a very sympathising hearer.“Pray do not speak of it in that way, Stephen,” she answered. “It’s a dear, delightful book, at all events; and since I read it I have been thinking more than ever of dear Jack. You know that he went away in a ship to the Pacific Ocean, and the ship was wrecked, just as Robinson Crusoe’s was, and though he was not a supercargo, he was a midshipman, and I don’t suppose there is much difference; and at all events, if Robinson Crusoe was saved, and lived on a desert island for many years, though everybody else in the ship was lost, why should not dear Jack have been cast on some island, and be still alive, though not able to get away, or I am sure that he would, and would come home and tell us all about it; for he knows how we all love him and think about him every day.”“What a strange idea!” said Stephen, somewhat coldly. “I thought that it was settled that Jack was dead long ago. Do you really believe that he is alive?”“Of course I do,” answered Margery, with some little impatience in her tone; “it was only those who don’t care about him settled that he was dead. I have always, always, been sure that he is alive, over the sea there, a long, long way off; but he will come back when we can send for him.”“Very strange!” muttered Stephen. “But what, Mrs Margery, would you have me do?”“Stephen, you knew dear Jack well,” she answered, fixing her large blue eyes on him; “you used to call him your friend, and friends ought to help each other. If I was a boy, whether or not I was Jack’s brother—if I was his friend,—I know what I would do: I would go out and look for him.”“But where would you look?” asked Stephen. “The Pacific is a very wide place, even on the map; and I have a fancy that in reality it is wider still. There are many, many islands no one knows anything of.”“Ah! that is the very thing I have been thinking of,” exclaimed Margery. “I am certain that Jack is living on one of those very islands.”“How can you, Margery, be certain of any such thing?” said Stephen, in his usual cold tone, which contrasted curiously with the enthusiastic manner of little Margery.“How can you ask that question, Stephen?” she exclaimed, half angry that he should venture to doubt the correctness of her most cherished belief. “Robinson Crusoe was wrecked on a desert island and so Jack may be, and I want you to go and look for him, and bring him home! There! I will not be refused! You are old enough and big enough to go,—bigger than Jack was—and you have plenty of money; and your papa always lets you do just what you like, so you say; and besides, you often speak to me of Jack as your old friend; and if he was your friend I ask you to prove it by bringing him home.”When Stephen heard this he first thought that Margery was joking, but the matter was too serious for that; then the idea occurred to him that she had gone out of her mind; but she looked so calm, and quiet, and earnest, that he banished it immediately, and promised to think over her proposal, and speak to his father. He, however, very well knew the answer his father would give, and he himself had no wish to go wandering about the world in search of one for whom he cared but little. Had Margery known what was passing in his mind how she would have despised him. But she did not; she fancied that he must be as enthusiastic as she herself was, and that it was only necessary to mention her idea for him to take it up warmly. She therefore was prepared to wait patiently, under the belief that Stephen would soon be able to give a favourable answer to her request.Margery’s belief that Jack was still alive received a very remarkable and curious confirmation that very day, after she had parted from Stephen. She was on her way to the village to carry some food to a sick child, when she encountered a rough sailor-like man, who, taking off his hat, begged for assistance, as he was on his way to join his ship at Plymouth, and had spent all his money; and if he did not make haste she would sail without him. He had come last from the Pacific, and complained that he had had but very little time on shore to amuse himself. The mention of the Pacific made Margery instantly ask him if he thought it possible that her brother Jack might be living, cast away on one of the numerous islands of that vast ocean.“It is a very strange question for you to put to me, Miss, for a curious thing happened as we were steering southward from Vancouver’s Island, on our way home. What should we see but a small boat floating, all alone, hundreds of miles, for what we knew, from any land. We made towards her and picked her up, for there was a man in her, or what once had been a man, for he was lighter than a baby, and that I found out, for I lifted him upon deck myself. He was still alive, though the life was going fast out of him, and he couldn’t speak above a whisper, and only a few words then. He had been living on fish, we guessed, may be for weeks, by the number of scales we saw at the bottom of the boat. Now this is what he told me. His name was David King. He had been shipwrecked with another young man—a gentleman’s son, I know he said, and they were the only survivors of all the crew. He had gone out fishing in their boat, and had been blown off the island. I made out this by fits and starts, as it were, for he couldn’t speak without pain, it seemed. Poor fellow! he was far gone, and though the doctor poured all sorts of things down his throat, it was no use, he never lifted up his head, and before the evening he was dead. Maybe if we had seen him a day or two before he’d have lived, and been able to tell us more about himself.”Margery was, of course, deeply interested with this account of the sailor. She imprudently gave him all the money she possessed, and then begged him to come up to the Tower that he might repeat the story to her father. He, however, was in a hurry to proceed on his journey, and declined coming, possibly not aware of the importance which might have been attached to his narrative, and perhaps selfishly indifferent in the matter. Margery at length hurried home and told her father, and he and Tom went down to look for the sailor, but he had disappeared, and notwithstanding all their inquiries they could gain no trace of him. The captain, indeed, suspected that the man was some begging impostor, who had heard of the loss of his son, and had concocted the tale for the sake of getting money out of the young lady. This was especially Mr Ludlow’s opinion of the matter.Charley Blount stepped boldly out towards Ludlow Hall, singing as he went, not from want of thought, but from joyousness of heart. He reached the hall without interruption. Mr Ludlow was much pleased with his manner and appearance, thanked him warmly for bringing the message, and said that he would accompany him back to the Tower, with a couple of men on horseback. Charley, like most sailors, could ride; that is to say, he could stick on and let his horse go. He did so on the present occasion. They had got within two miles of the Tower, when a number of men, rough-looking fellows, were seen standing in the road before them.As Mr Ludlow and his party drew near, their gestures became threatening, and it was evident that they meant mischief. The squire was not a man to be turned aside from his purpose. “Charge the fellows, and if they attempt to stop us, fire at them,” he exclaimed, putting spurs to his horse. Charley and his men followed his example. Those most frequently succeed who bravely face dangers and difficulties—the timid and hesitating fail. Mr Ludlow dashed on. The smugglers, for such there could be no doubt that they were, had black crape over their faces, and most of them wore carters’ smock frocks, which still further assisted to disguise them. This made it yet more evident that they had collected with evil intentions. There could no longer be any doubt about the matter when two or three of them stretched out their arms to stop the horses, but when they saw the pistols levelled at their heads, most of them sprang hurriedly back again. One, however, more daring than the rest attempted to seize Mr Ludlow’s rein. Fortunately for the ruffian the magistrate’s pistol missed fire, but he dealt the man’s wrist so heavy a blow with the butt-end of his weapon that the smuggler was glad to let go his hold lest he should have had another such a blow on his head. Charley laid about him with his thick walking-stick, and in a few seconds the whole party were out of the reach of the smugglers. They galloped on, however, without pulling rein till they reached the Tower.“Never in the whole course of my life have I been subject to so daring an outrage, Captain Askew,” exclaimed Mr Ludlow, as he dismounted—“It is more like the doings of ancient days than what we have a right to expect in the nineteenth century. I dread to hear what has happened to my boy. Has he reached you safely?”Stephen, who had just come up from the beach, answered the question for himself.“So far the smugglers have gained no advantage over us,” observed Mr Ludlow, addressing Captain Askew. “But with your leave, my good neighbour, I will take up my abode here with you for a night, that we may the better consult as to the further steps it may be necessary to take to put a stop to these proceedings. I have written to Captain Haultaught, the new inspecting commander of the district, requesting him to meet me here with two or three of his lieutenants, and it will be very strange if we cannot manage to get to windward, as you would say, of these smuggling gentlemen.”Captain Askew could only say that he was happy to put his house at the disposal of Mr Ludlow and those he thought fit to invite, on a public matter of so much importance. He had forgiven, and he believed from his heart, the unfeeling way in which Mr Ludlow had acted towards Jack, under what, he acknowledged, might have been his stern sense of justice; yet he, as a father, could not but remember that he was indirectly the cause of Jack’s loss. He felt this, but did not allow his feelings in any way to bias his conduct. Tom and Becky were therefore directed to make all necessary preparations to do honour to the guests present and expected. Mrs Askew and Margery were also not idle in arranging the provisions and the rooms for the guests. Tom was a man of a single idea; that was, that it was his business to obey the captain in all things without questioning. He had learned that lesson at sea and it would have been impossible for any one to persuade him out of it. Becky, however, not having been under similar discipline, did not consider herself bound to obey in the same way as did Tom.She therefore grumbled very much when she heard that Mr Ludlow was to remain during the night.