220 THE SMUGGLER. 



few hamlets or villages offered any quarters for the dragoons. 

 The} 7 calculated, too, that having turned the dragoons who 

 were quartered at Bilsingtou, they should thus pass between 

 them and those at Kingsnorth and Bromley Green ; and Richard 

 Radford, himself, was well aware that there were no soldiers, 

 when he left that part of the country, in the neighbourhood of 

 High Halden or Berthersden. This seemed, therefore, the only 

 road that was actually open before them ; and it was accord- 

 ingly taken, after a general distribution of spirits amongst the 

 men, and of hay and water to the horses. Still their progress 

 was slow, for the ground became hilly in that neighbourhood, 

 and by the time they arrived at an elevated spot, near Wood- 

 church Beacon, whence they could see over a wide extent of 

 country round, the grey light of the dawn was spreading rapidly 

 through the sky, showing all the varied objects of the fair and 

 beautiful land through which they wandered. 



But it is now necessary to turn to another personage in our 

 history, of whose fate, for some time, we have had no account. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



WE left our friend, Mr. Mowle, in no very pleasant situation ; 

 for although the generosity of the major, in neither divulging 

 the discovery he had made, to the rest of the smugglers, nor 

 blowing the brains of the intruder out upon the spot, was, 

 perhaps, much more than could be expected from a man in his 

 situation and of his habits, yet it afforded no guarantee what- 

 soever to the unfortunate custom-house officer, that his life 

 would not be sacrificed on the very first danger or alarm. He 

 also knew, that if such an accident were to happen again, as 

 that which had at first displayed his features to one of those 

 into whose nocturnal councils he had intruded, nothing on 

 earth could save him ; for amongst the gang by whom he was 

 surrounded, were a number of men who had sworn to shed 

 his blood on the very first opportunity. 



He walked along, therefore, as the reader may well conceive, 

 with the feeling of a knife continually at his throat; and a 

 long and weary march it seemed to him, as, proceeding by tor- 



