26 THE SMUGGLER. 



very hard of him when he takes to a life of risk ami adventure, 

 where his neck is not worth sixpence, and his gain is bought 

 by the sweat of his brow. But your gentleman smuggler is 

 my abomination ; your fellow that risks little but an exchequer 

 process, and gains ten times what the others do, without their 

 labour or their danger. Give me your bold, brave fellow, who 

 declares war and fights it out. There's some spirit in him." 



"Gentlemen smugglers!" said Osboru; "that seems to me 

 to be a strange sort of anomaly. I was not aware that there 

 were such things." 



"Pooh! the country is full of them," cried Mr. Croylaml. 

 "It is not here that the peasant treads upon the kybe of the 

 peer; but the smuggler treads upon the country gentlemen. 

 Many a merchant who never made a hundred pounds by fair 

 trade, makes thousands and hundreds of thousands by cheating 

 the Customs. There is not a man in this part of the country 

 who does not dabble in the traffic more or less. I've no doubt 

 all my brandied cherries are steeped in stuff that never paid 

 duty; and if you don't smuggle yourself, your servants do it 

 for you. But I'll tell you all about it," and he proceeded to 

 give them a true and faithful exposition of the state of the 

 county, agreeing in all respects with that which has been 

 furnished to the reader in the first chapter of this tale. 



His statement and the varied conversation which arose 

 from different parts of it, occupied the time fully, till the coach, 

 as it was growing dark, rolled into Ashford. There Mr. Croy- 

 land quitted his two companions, shaking them each by the 

 hand with right good will; and they pursued their onward 

 course to Hythe and Folkestone, without any farther incident 

 worthy of notice. 



CHAPTER III. 



AT Hythe, to make use of a very extraordinary though not 

 uncommon expression, the coach stopped to sup ; not that the 

 coach itself ate anything, for, on the contrary, it disgorged that 

 which it had already taken in ; but the travellers who descended 

 from it were furnished with supper, although the distance to 

 Folkestone might very well have justified them in going on to 

 the end of their journey without any other pabulum than that 