“It’s bad enough to have the young cub come prowling about the house, but when the old wolf comes and sits down in the hall, it bodes ill luck to the family,” she muttered to herself, though loud enough for her mistress to overhear her.Mrs Askew made no remark, but of course knew to what she alluded.“I’d be ashamed to show my face inside the doors, if I were he, after sending the only son of the house away over the sea to die in foreign lands, and then to come up laughing and talking as if he had never done any harm to any one of us.”“We are taught to forgive our enemies not only seven times, but seventy times seven, Becky,” observed Mrs Askew, feeling that she ought at length to check her attendant. “Even had Mr Ludlow wantonly or intentionally inflicted an injury on us, it would be for us to receive him as a guest. What he did was under a sense of duty, and we have no right to complain.”“A sense of duty, indeed,” muttered Becky, “what would he have said if his precious son had been packed off to sea like poor dear Master Jack? I should care little if the food I have to cook should choke him. I only hope that he’ll not get a wink of sleep in the bed I have to make for him. Towards the boy I have no ill will; but I only hope when he grows bigger that he’ll not be thinking he’s worthy of our Miss Margery—that’s what I have to say.”The last words were addressed to Tom, Mrs Askew having left the room.“What need have you or I to trouble our heads about the matter, Mistress Becky,” he observed. “What the captain thinks fit is fit, that’s what I have to say.”“I don’t gainsay that, Mister Tom,” answered Becky, “but what I ask is, why this Mr Ludlow, who has behaved so shamefully to the captain and the missus, dares to come to the Tower, and why they let him?”“Why, to my mind, Mistress Becky, it’s just this—the captain’s a Christian of the right sort, and real Christians don’t bear malice, and so, do you see, the captain doesn’t bear malice,” answered Tom, giving a tug to the waistband of his trousers, a nautical trick he had never lost. “If he was a make-believe Christian, like too many folks, I can’t say what he might do. Becky, does you say your prayers? Now I do, since the captain taught me, and I know that I axes God to forgive me my trespasses as I forgive others as trespasses against me; and I’ll moreover make bold to declare that the captain says that prayer every night of his life, and has said it too, blow high or blow low, ever since he was a little chap on his mother’s knee. There, Mistress Becky you have what I calls the philosophy of the matter, and if I’m not right I don’t know no better.”Becky acknowledged that Tom’s arguments were unanswerable, though she did not altogether comprehend them. She resolved, however, to dress the dinner as well as she could, and to make up a comfortable bed for the magistrate.Everything went off as satisfactorily as could have been desired. Mr Ludlow did his best to be agreeable, and Stephen was pleasanter than usual, and listened with interest to the accounts Charley Blount gave of his voyages, and the countries he had visited. The inspecting commander, however, did not arrive. Late in the evening a revenue cutter came off the coast, and put on shore a very stout lieutenant, who came puffing up to the Tower, and announced himself as Lieutenant Dugong, of the Coast Guard. The captain received him cordially, but Becky surveyed him in despair.“He’d break down the strongest bed in the house if there was one to spare for him,” she exclaimed, when she and Tom were next alone. “What can you do with people like him, Mr Tom, at sea? What sort of bedsteads have they got to sleep on?”“Why, Mistress Becky, that depends whether they are berthed forward or aft,” answered Tom. “If forward, they swing in a hammock; and if aft, in a cot. We’ll soon sling one or t’other for this here Lieutenant Dugong, and depend on’t he’ll have no cause to complain.”As may be supposed, every room in the Tower was occupied. Tom took charge of Blind Peter, and Charley Blount was put into the room he had occupied on the ground-floor, and the stout lieutenant had another small room on the same floor, while Stephen was placed in a small one near the first landing, and his father had a room not far off.The whole family and their inmates retired to rest and to sleep. No one in the old Tower was awake. The hour of midnight had been struck by a clock constructed by the captain. The evening had been calm, but now the wind began to moan and sigh and whistle round the walls, and through any crevice into which it could find an entrance, while the dash of the sea on the beach grew every instant louder and louder, and ever and anon the shriek of some wild fowl startled from its roost was heard, as it flew by to find another resting-place; giving the notion to the ignorant and superstitious that spirits of evil were flying about intent on mischief.The clock struck one when Stephen Ludlow awoke with a start, and saw standing close to his bed a figure clothed in white, and from it proceeded a curious light, which, while thrown brightly on him, darkened everything else around. His first impulse was to hide his head under the bed-clothes, but then he was afraid that the creature might jump on him, and so he remained staring at it, till his hair stood on end, and yet not daring to scream out. At length it stretched out an arm, with a long thin hand at the end of it, shook a chain, which rattled and clanked on the floor, and growled forth, “Out of this! out of this! out of this!”Stephen’s teeth chattered. He could not speak—he could not move. He thought for a moment, and hoped that the apparition might be merely the phantom of a dream; but he pinched himself, and became too truly convinced that it was a dreadful reality. There it stood glaring at him; he was too frightened to mark very minutely its appearance. “Out of this! out of this! out of this!” again repeated the phantom, slowly retiring towards the door—a movement which would have been greatly to Stephen’s relief had he not felt sure that it would come back again. His eyes followed it till it glided out of the door as noiselessly as it had entered. Poor Stephen kept gazing towards the open door, which he dared not get out of bed to shut, lest he should encounter the phantom coming back again.About the same time that Stephen saw the phantom, Charley Blount was awakened by a strange noise in his bed-room of clanking of chains and horrible groans; then all was silent, and a voice exclaimed—“Out of this! out of this! out of this!”“What do you mean by ‘Out of this! out of this! out of this’?” cried Charley, quietly leaning out of his bed, and seizing one of his heavy walking shoes. “Explain yourself, old fellow, whoever you are.”“Out of this! out of this! out of this!” repeated the voice.“That is no answer to my question,” said Charley, undaunted, and peering into the darkness, in the direction from whence the voice appeared to proceed.“Out of this! out of this! out of this!” said the voice.“I say, you had better get out of this, or I’ll be trying the thickness of your skull with my walking-stick.”There was a loud groan and a clanking of chains; a light flashed in Charley’s eyes, and at the same moment he saw at the further end of the room, near the door, a tall figure in white. The instant he saw it the young sailor’s shoe was flying across the room, and he following it with his stick in his hand; the ghost, if ghost it was, made a rapid spring through the doorway, and fled along the passage. Charley, having no light, could not follow, so he returned to his room, and took his post behind the door, hoping that if the ghost should come back he might have the satisfaction of trying the strength of his stick on its head, supposing ghosts to have heads. In this case, at all events, it showed that it possessed some sense, as, though he waited till he was almost as cold as the ghost might be supposed to be, it never came back, so he picked up his thick shoes, and with them and his trusty stick by his side, ready for any emergency, got into bed again.Meantime, Lieutenant Dugong had been sleeping soundly in a cot formerly used by the captain, which Tom had slung for him in the unused room. He was contentedly snoring away, when suddenly he felt a tremendous blow under his back, which almost sent him flying out of his cot, which immediately afterwards was violently shaken from side to side. “Hullo! what’s got hold of the ship now?” he cried out, only half awake. “Steady, now! Steady! All comes from bad steering.” However, directly afterwards awaking, he struck out right and left with his fists, hoping to catch those disturbing him.A loud, hoarse laugh followed, and the next moment a light flashed in the room, and a figure in white appeared before him, and he heard, amid rattling of chains and groans, the words, “Out of this! out of this! out of this!”“Get out of this indeed! I’ll see you at the bottom of the Red Sea first!” exclaimed the fat lieutenant, “I’ve done my duty; and so if you are a ghost I don’t fear you; and if you are not, just wait a bit, and I’ll give you such a drubbing that it will be a long time before you venture again to awake a naval officer out of his first sleep.”Whether or not the ghost understood this address it is difficult to say; but at all events, as the gallant officer began to get out of his cot, an operation he could not very rapidly perform, it vanished from his sight, so he drew in his stout legs again, rolled himself up, and under the impression that he was suffering from nightmare from having taken too much lobster at supper, was in two minutes fast asleep, to be awakened again in a minute by the loud report of a pistol, which made him start up and look about him in earnest, not to see anything, however, for it was nearly dark, as a faint glimmer of starlight alone came through the long, narrow, and only window in the room.What befel the other inmates of the Tower on that memorable night must be narrated in another chapter.

