grave. He indicated my presence--proximity, rather--to Wyatt, by a
nudge on the elbow, whereupon that respectable personage swung sharply
round, and returned my scrutinising gaze by one of insolent defiance
and bravado, which he contrived to render still more emphatic by
thrusting his tongue into his cheek. This done, he gathered up a coil
of rope from one of the seats of the Cross-House, and said: 'Come,
Harry, let's be off. That gentleman seems to want to take our
pictures--on account that our mugs are such handsome ones, no doubt;
and if it was a mildish afternoon, I shouldn't mind having mine done;
but as the weather's rather nippy like, we'd better be toddling, I
think.' They then swaggered off, and crossed the Ferry.

Two or three weeks afterwards, I again met with them, under the
following circumstances:--I landed from the _Rose_ at Lymington, for
the purpose of going by coach to Lyndhurst, a considerable village in
the New Forest, from which an ex-chancellor derives his title. I had
appointed to meet a confidential agent there at the Fox and Hounds
Inn, a third-rate tavern, situate at the foot of the hill upon which
the place is built; and as the evening promised to be clear and fine,
though cold, I anticipated a bracing, cross-country walk afterwards in
the direction of Hythe, in the neighbourhood whereof dwelt a
person--neither a seaman nor a smuggler--whose favour I was just then
very diligently cultivating. It was the month of November; and on
being set down at the door of the inn somewhere about six o'clock in
the evening, I quietly entered and took a seat in the smoking-room
unrecognised, as I thought, by any one--for I was not in uniform. My
man had not arrived; and after waiting a few minutes, I stepped out to
inquire at the bar if such a person had been there. To my great
surprise, a young woman--girl would be a better word, for she could
not be more than seventeen, or at the utmost eighteen years old--whom