her Majesty's dominions. At the distance of about a mile, and a little before you reach the slip leading down to Summer's Well, a narrow, rough, and stony road, forming in winter the bed of a torrent, branches off from the main track, and ascends obliquely up the precipitous face of the mountain. After proceeding some way in this direction, you arrive at a small farm-house, now in ruins, and blackened by smoke, but which, at the period when our tale commences, looked neat and comfortable. Nor did the reality bely appearances. At one end stretched a long irregular garden, filled at the proper season with beds of peas and beans, parsnips, leaks, turnips, and potatoes, thick tufts of thyme, marjoram, penny-royal, basil, balm gentle, with whatever else a rustic kitchen requires. Large apple and pear trees, seldom pruned, shaded the paths; and along the cliff that formed a kind of wall at the back of the grounds, a screen of hop plants rose in rude imitation of the vine. The extreme beauty and luxuriance of this vegetation might be traced to a cause near at hand. This was a transparent perennial spring, which, protected by an overhanging mossy ledge, burst from the living rock, and found its way through several diminutive grassy conduits into the road.

The house itself, which stood a little back from the public way, presented a rude but cheerful as

pect. A substantial stone wall projecting at either end like wings, with low drooping eaves, whose line of continuity was broken by three attic windows, suggested the idea of extreme snugness, more particularly when the eye rested on the broad flagstone in front of the door, chalked with fanciful patterns, and sprinkled with bright yellow sand, or stole through the open window between myrtles or geraniums into the large and pretty parlour, where the shining old fashioned oak furniture, including a most massive eight-day clock, bespoke the descent of the proprietor from ancestors who possessed a due sense of rustic gentility. A neat angular penthouse, supporting a matting of honey-suckle, which creeping up on both sides of the doorway, mingled its flowers and its sweetness there, protected the master from the rain or sun as often as he thought proper to smoke the pipe of peace on his own open threshold. As is the fashion of the country, the whole of the façade and the walls of continuation were kept dazzling white, and accordingly offered an agreeable contrast with the verdure of the trees, and dark red of the rocks forming the back ground, against which it stood in bold relief.

Tom Bennet, to whom this warm habitation belonged in fee-simple, though professedly a farmer, and holding a considerable quantity of land, had

still the reputation of drawing the principal part of his gains from another source; that is, he held communication with those hardy and adventurous mariners who, declining the protection of the national flag, plough the seas on their own account, and often reap a richer harvest from those supposed barren plains than the most indefatigable tillers of the ground derive from the fat fields of Essex. In short, Bennet was a smuggler, and this may be supposed to account for the slovenliness of his farming operations, which subjected him to the sneers and contempt of his rural neighbours. But what cared he? His purse was better replenished than theirs, and his house filled with fatter flitches of bacon, and larger corbels of meal, a greater store of red herrings, and all those other delicate luxuries which constitute the delight of such hardy epicures. His reputation increased with his comforts. Every man throughout the large scattered parish knew Tom Bennet, and Tom Bennet's mule was reported to be well acquainted with the paths to all the farm-houses thereabouts; where, with a pace stealthy as charity's, modestly, and under the cover of night, he deposited the means of manufacturing punch, dog's-nose, bishop, with other cordials for low spirits.

The traders with whom Tom did business usually

put in upon a retired part of the coast, about four miles off, at those hours of the night which the less industrious section of the community devote to sloth and indulgence in their beds. These honest people appeared to stand in no need of sleep, more particularly when the moon happened to have retired to those caverns beyond the ocean where the interlunar revels are supposed to be celebrated. They were the greatest possible enemies to ostentation. However hardy or heroic might be their deeds, they cared not if they remained for ever in obscurity; and Tom Bennet was much of the same mind.

This daring son of his wits had a helpmate worthy to share the fortunes of one so unsophisticated. She overtopped him by a head, which is not saying a great deal, for though square, sturdy, and by no means deficient in thews and sinews, Tom's stature was moderate as his ambition, while Betty lacked little of the height of a grenadier. She was of stern and masculine countenance, and her dark elf-locks, hanging in irregular masses over her forehead and cheeks, gave her the appearance of a gigantic gipsy. Further to improve this likeness, she generally caparisoned herself in her husband's great-coat of dirty drab, with buttons like crown-pieces; and thus equipped she might often be seen late at night stalking down the narrow pathways or sheep tracks leading from their dwelling towards the coast.

On a dark blustering night, Tom set out early on a visit to the cove under Penmawr Cliffs, where he usually transacted business with his sea-faring friends. He knew very well that he had little to fear from Mr. Howell, the tide-waiter, or from Mr. Rice, the exciseman, both of whom were usually to be found at such hours in the well-sanded and comfortable parlour of the Three Mariners, discussing politics over a bumper of heavy-wet. It is even whispered that the jolly landlord, by way of a joke, and to try their loyalty, used to treat them at parting to a bowl of whiskey-punch, for the principal ingredient of which he was indebted to Mr. Thomas Bennet.

This valuable subject, as I have said, had set out early in the evening, and Betty, according to instructions, left home with a sturdy mule about eleven o'clock. For the sake of variety, and other reasons easy to be guessed, the smugglers did not always fix upon the same place for their rendez-vous, but sometimes met on the mountain side, sometimes in little cross-roads, and now and then on the King's high-way. The last was the case on the present occasion: Betty, as had been agreed upon, took her station under a spreading old oak where a small shady lane branched off towards the sea-shore. What the nature of her contemplations may have been, I will not pretend to explain. As time ad