About an hour after Charley Blount had left the Tower, Stephen Ludlow trotted up on his pony, not having met the young sailor on the way. He said that he had come over early, to spend the day, and that if he was asked to sleep he might do so. Of this the captain was very glad as he did not wish him to run the risk of going back alone, and at the same time he had not sufficient confidence in his discretion to tell him what he had learned from Blind Peter; so he said, “I am very glad to receive you, my young friend; but I must exact a promise that you will not go beyond the open beach, or the downs in sight of the windows of the Tower, unless with Tom or me. I have my reasons, which I need not mention now.”

Stephen thought this rather odd, but as he wished to stay, he readily gave the required promise. Margery had for some time been wishing to see him, to talk to him about the book he had lent her, and which she had now read completely through.

“Oh, Stephen!” she exclaimed, when she saw him, “it is such a delightful book. I have never read anything I have liked half so much. It has given me an idea—but I cannot talk to you about it here. You must come out on the beach, and we will sit on a rock and look out over the sea, and then I shall be able to say all I wish.”

So they went out together, and easily found a spot to suit Margery’s taste.

“Well, Margery, what is it that you have to tell me about my old book?” said Stephen, in a tone which would have told her, had she not been herself so engrossed in her subject, that she was not likely to have a very sympathising hearer.

“Pray do not speak of it in that way, Stephen,” she answered. “It’s a dear, delightful book, at all events; and since I read it I have been thinking more than ever of dear Jack. You know that he went away in a ship to the Pacific Ocean, and the ship was wrecked, just as Robinson Crusoe’s was, and though he was not a supercargo, he was a midshipman, and I don’t suppose there is much difference; and at all events, if Robinson Crusoe was saved, and lived on a desert island for many years, though everybody else in the ship was lost, why should not dear Jack have been cast on some island, and be still alive, though not able to get away, or I am sure that he would, and would come home and tell us all about it; for he knows how we all love him and think about him every day.”

“What a strange idea!” said Stephen, somewhat coldly. “I thought that it was settled that Jack was dead long ago. Do you really believe that he is alive?”

“Of course I do,” answered Margery, with some little impatience in her tone; “it was only those who don’t care about him settled that he was dead. I have always, always, been sure that he is alive, over the sea there, a long, long way off; but he will come back when we can send for him.”

“Very strange!” muttered Stephen. “But what, Mrs Margery, would you have me do?”

“Stephen, you knew dear Jack well,” she answered, fixing her large blue eyes on him; “you used to call him your friend, and friends ought to help each other. If I was a boy, whether or not I was Jack’s brother—if I was his friend,—I know what I would do: I would go out and look for him.”

“But where would you look?” asked Stephen. “The Pacific is a very wide place, even on the map; and I have a fancy that in reality it is wider still. There are many, many islands no one knows anything of.”

“Ah! that is the very thing I have been thinking of,” exclaimed Margery. “I am certain that Jack is living on one of those very islands.”

“How can you, Margery, be certain of any such thing?” said Stephen, in his usual cold tone, which contrasted curiously with the enthusiastic manner of little Margery.

“How can you ask that question, Stephen?” she exclaimed, half angry that he should venture to doubt the correctness of her most cherished belief. “Robinson Crusoe was wrecked on a desert island and so Jack may be, and I want you to go and look for him, and bring him home! There! I will not be refused! You are old enough and big enough to go,—bigger than Jack was—and you have plenty of money; and your papa always lets you do just what you like, so you say; and besides, you often speak to me of Jack as your old friend; and if he was your friend I ask you to prove it by bringing him home.”

When Stephen heard this he first thought that Margery was joking, but the matter was too serious for that; then the idea occurred to him that she had gone out of her mind; but she looked so calm, and quiet, and earnest, that he banished it immediately, and promised to think over her proposal, and speak to his father. He, however, very well knew the answer his father would give, and he himself had no wish to go wandering about the world in search of one for whom he cared but little. Had Margery known what was passing in his mind how she would have despised him. But she did not; she fancied that he must be as enthusiastic as she herself was, and that it was only necessary to mention her idea for him to take it up warmly. She therefore was prepared to wait patiently, under the belief that Stephen would soon be able to give a favourable answer to her request.

Margery’s belief that Jack was still alive received a very remarkable and curious confirmation that very day, after she had parted from Stephen. She was on her way to the village to carry some food to a sick child, when she encountered a rough sailor-like man, who, taking off his hat, begged for assistance, as he was on his way to join his ship at Plymouth, and had spent all his money; and if he did not make haste she would sail without him. He had come last from the Pacific, and complained that he had had but very little time on shore to amuse himself. The mention of the Pacific made Margery instantly ask him if he thought it possible that her brother Jack might be living, cast away on one of the numerous islands of that vast ocean.

“It is a very strange question for you to put to me, Miss, for a curious thing happened as we were steering southward from Vancouver’s Island, on our way home. What should we see but a small boat floating, all alone, hundreds of miles, for what we knew, from any land. We made towards her and picked her up, for there was a man in her, or what once had been a man, for he was lighter than a baby, and that I found out, for I lifted him upon deck myself. He was still alive, though the life was going fast out of him, and he couldn’t speak above a whisper, and only a few words then. He had been living on fish, we guessed, may be for weeks, by the number of scales we saw at the bottom of the boat. Now this is what he told me. His name was David King. He had been shipwrecked with another young man—a gentleman’s son, I know he said, and they were the only survivors of all the crew. He had gone out fishing in their boat, and had been blown off the island. I made out this by fits and starts, as it were, for he couldn’t speak without pain, it seemed. Poor fellow! he was far gone, and though the doctor poured all sorts of things down his throat, it was no use, he never lifted up his head, and before the evening he was dead. Maybe if we had seen him a day or two before he’d have lived, and been able to tell us more about himself.”

Margery was, of course, deeply interested with this account of the sailor. She imprudently gave him all the money she possessed, and then begged him to come up to the Tower that he might repeat the story to her father. He, however, was in a hurry to proceed on his journey, and declined coming, possibly not aware of the importance which might have been attached to his narrative, and perhaps selfishly indifferent in the matter. Margery at length hurried home and told her father, and he and Tom went down to look for the sailor, but he had disappeared, and notwithstanding all their inquiries they could gain no trace of him. The captain, indeed, suspected that the man was some begging impostor, who had heard of the loss of his son, and had concocted the tale for the sake of getting money out of the young lady. This was especially Mr Ludlow’s opinion of the matter.

Charley Blount stepped boldly out towards Ludlow Hall, singing as he went, not from want of thought, but from joyousness of heart. He reached the hall without interruption. Mr Ludlow was much pleased with his manner and appearance, thanked him warmly for bringing the message, and said that he would accompany him back to the Tower, with a couple of men on horseback. Charley, like most sailors, could ride; that is to say, he could stick on and let his horse go. He did so on the present occasion. They had got within two miles of the Tower, when a number of men, rough-looking fellows, were seen standing in the road before them.

As Mr Ludlow and his party drew near, their gestures became threatening, and it was evident that they meant mischief. The squire was not a man to be turned aside from his purpose. “Charge the fellows, and if they attempt to stop us, fire at them,” he exclaimed, putting spurs to his horse. Charley and his men followed his example. Those most frequently succeed who bravely face dangers and difficulties—the timid and hesitating fail. Mr Ludlow dashed on. The smugglers, for such there could be no doubt that they were, had black crape over their faces, and most of them wore carters’ smock frocks, which still further assisted to disguise them. This made it yet more evident that they had collected with evil intentions. There could no longer be any doubt about the matter when two or three of them stretched out their arms to stop the horses, but when they saw the pistols levelled at their heads, most of them sprang hurriedly back again. One, however, more daring than the rest attempted to seize Mr Ludlow’s rein. Fortunately for the ruffian the magistrate’s pistol missed fire, but he dealt the man’s wrist so heavy a blow with the butt-end of his weapon that the smuggler was glad to let go his hold lest he should have had another such a blow on his head. Charley laid about him with his thick walking-stick, and in a few seconds the whole party were out of the reach of the smugglers. They galloped on, however, without pulling rein till they reached the Tower.

“Never in the whole course of my life have I been subject to so daring an outrage, Captain Askew,” exclaimed Mr Ludlow, as he dismounted—“It is more like the doings of ancient days than what we have a right to expect in the nineteenth century. I dread to hear what has happened to my boy. Has he reached you safely?”

Stephen, who had just come up from the beach, answered the question for himself.

“So far the smugglers have gained no advantage over us,” observed Mr Ludlow, addressing Captain Askew. “But with your leave, my good neighbour, I will take up my abode here with you for a night, that we may the better consult as to the further steps it may be necessary to take to put a stop to these proceedings. I have written to Captain Haultaught, the new inspecting commander of the district, requesting him to meet me here with two or three of his lieutenants, and it will be very strange if we cannot manage to get to windward, as you would say, of these smuggling gentlemen.”

Captain Askew could only say that he was happy to put his house at the disposal of Mr Ludlow and those he thought fit to invite, on a public matter of so much importance. He had forgiven, and he believed from his heart, the unfeeling way in which Mr Ludlow had acted towards Jack, under what, he acknowledged, might have been his stern sense of justice; yet he, as a father, could not but remember that he was indirectly the cause of Jack’s loss. He felt this, but did not allow his feelings in any way to bias his conduct. Tom and Becky were therefore directed to make all necessary preparations to do honour to the guests present and expected. Mrs Askew and Margery were also not idle in arranging the provisions and the rooms for the guests. Tom was a man of a single idea; that was, that it was his business to obey the captain in all things without questioning. He had learned that lesson at sea and it would have been impossible for any one to persuade him out of it. Becky, however, not having been under similar discipline, did not consider herself bound to obey in the same way as did Tom.

She therefore grumbled very much when she heard that Mr Ludlow was to remain during the night.

“It’s bad enough to have the young cub come prowling about the house, but when the old wolf comes and sits down in the hall, it bodes ill luck to the family,” she muttered to herself, though loud enough for her mistress to overhear her.

