purpose in going, save to see the end of a wretched quarrel and a
smuggler's ill scheme. You carried a musket for your own safety, not with
any purpose. It was a day of weight in your own life, for on one side you
had an offer from the Earl Fitzwilliam to serve on his estate; and on the
other to take a share in a little fleet of fishing smacks, of which my
father was part owner. I think you know to which side I inclined, but
that now is neither here nor there; and, though you did not tell me, as
you went along the shore you were more intent on handing backwards and
forwards in your mind your own affairs, than of what should happen at
Theddlethorpe. And so you did not hurry as you went, and, as things
happened, you came to Faddo's house almost at the same moment with Lancy
Doane and two other mounted coast-guards.

"You stood in the shadow while they knocked at Faddo's door. You were so
near, you could see the hateful look in his face. You were surprised he
did not try to stand the coast-guards off. You saw him, at their bidding,
take a lantern, and march with them to a shed standing off a little from
the house, nearer to the shore. Going a roundabout swiftly, you came to
the shed first, and posted yourself at the little window on the sea-side.
You saw them enter with the lantern, saw them shift a cider press,
uncover the floor, and there beneath, in a dry well, were barrels upon
barrels of spirits, and crouched among them was a man whom you all knew
at once--Laney's brother, Tom. That, Cousin Dick, was Jim Faddo's
revenge. Tom Doane had got refuge with him till he should reach his
brother, not knowing Lancy was to be coast-guard. Faddo, coming back from
Mablethorpe, told Tom the coast-guards were to raid him that night; and
he made him hide in this safe place, as he called it, knowing that Lancy
would make for it.

"For a minute after Tom was found no man stirred. Tom was quick of brain