an officer in the king's service, give and receive every
explanation which might be necessary with young Hazlewood. 'If he
is not very wrong-headed indeed,' he thought, 'he must allow the
manner in which I acted to have been the necessary consequence of
his own overbearing conduct.'

And now we must suppose him once more embarked on the Solway
Firth. The wind was adverse, attended by some rain, and they
struggled against it without much assistance from the tide. The
boat was heavily laden with goods (part of which were probably
contraband), and laboured deep in the sea. Brown, who had been
bred a sailor, and was indeed skilled in most athletic exercises,
gave his powerful and effectual assistance in rowing, or
occasionally in steering the boat, and his advice in the
management, which became the more delicate as the wind increased,
and, being opposed to the very rapid tides of that coast, made the
voyage perilous. At length, after spending the whole night upon
the firth, they were at morning within sight of a beautiful bay
upon the Scottish coast. The weather was now more mild. The snow,
which had been for some time waning, had given way entirely under
the fresh gale of the preceding night. The more distant hills,
indeed, retained their snowy mantle, but all the open country was
cleared, unless where a few white patches indicated that it had
been drifted to an uncommon depth. Even under its wintry
appearance the shore was highly interesting. The line of sea-
coast, with all its varied curves, indentures, and embayments,
swept away from the sight on either hand, in that varied,
intricate, yet graceful and easy line which the eye loves so well
to pursue. And it was no less relieved and varied in elevation
than in outline by the different forms of the shore, the beach in