Mrs Askew made no remark, but of course knew to what she alluded.

“I’d be ashamed to show my face inside the doors, if I were he, after sending the only son of the house away over the sea to die in foreign lands, and then to come up laughing and talking as if he had never done any harm to any one of us.”

“We are taught to forgive our enemies not only seven times, but seventy times seven, Becky,” observed Mrs Askew, feeling that she ought at length to check her attendant. “Even had Mr Ludlow wantonly or intentionally inflicted an injury on us, it would be for us to receive him as a guest. What he did was under a sense of duty, and we have no right to complain.”

“A sense of duty, indeed,” muttered Becky, “what would he have said if his precious son had been packed off to sea like poor dear Master Jack? I should care little if the food I have to cook should choke him. I only hope that he’ll not get a wink of sleep in the bed I have to make for him. Towards the boy I have no ill will; but I only hope when he grows bigger that he’ll not be thinking he’s worthy of our Miss Margery—that’s what I have to say.”

The last words were addressed to Tom, Mrs Askew having left the room.

“What need have you or I to trouble our heads about the matter, Mistress Becky,” he observed. “What the captain thinks fit is fit, that’s what I have to say.”

“I don’t gainsay that, Mister Tom,” answered Becky, “but what I ask is, why this Mr Ludlow, who has behaved so shamefully to the captain and the missus, dares to come to the Tower, and why they let him?”

“Why, to my mind, Mistress Becky, it’s just this—the captain’s a Christian of the right sort, and real Christians don’t bear malice, and so, do you see, the captain doesn’t bear malice,” answered Tom, giving a tug to the waistband of his trousers, a nautical trick he had never lost. “If he was a make-believe Christian, like too many folks, I can’t say what he might do. Becky, does you say your prayers? Now I do, since the captain taught me, and I know that I axes God to forgive me my trespasses as I forgive others as trespasses against me; and I’ll moreover make bold to declare that the captain says that prayer every night of his life, and has said it too, blow high or blow low, ever since he was a little chap on his mother’s knee. There, Mistress Becky you have what I calls the philosophy of the matter, and if I’m not right I don’t know no better.”

Becky acknowledged that Tom’s arguments were unanswerable, though she did not altogether comprehend them. She resolved, however, to dress the dinner as well as she could, and to make up a comfortable bed for the magistrate.

Everything went off as satisfactorily as could have been desired. Mr Ludlow did his best to be agreeable, and Stephen was pleasanter than usual, and listened with interest to the accounts Charley Blount gave of his voyages, and the countries he had visited. The inspecting commander, however, did not arrive. Late in the evening a revenue cutter came off the coast, and put on shore a very stout lieutenant, who came puffing up to the Tower, and announced himself as Lieutenant Dugong, of the Coast Guard. The captain received him cordially, but Becky surveyed him in despair.

“He’d break down the strongest bed in the house if there was one to spare for him,” she exclaimed, when she and Tom were next alone. “What can you do with people like him, Mr Tom, at sea? What sort of bedsteads have they got to sleep on?”

“Why, Mistress Becky, that depends whether they are berthed forward or aft,” answered Tom. “If forward, they swing in a hammock; and if aft, in a cot. We’ll soon sling one or t’other for this here Lieutenant Dugong, and depend on’t he’ll have no cause to complain.”

As may be supposed, every room in the Tower was occupied. Tom took charge of Blind Peter, and Charley Blount was put into the room he had occupied on the ground-floor, and the stout lieutenant had another small room on the same floor, while Stephen was placed in a small one near the first landing, and his father had a room not far off.

The whole family and their inmates retired to rest and to sleep. No one in the old Tower was awake. The hour of midnight had been struck by a clock constructed by the captain. The evening had been calm, but now the wind began to moan and sigh and whistle round the walls, and through any crevice into which it could find an entrance, while the dash of the sea on the beach grew every instant louder and louder, and ever and anon the shriek of some wild fowl startled from its roost was heard, as it flew by to find another resting-place; giving the notion to the ignorant and superstitious that spirits of evil were flying about intent on mischief.

The clock struck one when Stephen Ludlow awoke with a start, and saw standing close to his bed a figure clothed in white, and from it proceeded a curious light, which, while thrown brightly on him, darkened everything else around. His first impulse was to hide his head under the bed-clothes, but then he was afraid that the creature might jump on him, and so he remained staring at it, till his hair stood on end, and yet not daring to scream out. At length it stretched out an arm, with a long thin hand at the end of it, shook a chain, which rattled and clanked on the floor, and growled forth, “Out of this! out of this! out of this!”

Stephen’s teeth chattered. He could not speak—he could not move. He thought for a moment, and hoped that the apparition might be merely the phantom of a dream; but he pinched himself, and became too truly convinced that it was a dreadful reality. There it stood glaring at him; he was too frightened to mark very minutely its appearance. “Out of this! out of this! out of this!” again repeated the phantom, slowly retiring towards the door—a movement which would have been greatly to Stephen’s relief had he not felt sure that it would come back again. His eyes followed it till it glided out of the door as noiselessly as it had entered. Poor Stephen kept gazing towards the open door, which he dared not get out of bed to shut, lest he should encounter the phantom coming back again.

About the same time that Stephen saw the phantom, Charley Blount was awakened by a strange noise in his bed-room of clanking of chains and horrible groans; then all was silent, and a voice exclaimed—

“Out of this! out of this! out of this!”

“What do you mean by ‘Out of this! out of this! out of this’?” cried Charley, quietly leaning out of his bed, and seizing one of his heavy walking shoes. “Explain yourself, old fellow, whoever you are.”

“Out of this! out of this! out of this!” repeated the voice.

“That is no answer to my question,” said Charley, undaunted, and peering into the darkness, in the direction from whence the voice appeared to proceed.

“Out of this! out of this! out of this!” said the voice.

“I say, you had better get out of this, or I’ll be trying the thickness of your skull with my walking-stick.”

There was a loud groan and a clanking of chains; a light flashed in Charley’s eyes, and at the same moment he saw at the further end of the room, near the door, a tall figure in white. The instant he saw it the young sailor’s shoe was flying across the room, and he following it with his stick in his hand; the ghost, if ghost it was, made a rapid spring through the doorway, and fled along the passage. Charley, having no light, could not follow, so he returned to his room, and took his post behind the door, hoping that if the ghost should come back he might have the satisfaction of trying the strength of his stick on its head, supposing ghosts to have heads. In this case, at all events, it showed that it possessed some sense, as, though he waited till he was almost as cold as the ghost might be supposed to be, it never came back, so he picked up his thick shoes, and with them and his trusty stick by his side, ready for any emergency, got into bed again.

Meantime, Lieutenant Dugong had been sleeping soundly in a cot formerly used by the captain, which Tom had slung for him in the unused room. He was contentedly snoring away, when suddenly he felt a tremendous blow under his back, which almost sent him flying out of his cot, which immediately afterwards was violently shaken from side to side. “Hullo! what’s got hold of the ship now?” he cried out, only half awake. “Steady, now! Steady! All comes from bad steering.” However, directly afterwards awaking, he struck out right and left with his fists, hoping to catch those disturbing him.

A loud, hoarse laugh followed, and the next moment a light flashed in the room, and a figure in white appeared before him, and he heard, amid rattling of chains and groans, the words, “Out of this! out of this! out of this!”

“Get out of this indeed! I’ll see you at the bottom of the Red Sea first!” exclaimed the fat lieutenant, “I’ve done my duty; and so if you are a ghost I don’t fear you; and if you are not, just wait a bit, and I’ll give you such a drubbing that it will be a long time before you venture again to awake a naval officer out of his first sleep.”

Whether or not the ghost understood this address it is difficult to say; but at all events, as the gallant officer began to get out of his cot, an operation he could not very rapidly perform, it vanished from his sight, so he drew in his stout legs again, rolled himself up, and under the impression that he was suffering from nightmare from having taken too much lobster at supper, was in two minutes fast asleep, to be awakened again in a minute by the loud report of a pistol, which made him start up and look about him in earnest, not to see anything, however, for it was nearly dark, as a faint glimmer of starlight alone came through the long, narrow, and only window in the room.

What befel the other inmates of the Tower on that memorable night must be narrated in another chapter.

Chapter Six.Mr Ludlow disturbed—Maggie Scuttle and Blind Peter—Margery disappears.How the slumbers of several of the inmates of the old Tower of Stormount Bay were disturbed has already been described. The ghosts, if ghosts they were—for that may be doubted—were of a daring character, for they ventured to appear even to Mr Ludlow. He was awakened by a groan close to his head, a chain clanked, and a deep voice uttered the words, “Out of this! out of this! out of this!”Though broad awake by this time he made no answer, but endeavoured to pierce through the gloom with his eyes to ascertain who was in the room. A minute or more passed by, and he also suspected that he had been dreaming; at the same time he quietly stretched out his hand to take hold of a pistol which he had placed on a chair by his bedside—a dangerous, and in most instances very useless practice. He kept his finger on the trigger, peering into the dark in the hope of seeing the person who was attempting, he suspected, to play off some trick on him. His hand began to ache with holding the pistol in an uncomfortable position. Suddenly a bright light flashed in his face, and a voice groaned, “Out of this! out of this! out of this!” He pulled the trigger, aiming at the point whence the voice came, but the cap alone exploded, a hoarse laugh at the same time bursting forth, when a fearful looking figure for an instant appeared, surrounded by a blue flame, and then again all was dark and silent.Mr Ludlow was a man of nerve; springing from his bed he rushed towards the spot where he had seen the figure, but nearly fractured his head against the wall. He sprang to the other side, but only upset some articles of furniture which seemed to have been placed purposely in the way; and at length, after groping about for some time, he was glad to get back, utterly baffled, to his bed. He had no matches in the room, or he would have lighted a candle and gone in search of the disturbers of his slumbers. He could not go to sleep again very easily, so he lay wondering who could have played the trick. “Not Stephen, my own son,” he thought, “but that other boy, Charley Blount; he seems up to anything. Still he would not have the audacity to come into my room and attempt to frighten me.”Thus thinking, he was dropping off to sleep when a deep groan awoke him—he listened, all was silent; he thought that he must be mistaken, but he tried to keep awake to listen, directing his eyes at the same time towards the door. Once more there was a groan, and directly afterwards, at a spot where a gleam of starlight came through the window, he caught a glimpse of a tall figure gliding across the room. He fired at the instant; this time his pistol went off. There was a hoarse laugh as before; but when he sprang up, hoping to seize his untimely visitor, the figure had disappeared, and he ran his head against the edge of the door which had been left open. So unusual a sound as the report of a pistol in a quiet household at midnight soon brought most of the inmates to his room. The captain came stumping down in a red nightcap and an old pea-coat; Tom had quickly slipped into a pair of trousers, and had a yellow handkerchief round his head; Becky appeared, her countenance ornamented with huge curlpapers, in a flannel petticoat and piece of chintz curtain over her shoulders; while the stout lieutenant, unable to find his garments in the dark, had groped his way up wrapped in a blanket, when coming suddenly in front of Becky, she shrieked out, “A ghost! a ghost! a ghost!” and ran off, nearly upsetting her master in her flight.“Stop! stop! I’m not a ghost, my good woman,” cried out the lieutenant; “I only wish that you would tell me where I could find any of the gentlemen, and I would break their heads for them, for not a wink of sleep have they allowed me for the last two hours.”The captain and Tom having brought lights, search was made throughout Mr Ludlow’s room, and in the other rooms where the noises had been heard, but not a trace of any one having been in them could be discovered. Still, both the captain and magistrate were convinced that not only one person, but several, must have been in the house during the night for nearly two hours, and probably were still there, for the front and the side doors were closed, and no windows were found open by which they could have escaped. The lieutenant was rather more doubtful as to the character of their visitors, and Becky and Tom shook their heads and declared that they did not believe mere mortals could play such pranks, and get away without being discovered. “If my visitor was a ghost, we shall find the pistol bullet, but I rather suspect that the fellow withdrew it while I was asleep, or he would not have ventured to have remained in the room after he knew I had a fire-arm,” acutely observed Mr Ludlow.On examining the room, not a trace of a bullet could be discovered, though a piece of paper in which it had been wrapped was picked up unburnt. This confirmed the magistrate in the opinion that his surmise was correct, and it proved also the daring character of the people who had played the trick. How they had managed to get into the Tower was the question. The magistrate was puzzled, so was everybody else. Neither the captain nor Tom, who knew the building better than anybody else, could solve the mystery. Charley, hearing their voices, came out of his room, and Stephen crawled out of his, still pale and trembling, and both had accounts to give of their ghostly visitant. Stephen gave the most dreadful account of the ghost he had seen, of the spiritual character of which he seemed to have no doubt. “Tut! boy, ghosts, if there were such things, would not spend their time in trying to shake a stout gentleman like myself out of his cot, in drawing bullets out of pistols, in using dark lanterns, and groaning and growling with the rough voices of boatswain’s mates,” exclaimed Lieutenant Dugong, with a look of contempt at poor Stephen. “The people who have been in here deal in spirits, I have no doubt, for they are smugglers, and pretty stupid ones too, if they fancy that by such mummeries they can frighten officers and gentlemen as we are.”“You don’t mean to say, Mr Dugong, that those are not ghosts which we have been seeing to-night,” exclaimed Stephen.“I wish as how I thought they weren’t,” cried Becky, “for it’s awful to think that the old Tower where we’ve lived so long in peace should be haunted.”“Fiddlestick, woman, with your haunted Tower!” said the magistrate, who was apt soon to lose his patience; “I suspect that you and your one-armed companion there, who looks as scared as if he had a real goblin at his heels, have been leaving some door or window open by which these ghosts, as you call them, have found an entrance, and if they have not got out by the same way they came in they must still be somewhere about the building, and you must be held responsible for any mischief they may commit—you hear me, sirrah!”“Beg pardon, sir, and no offence, I do hear you,” said Tom, stepping forward and giving a pull to his red nightcap, and a hitch to his wide trousers: “but I’ve served his Majesty—that’s three on ’em and her Majesty, that’s Queen Victoria—man and boy for better than forty years, afloat in all seas, and all climes, and never once have I been told that I wasn’t attending to my duty, and doing the work I was set to do as well as I could. Now I know it’s my duty to see that all the doors and windows are fast at night, not to keep out robbers, because we’ve no reason to fear such gentry down here, but to prevent Mister Wind from making an entrance, and I say it, and again I begs pardon, I did close the doors and windows as securely as I ever did in my life.”“Oh! very well, very well, my good man, I do not doubt your honest intentions, but assertions are not proofs; if you were to set about it, and find the ghost, I should be better pleased,” said the magistrate.“I really think, Mr Ludlow, that you are somewhat hard upon Tom,” interposed Captain Askew; “I can answer for his doing his best to find the ghost if he is to be found, and if not I will leave him in charge of the deck while we turn in again; and you may depend on it no ghost will dare to show his nose while he is on duty.”This proposal was agreed to, and, as after a further search no trace of the nocturnal visitors was discovered, the family once more retired to rest, and Tom, with Mr Ludlow’s pistols in his belt, and a thick stick in his hand, kept watch—walking up and down the passages, and into all the empty rooms, and should he see anything he was immediately to call the captain and the rest of the gentlemen. Once, as he was walking slowly along a passage on the basement story, he saw on the ceiling a faint gleam of light, as if it had been cast from somewhere below, but as he proceeded it vanished, and though he looked about carefully he could not discover the spot whence it had come. He however noted it, that he might prosecute his examination in the morning. He was walking on, when a deep groan came from almost beneath his feet, as it seemed. Tom was not altogether free from superstition, but though he did not disbelieve in ghosts and other foolish notions, he was too brave to be frightened by anything, and consequently cool and capable of reflection.“Ho! ho!” he thought, “if that was a ghost which groaned, he has got a light to light himself about with anyhow; and he must be stowed away in some hollow hereabouts, under the floor or in the wall, and there he shall remain till morning light if he doesn’t want a broken head or an ounce of lead sent through his body.” So he posted himself in the passage to watch the place whence the sound had come. After waiting for some time he took a short turn, when directly his footsteps sounded along the passage there was another groan. “Ho! ho! old mate,” he muttered, not aware that Hamlet had used the expression before him; “groan away as much as you like, you’ll find it a tough job to work your way through the hard rock, I suspect, and I’m not going to let you frighten me away from my post, let me tell you; the pistol has got a bullet in it this time, understand.”The ghost evidently considered discretion the best part of valour, for after this not a groan or any other sound was heard. Tom watched all the night, hoping that somebody or something might appear, that he might get a shot at it; but not even a mouse crept out of its hole, nor were the inmates of the Tower again disturbed. Everybody was on foot at an early hour, and the old Tower was thoroughly examined inside and out, but no possible way by which the visitors could have entered could be discovered.Tom’s account of his having seen a light and heard a groan was disbelieved; it was thought that his imagination had deceived him. “Maybe it did,” muttered Tom to himself, “howsomdever, I’ll keep a bright look-out thereabouts, and I’ve a notion that some day I’ll catch the mole coming out of his hole.”The next day the inspecting commander of the coastguard, and another magistrate and two more lieutenants arrived, and a grand consultation was held. Plans were resolved on by which it was hoped that the smugglers would be completely put down. It did not occur to them, possibly, that while the temptation to smuggling was so great that would be a very difficult matter.Margery had never seen so many people at the lower before, but she acted with as much propriety as if she were every day accustomed to receive guests.It was supposed at length that the anger of the smugglers against Blind Peter would have passed away; and at all events, as he could not for ever be kept a prisoner, he begged that he might be allowed to go out again with his faithful dog Trusty. “There is One watches over me and takes care of me, and He has sent that good dog and given him sense to guide my steps, and so I trust in Him and do not fear what can happen to me,” he observed, when one morning, not without Captain and Mrs Askew feeling some misgivings, he went forth from the Tower. He had, as usual, his pack on his back and his staff in his hand, as he wound his way down the hill to the hamlet on the seashore. As it was not his custom to tell the people whence he had last come, they, naturally supposing that he had been at a distance, asked him if he had heard of the awful doings up at the Tower since he had last been there? “What are they, Maggy Scuttle?” he inquired of the old woman who asked the question.“Terrible! Peter, terrible!” she answered, shaking her head; “not but what the captain is a good man, and a charitable man, and a kind man; that I’ll allow. He comes down here and reads to us out of a book, and preaches to us, and talks to us about our souls; but do all he can, he can’t keep the devil out of his house. It’s haunted; no doubt about that. They say that ghosts and hobgoblins, and all sorts of bad spirits go wandering up and down night after night, and won’t let the people in the Tower sleep. It’s believed that the captain is so vexed that he’ll give up the Tower and go away, and ’twill then soon turn back into the ruin it was when he came to it.”“I hope not,” said Peter, “he’s a good customer of mine and a good neighbour to you, and so we shall both be the losers; and as for the ghosts, he’s not a man to be frightened by such nonsense. I don’t believe in ghosts, and I’ll tell you why—I couldn’t see them in the first place; I couldn’t feel them, because they are spirits; and if they are spirits, I couldn’t hear them, because, do ye see, spirits haven’t got the power of speaking; they’ve no throat nor lungs, nor tongue, nor lips. I’ve thought of these things as I go along on my solitary way with my good dog Trusty to guide me, for there is nothing to draw off my thoughts such as those who can see have, by what is passing around. My idea is this—that God made everything in order, and keeps everything that He alone has to do with in order—though He leaves man free to do what he likes—be it good or evil. Now God alone can have to do with spirits or ghosts, and I’m very sure that He wouldn’t let them play the pranks and foolish tricks all the ghosts or spirits or hobgoblins, and such like things I’ve ever heard of, are said to have played. I’ve never yet met a man who has seen a ghost; and what’s more, I’m very certain that I never shall.”“What do the people up at the Tower say to the ghosts, which have been appearing there night after night I’m told?” asked Dick Herring, who had the moment before walked into old dame Scuttle’s, but unseen by Peter.“They say, Master Herring, that the ghosts are clever ghosts to get into the Tower as they did; but they are not so clever as they fancy themselves, and that if they don’t look sharp they’ll be trapped one of these days. You’ve seen a mole-trap, Master Herring, such as the farmers use—when the mole is caught the end of the stick flies up with him, and there he hangs dangling in the air. Perhaps your ghosts wouldn’t approve of a fate like that!”“I don’t see what you’re driving at, Master Peter,” answered Dick Herring, in a growling, displeased tone; “but I’ll tell you what, those who know more than they ought to know are likely to come to grief some day.”“Maybe, Dick, if they make a bad use of what they know,” said the blind man, turning his face towards the smuggler; “and I have something to tell you—there is One who watches over the poor blind man, who puts his trust in Him; and He is able to keep him from all harm.”“That’s what you say, Master Peter, you’ll have to prove it some day, maybe,” growled out the smuggler, anxious, however, to change the subject of conversation.“I have proved it,” answered Peter, with a firm voice; “and now good-bye, Dick, I must be round and see who wants anything from my pack.”And the blind man went fearlessly on his way, showing that the confidence he spoke of in God’s protecting providence was real, and not assumed.The subject of the ghosts had by this time pretty well been dropped by the inmates of the Tower, although it was still a matter of wonder how they, or rather the people who acted them, could have got inside. Stephen had come over again to see them, attended by a groom, for he was not allowed to ride about by himself. He said that he must go back early; indeed, it was clear that nothing would tempt him to spend a night in the Tower—and he wondered how Charley Blount could venture to sleep on by himself after the dreadful sights he had seen. “I never have found that sights or sounds could do a man any harm, and so I do not mind them any more than the Scotch Quaker, who, when a fellow was one day abusing him, observed quietly, ‘Say what ye like, friend, with your tongue, but dinna touch me.’ If the ghost had come with a dagger, or pistol, or bowl of poison, I should have had good reason for wishing him to keep his distance.”“Oh! Charley, you are so fool-hardy,” drawled out Stephen; “I, for my part, don’t see any fun in trifling with such serious matters.”Charley Blount burst out into a hearty fit of laughter. “Why, Stephen, I thought from what I have heard, that you were more of a man than to believe in such nonsense,” he exclaimed.“What is it that you have heard that makes you think so?” asked Stephen.“That you were going to persuade your father to let you go to the South Seas, that you might try and find out what has become of Jack Askew.”“Yes, I know that is what I thought of doing,” answered Stephen; “that is to say, Margery wished me to go; but, in the first place, I know that my father wouldn’t let me go; and in the second, I don’t think that I should like the sea, and my health wouldn’t stand it, and altogether I have made up my mind not to go.”“Have you told Margery this?” asked Charley; “at present she fully believes that you are going and that you are certain to find her brother alive in some desert island, like that Robinson Crusoe lived in; as you knew him so well, she thinks that you are more likely than any one else to find him out.”“Oh! that is a mere fancy of Margery’s,” answered Stephen, in a tone which showed great indifference to the subject. “It is a hundred to one that Jack is alive, in the first place, and equally unlikely that I should stumble on him, even if he is. The captain does not think so, or he would go out himself, or send out, I should think.”“As to that I do not know, but I do know that you ought to tell Margery; at least, I know that I would, if I had made up my mind as you seem to have done.”“You had better go, then, instead of me, if you think so favourably of the little girl’s wild scheme,” said Stephen, in a sneering tone, which somewhat tried Charley’s temper.“She has not asked me,” he answered; “it would make them all very happy if Jack was to be found, and I should think no trouble too great if I could bring him back, that is all I say.”“Oh! you are very generous,” sneered Stephen who would have been very glad to please Margery if he could have done so without any risk or trouble to himself.There are a good many people in the world of similar character: the test of love or friendship is the amount of self-sacrifice which a person is ready to make for the object of his regard. Stephen had at length, at Charley’s instigation, to confess to Margery that he had no intention of becoming a sailor for the sake of trying to find Jack. Her countenance expressed as much scorn as its sweetness would allow, as she answered, “Oh! I feared that you did not care for him, and am certain that you do not care for me. Here is the book you were polite enough to lend me, and I suppose that you will not very often come over to the Tower, as we shall have no longer that subject to talk about.”Stephen could say nothing, but looked very sheepish, and soon afterwards ordered his horse and rode homewards.The next morning the family assembled in the breakfast-room for prayers; but Margery, usually the first on foot, had not made her appearance. She slept in a little room on the first floor, with a window looking out over the sea; it was prettily papered, and had white dimity curtains, and everything in it looked fresh and nice, like herself. Charley ran up and knocked at the door, but got no answer; then Becky went to the room, the door was not locked and her heart sank with an undefined alarm when she found the room empty. She scarcely dared to return to the breakfast-room to tell Captain and Mrs Askew, fearful of the effect the announcement might have on her mistress. She hunted about the room. The little girl had slept in the bed, but neither her night things nor her day clothing were there. Several other articles appeared to have been removed from the room. Becky had an observant eye, and quickly discovered this; otherwise she might have supposed that she had merely gone out unobserved to take a morning walk. As to her having gone away of her own accord, without saying anything to her father and mother, or allowing even a suspicion that any plan was running in her head, that was so unlike dear little, loving, tender-hearted Miss Margery that Becky dismissed the notion as altogether improbable; but then again, how could anybody have got into the house to carry her off? Poor Becky, with grief and perplexity, would have sat down on the bed and cried her eyes out, but she felt conscious that the so doing would not assist in discovering what had become of Margery; so at length, mustering courage for announcing what she would, she told Tom, rather have cut out her tongue than have had to do, she slowly returned to the breakfast-room. Her prolonged absence had produced some anxiety, and she met Mrs Askew coming to see what was the matter. Becky’s face alarmed her.“Is my child ill? is she dead? oh! speak—speak—tell me the worst!” she exclaimed.“Oh! don’t take on so, marm, Miss Margery isn’t ill, and she isn’t dead, that I know on; but, oh dear! marm, she isn’t there,” she answered, bursting into tears. It is needless further to describe the sorrow and consternation which everybody in the house felt when this fact became known, and very soon it was ascertained to be a fact, for, hunting high and hunting low, not a trace of dear little Margery could be discovered.

How the slumbers of several of the inmates of the old Tower of Stormount Bay were disturbed has already been described. The ghosts, if ghosts they were—for that may be doubted—were of a daring character, for they ventured to appear even to Mr Ludlow. He was awakened by a groan close to his head, a chain clanked, and a deep voice uttered the words, “Out of this! out of this! out of this!”

Though broad awake by this time he made no answer, but endeavoured to pierce through the gloom with his eyes to ascertain who was in the room. A minute or more passed by, and he also suspected that he had been dreaming; at the same time he quietly stretched out his hand to take hold of a pistol which he had placed on a chair by his bedside—a dangerous, and in most instances very useless practice. He kept his finger on the trigger, peering into the dark in the hope of seeing the person who was attempting, he suspected, to play off some trick on him. His hand began to ache with holding the pistol in an uncomfortable position. Suddenly a bright light flashed in his face, and a voice groaned, “Out of this! out of this! out of this!” He pulled the trigger, aiming at the point whence the voice came, but the cap alone exploded, a hoarse laugh at the same time bursting forth, when a fearful looking figure for an instant appeared, surrounded by a blue flame, and then again all was dark and silent.

Mr Ludlow was a man of nerve; springing from his bed he rushed towards the spot where he had seen the figure, but nearly fractured his head against the wall. He sprang to the other side, but only upset some articles of furniture which seemed to have been placed purposely in the way; and at length, after groping about for some time, he was glad to get back, utterly baffled, to his bed. He had no matches in the room, or he would have lighted a candle and gone in search of the disturbers of his slumbers. He could not go to sleep again very easily, so he lay wondering who could have played the trick. “Not Stephen, my own son,” he thought, “but that other boy, Charley Blount; he seems up to anything. Still he would not have the audacity to come into my room and attempt to frighten me.”

Thus thinking, he was dropping off to sleep when a deep groan awoke him—he listened, all was silent; he thought that he must be mistaken, but he tried to keep awake to listen, directing his eyes at the same time towards the door. Once more there was a groan, and directly afterwards, at a spot where a gleam of starlight came through the window, he caught a glimpse of a tall figure gliding across the room. He fired at the instant; this time his pistol went off. There was a hoarse laugh as before; but when he sprang up, hoping to seize his untimely visitor, the figure had disappeared, and he ran his head against the edge of the door which had been left open. So unusual a sound as the report of a pistol in a quiet household at midnight soon brought most of the inmates to his room. The captain came stumping down in a red nightcap and an old pea-coat; Tom had quickly slipped into a pair of trousers, and had a yellow handkerchief round his head; Becky appeared, her countenance ornamented with huge curlpapers, in a flannel petticoat and piece of chintz curtain over her shoulders; while the stout lieutenant, unable to find his garments in the dark, had groped his way up wrapped in a blanket, when coming suddenly in front of Becky, she shrieked out, “A ghost! a ghost! a ghost!” and ran off, nearly upsetting her master in her flight.

“Stop! stop! I’m not a ghost, my good woman,” cried out the lieutenant; “I only wish that you would tell me where I could find any of the gentlemen, and I would break their heads for them, for not a wink of sleep have they allowed me for the last two hours.”

The captain and Tom having brought lights, search was made throughout Mr Ludlow’s room, and in the other rooms where the noises had been heard, but not a trace of any one having been in them could be discovered. Still, both the captain and magistrate were convinced that not only one person, but several, must have been in the house during the night for nearly two hours, and probably were still there, for the front and the side doors were closed, and no windows were found open by which they could have escaped. The lieutenant was rather more doubtful as to the character of their visitors, and Becky and Tom shook their heads and declared that they did not believe mere mortals could play such pranks, and get away without being discovered. “If my visitor was a ghost, we shall find the pistol bullet, but I rather suspect that the fellow withdrew it while I was asleep, or he would not have ventured to have remained in the room after he knew I had a fire-arm,” acutely observed Mr Ludlow.

On examining the room, not a trace of a bullet could be discovered, though a piece of paper in which it had been wrapped was picked up unburnt. This confirmed the magistrate in the opinion that his surmise was correct, and it proved also the daring character of the people who had played the trick. How they had managed to get into the Tower was the question. The magistrate was puzzled, so was everybody else. Neither the captain nor Tom, who knew the building better than anybody else, could solve the mystery. Charley, hearing their voices, came out of his room, and Stephen crawled out of his, still pale and trembling, and both had accounts to give of their ghostly visitant. Stephen gave the most dreadful account of the ghost he had seen, of the spiritual character of which he seemed to have no doubt. “Tut! boy, ghosts, if there were such things, would not spend their time in trying to shake a stout gentleman like myself out of his cot, in drawing bullets out of pistols, in using dark lanterns, and groaning and growling with the rough voices of boatswain’s mates,” exclaimed Lieutenant Dugong, with a look of contempt at poor Stephen. “The people who have been in here deal in spirits, I have no doubt, for they are smugglers, and pretty stupid ones too, if they fancy that by such mummeries they can frighten officers and gentlemen as we are.”

“You don’t mean to say, Mr Dugong, that those are not ghosts which we have been seeing to-night,” exclaimed Stephen.

“I wish as how I thought they weren’t,” cried Becky, “for it’s awful to think that the old Tower where we’ve lived so long in peace should be haunted.”

“Fiddlestick, woman, with your haunted Tower!” said the magistrate, who was apt soon to lose his patience; “I suspect that you and your one-armed companion there, who looks as scared as if he had a real goblin at his heels, have been leaving some door or window open by which these ghosts, as you call them, have found an entrance, and if they have not got out by the same way they came in they must still be somewhere about the building, and you must be held responsible for any mischief they may commit—you hear me, sirrah!”

“Beg pardon, sir, and no offence, I do hear you,” said Tom, stepping forward and giving a pull to his red nightcap, and a hitch to his wide trousers: “but I’ve served his Majesty—that’s three on ’em and her Majesty, that’s Queen Victoria—man and boy for better than forty years, afloat in all seas, and all climes, and never once have I been told that I wasn’t attending to my duty, and doing the work I was set to do as well as I could. Now I know it’s my duty to see that all the doors and windows are fast at night, not to keep out robbers, because we’ve no reason to fear such gentry down here, but to prevent Mister Wind from making an entrance, and I say it, and again I begs pardon, I did close the doors and windows as securely as I ever did in my life.”

“Oh! very well, very well, my good man, I do not doubt your honest intentions, but assertions are not proofs; if you were to set about it, and find the ghost, I should be better pleased,” said the magistrate.

“I really think, Mr Ludlow, that you are somewhat hard upon Tom,” interposed Captain Askew; “I can answer for his doing his best to find the ghost if he is to be found, and if not I will leave him in charge of the deck while we turn in again; and you may depend on it no ghost will dare to show his nose while he is on duty.”

This proposal was agreed to, and, as after a further search no trace of the nocturnal visitors was discovered, the family once more retired to rest, and Tom, with Mr Ludlow’s pistols in his belt, and a thick stick in his hand, kept watch—walking up and down the passages, and into all the empty rooms, and should he see anything he was immediately to call the captain and the rest of the gentlemen. Once, as he was walking slowly along a passage on the basement story, he saw on the ceiling a faint gleam of light, as if it had been cast from somewhere below, but as he proceeded it vanished, and though he looked about carefully he could not discover the spot whence it had come. He however noted it, that he might prosecute his examination in the morning. He was walking on, when a deep groan came from almost beneath his feet, as it seemed. Tom was not altogether free from superstition, but though he did not disbelieve in ghosts and other foolish notions, he was too brave to be frightened by anything, and consequently cool and capable of reflection.

“Ho! ho!” he thought, “if that was a ghost which groaned, he has got a light to light himself about with anyhow; and he must be stowed away in some hollow hereabouts, under the floor or in the wall, and there he shall remain till morning light if he doesn’t want a broken head or an ounce of lead sent through his body.” So he posted himself in the passage to watch the place whence the sound had come. After waiting for some time he took a short turn, when directly his footsteps sounded along the passage there was another groan. “Ho! ho! old mate,” he muttered, not aware that Hamlet had used the expression before him; “groan away as much as you like, you’ll find it a tough job to work your way through the hard rock, I suspect, and I’m not going to let you frighten me away from my post, let me tell you; the pistol has got a bullet in it this time, understand.”

The ghost evidently considered discretion the best part of valour, for after this not a groan or any other sound was heard. Tom watched all the night, hoping that somebody or something might appear, that he might get a shot at it; but not even a mouse crept out of its hole, nor were the inmates of the Tower again disturbed. Everybody was on foot at an early hour, and the old Tower was thoroughly examined inside and out, but no possible way by which the visitors could have entered could be discovered.

Tom’s account of his having seen a light and heard a groan was disbelieved; it was thought that his imagination had deceived him. “Maybe it did,” muttered Tom to himself, “howsomdever, I’ll keep a bright look-out thereabouts, and I’ve a notion that some day I’ll catch the mole coming out of his hole.”

The next day the inspecting commander of the coastguard, and another magistrate and two more lieutenants arrived, and a grand consultation was held. Plans were resolved on by which it was hoped that the smugglers would be completely put down. It did not occur to them, possibly, that while the temptation to smuggling was so great that would be a very difficult matter.

Margery had never seen so many people at the lower before, but she acted with as much propriety as if she were every day accustomed to receive guests.

It was supposed at length that the anger of the smugglers against Blind Peter would have passed away; and at all events, as he could not for ever be kept a prisoner, he begged that he might be allowed to go out again with his faithful dog Trusty. “There is One watches over me and takes care of me, and He has sent that good dog and given him sense to guide my steps, and so I trust in Him and do not fear what can happen to me,” he observed, when one morning, not without Captain and Mrs Askew feeling some misgivings, he went forth from the Tower. He had, as usual, his pack on his back and his staff in his hand, as he wound his way down the hill to the hamlet on the seashore. As it was not his custom to tell the people whence he had last come, they, naturally supposing that he had been at a distance, asked him if he had heard of the awful doings up at the Tower since he had last been there? “What are they, Maggy Scuttle?” he inquired of the old woman who asked the question.

“Terrible! Peter, terrible!” she answered, shaking her head; “not but what the captain is a good man, and a charitable man, and a kind man; that I’ll allow. He comes down here and reads to us out of a book, and preaches to us, and talks to us about our souls; but do all he can, he can’t keep the devil out of his house. It’s haunted; no doubt about that. They say that ghosts and hobgoblins, and all sorts of bad spirits go wandering up and down night after night, and won’t let the people in the Tower sleep. It’s believed that the captain is so vexed that he’ll give up the Tower and go away, and ’twill then soon turn back into the ruin it was when he came to it.”

“I hope not,” said Peter, “he’s a good customer of mine and a good neighbour to you, and so we shall both be the losers; and as for the ghosts, he’s not a man to be frightened by such nonsense. I don’t believe in ghosts, and I’ll tell you why—I couldn’t see them in the first place; I couldn’t feel them, because they are spirits; and if they are spirits, I couldn’t hear them, because, do ye see, spirits haven’t got the power of speaking; they’ve no throat nor lungs, nor tongue, nor lips. I’ve thought of these things as I go along on my solitary way with my good dog Trusty to guide me, for there is nothing to draw off my thoughts such as those who can see have, by what is passing around. My idea is this—that God made everything in order, and keeps everything that He alone has to do with in order—though He leaves man free to do what he likes—be it good or evil. Now God alone can have to do with spirits or ghosts, and I’m very sure that He wouldn’t let them play the pranks and foolish tricks all the ghosts or spirits or hobgoblins, and such like things I’ve ever heard of, are said to have played. I’ve never yet met a man who has seen a ghost; and what’s more, I’m very certain that I never shall.”

“What do the people up at the Tower say to the ghosts, which have been appearing there night after night I’m told?” asked Dick Herring, who had the moment before walked into old dame Scuttle’s, but unseen by Peter.

“They say, Master Herring, that the ghosts are clever ghosts to get into the Tower as they did; but they are not so clever as they fancy themselves, and that if they don’t look sharp they’ll be trapped one of these days. You’ve seen a mole-trap, Master Herring, such as the farmers use—when the mole is caught the end of the stick flies up with him, and there he hangs dangling in the air. Perhaps your ghosts wouldn’t approve of a fate like that!”

“I don’t see what you’re driving at, Master Peter,” answered Dick Herring, in a growling, displeased tone; “but I’ll tell you what, those who know more than they ought to know are likely to come to grief some day.”

“Maybe, Dick, if they make a bad use of what they know,” said the blind man, turning his face towards the smuggler; “and I have something to tell you—there is One who watches over the poor blind man, who puts his trust in Him; and He is able to keep him from all harm.”

“That’s what you say, Master Peter, you’ll have to prove it some day, maybe,” growled out the smuggler, anxious, however, to change the subject of conversation.

“I have proved it,” answered Peter, with a firm voice; “and now good-bye, Dick, I must be round and see who wants anything from my pack.”

And the blind man went fearlessly on his way, showing that the confidence he spoke of in God’s protecting providence was real, and not assumed.

The subject of the ghosts had by this time pretty well been dropped by the inmates of the Tower, although it was still a matter of wonder how they, or rather the people who acted them, could have got inside. Stephen had come over again to see them, attended by a groom, for he was not allowed to ride about by himself. He said that he must go back early; indeed, it was clear that nothing would tempt him to spend a night in the Tower—and he wondered how Charley Blount could venture to sleep on by himself after the dreadful sights he had seen. “I never have found that sights or sounds could do a man any harm, and so I do not mind them any more than the Scotch Quaker, who, when a fellow was one day abusing him, observed quietly, ‘Say what ye like, friend, with your tongue, but dinna touch me.’ If the ghost had come with a dagger, or pistol, or bowl of poison, I should have had good reason for wishing him to keep his distance.”

“Oh! Charley, you are so fool-hardy,” drawled out Stephen; “I, for my part, don’t see any fun in trifling with such serious matters.”

Charley Blount burst out into a hearty fit of laughter. “Why, Stephen, I thought from what I have heard, that you were more of a man than to believe in such nonsense,” he exclaimed.

“What is it that you have heard that makes you think so?” asked Stephen.

“That you were going to persuade your father to let you go to the South Seas, that you might try and find out what has become of Jack Askew.”

“Yes, I know that is what I thought of doing,” answered Stephen; “that is to say, Margery wished me to go; but, in the first place, I know that my father wouldn’t let me go; and in the second, I don’t think that I should like the sea, and my health wouldn’t stand it, and altogether I have made up my mind not to go.”

“Have you told Margery this?” asked Charley; “at present she fully believes that you are going and that you are certain to find her brother alive in some desert island, like that Robinson Crusoe lived in; as you knew him so well, she thinks that you are more likely than any one else to find him out.”

“Oh! that is a mere fancy of Margery’s,” answered Stephen, in a tone which showed great indifference to the subject. “It is a hundred to one that Jack is alive, in the first place, and equally unlikely that I should stumble on him, even if he is. The captain does not think so, or he would go out himself, or send out, I should think.”

“As to that I do not know, but I do know that you ought to tell Margery; at least, I know that I would, if I had made up my mind as you seem to have done.”

“You had better go, then, instead of me, if you think so favourably of the little girl’s wild scheme,” said Stephen, in a sneering tone, which somewhat tried Charley’s temper.

“She has not asked me,” he answered; “it would make them all very happy if Jack was to be found, and I should think no trouble too great if I could bring him back, that is all I say.”

“Oh! you are very generous,” sneered Stephen who would have been very glad to please Margery if he could have done so without any risk or trouble to himself.

There are a good many people in the world of similar character: the test of love or friendship is the amount of self-sacrifice which a person is ready to make for the object of his regard. Stephen had at length, at Charley’s instigation, to confess to Margery that he had no intention of becoming a sailor for the sake of trying to find Jack. Her countenance expressed as much scorn as its sweetness would allow, as she answered, “Oh! I feared that you did not care for him, and am certain that you do not care for me. Here is the book you were polite enough to lend me, and I suppose that you will not very often come over to the Tower, as we shall have no longer that subject to talk about.”

Stephen could say nothing, but looked very sheepish, and soon afterwards ordered his horse and rode homewards.

The next morning the family assembled in the breakfast-room for prayers; but Margery, usually the first on foot, had not made her appearance. She slept in a little room on the first floor, with a window looking out over the sea; it was prettily papered, and had white dimity curtains, and everything in it looked fresh and nice, like herself. Charley ran up and knocked at the door, but got no answer; then Becky went to the room, the door was not locked and her heart sank with an undefined alarm when she found the room empty. She scarcely dared to return to the breakfast-room to tell Captain and Mrs Askew, fearful of the effect the announcement might have on her mistress. She hunted about the room. The little girl had slept in the bed, but neither her night things nor her day clothing were there. Several other articles appeared to have been removed from the room. Becky had an observant eye, and quickly discovered this; otherwise she might have supposed that she had merely gone out unobserved to take a morning walk. As to her having gone away of her own accord, without saying anything to her father and mother, or allowing even a suspicion that any plan was running in her head, that was so unlike dear little, loving, tender-hearted Miss Margery that Becky dismissed the notion as altogether improbable; but then again, how could anybody have got into the house to carry her off? Poor Becky, with grief and perplexity, would have sat down on the bed and cried her eyes out, but she felt conscious that the so doing would not assist in discovering what had become of Margery; so at length, mustering courage for announcing what she would, she told Tom, rather have cut out her tongue than have had to do, she slowly returned to the breakfast-room. Her prolonged absence had produced some anxiety, and she met Mrs Askew coming to see what was the matter. Becky’s face alarmed her.

“Is my child ill? is she dead? oh! speak—speak—tell me the worst!” she exclaimed.

“Oh! don’t take on so, marm, Miss Margery isn’t ill, and she isn’t dead, that I know on; but, oh dear! marm, she isn’t there,” she answered, bursting into tears. It is needless further to describe the sorrow and consternation which everybody in the house felt when this fact became known, and very soon it was ascertained to be a fact, for, hunting high and hunting low, not a trace of dear little Margery could be discovered.

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