Dodging about between the village and the Red Court Farm, went Miss Thornycroft. Her mind was not at rest. The day on which she had expected her guests--or rather, one of them--had passed. It was on Saturday; here was Monday passing, and nobody had come. Each time the omnibus had arrived from Jutpoint, the young lady had not been far off. It had not brought anybody in whom she was interested. Forty-five minutes past three now; ten minutes more, and it would be in again. She was beginning to feel sick with emotional suspense.

But, for all this dodging, Miss Thornycroft was a lady; and when the wheels of the omnibus were at length heard, and it drew up at the Mermaid, she was at a considerable distance, apparently taking a cold stroll in the wintry afternoon. One passenger only got out; she could see that; and--was it Robert Hunter?

If so, he must be habited in some curious attire. Looking at him from this distance, he seemed to be all white and black. But, before he had moved a step; while he was inquiring (as might be inferred) the way to the Red Court Farm; the wild beating of Mary Ann Thornycroft\'s heart told her who it was.

They met quietly enough, shaking hands calmly while he explained that he had been unable to get away on Saturday. Miss Thornycroft burst into a fit of laughter at the coat, partly genuine, partly put on to hide her tell-tale emotion. It was certainly a remarkable coat; made of a smooth sort of white cloth, exceedingly heavy, and trimmed with black fur. The collar, the facings, the wrists and the back pockets had all a broad strip. He turned himself about for her inspection, laughing too.

"I fear I shall astonish the natives. But I never had so warm a coat in my life. I got it from the professor."

"From the professor!"

Mr. Hunter laughed. "Some crafty acquaintance of his, hard up, persuaded him into the purchase of two, money down, saying they had just come over from Russia--latest fashion. Perhaps they had; perhaps they are. The professor does not go in for fashion, but he cannot refuse a request made to him on the plea of unmerited poverty, and all that. I happened to be at his house when he brought them home in a cab. You should have heard Mrs. Mac."

"I should have liked to," said Mary Anne.

"First of all she said she\'d have the fellow taken up who had beguiled the professor into it; next she said she\'d pledge them. It ended in the professor making me a present of one and keeping the other."

"And you are going to sport it here!"

"Better here than in London; as a beginning. I thought it a good opportunity to get reconciled to myself in it. I should like to see the professor there when he goes out in his."

"They must have taken you for somebody in the train."

"Yes," said Mr. Hunter. "I and an old lady and gentleman had the carriage to ourselves all the way. She evidently took me for a lord; her husband for a card-sharper. But I think I shall like the coat."

Opinions might differ upon it--as did those of the old couple in the train. It was decidedly a handsome coat in itself, and had probably cost as much as the professor gave for it; but, taken in conjunction with its oddity, some might not have elected to be seen wearing it. Mr. Hunter had brought no other; his last year\'s coat was much worn, and he had been about to get another when this came in his way.

"And what about Susan?" Miss Thornycroft asked.

"Susan is in Yorkshire. Her aunt--to whom she was left when my mother died--was taken ill, and sent for her. I do not suppose Susan will return to London."

"Not at all?"

Mr. Hunter thought not. "It would be scarcely worth while; she was to have gone home in March."

Thus talking, they reached the Red Court Farm. When its inmates saw him arrive, his portmanteau carried behind by a porter, they were thunderstruck. Mr. Thornycroft scarcely knew which to stare at most, him or his coat. Mary Anne introduced him with characteristic equanimity. Richard vouchsafed no greeting in his stern displeasure, but the justice, a gentleman at heart, hospitably inclined always, could do no less than bid him welcome. Cyril, quiet and courteous, shook hands with him; and later, when Isaac came in, he grasped his hand warmly.

There is no doubt that the learning he was a connexion of Anna Chester\'s (it could not be called a relative) tended to smooth matters. As the days passed on, Mr. Hunter grew upon their liking; for his own sake he proved to be an agreeable companion; and even Richard fell into civility--an active, free, pleasant-mannered young fellow, as the justice called him, who made himself at home indoors and out.

Never, since the bygone days at Katterley, had Robert Hunter deserved the character; but in this brief holiday he could but give himself up to his perfect happiness. He made excursions to Jutpoint; he explored the cliffs; he went in at will to Captain Copp\'s and the other houses on the heath; he put out to sea with the fishermen in the boats; he talked to the wives in their huts: everybody soon knew Robert Hunter, and especially his coat, which had become the marvel of Coastdown; a few admiring it--a vast many abusing it.

Miss Thornycroft was his frequent companion, and they went out unrestrained. It never appeared to have crossed the mind of Mr. Thornycroft or his sons as being within the bounds of possibility that this struggling young engineer, who was not known to public repute as an engineer at all, could presume to be thinking of Mary Anne, still less that she could think of him; otherwise they had been more cautious. Anna Chester was out with them sometimes, Cyril on occasion; but they rambled about for the most part alone in the cold and frost, their spirits light as the rarefied air.

The plateau and its superstition had no terror for Mr. Hunter, rather amusement: but that he saw--and saw with surprise--it was a subject of gravity at the Red Court, he might have made fun of it. Mary Anne confessed to him that she did not understand the matter; her brothers were reticent even to discourtesy. That some mystery was at the bottom of it Mr. Hunter could not fail to detect, and was content to bury all allusion to the superstition.

He stood with Miss Thornycroft on the edge of the plateau one bright morning--the brightest they had had. It was the first time he had been so far, for Mary Anne had never gone beyond the railings. Not the slightest fear had she; for the matter of that, nobody else had in daylight; but she knew that her father did not like to see her there. In small things, when they did not cross her own will, the young lady could be obedient.

"I can see how dangerous it would be here on a dark night," observed Robert Hunter in answer to something she had been saying, as he drew a little back from the edge, over which he had been cautiously leaning to take his observations. "Mary Anne! I never in all my life saw a place so convenient for smuggling as that Half-moon below. I daresay it has seen plenty of it."

Before she could make any rejoinder Mr. Kyne came strolling up to them in a brown study, and they shook hands. Robert Hunter had dined with him at the Red Court.

"I was telling Miss Thornycroft that the place below looks as if it had been made for the convenience of smuggling," began Robert Hunter. "Have you much trouble here?"

"No; but I am in hopes of it," was the reply. And it so completely astonished Mr. Hunter, who had spoken in a careless manner, without real meaning, as we all do sometimes, that he turned sharply round and looked at the supervisor.

"I thought the days of smuggling were over."

"Not yet, here--so far as I believe," replied Mr. Kyne. "We have information that smuggling to an extent is carried on somewhere on this coast, and this is the most likely spot for it that I can discover. I heard of this suspicion soon after I was appointed to Coastdown, and so kept my eyes open; but never, in spite of my precautions, have I succeeded in dropping on the wretches. I don\'t speak of paltry packets of tobacco and sausage-skins of brandy, which the fishermen, boarding strange craft, contrive to stow about their ribs, but of more serious cargoes. I would almost stake my life that not a mile distant from this place there lies hidden a ton-load of lace, rich and costly as ever flourished at the Court of St. James."[2]

[Footnote 2: This was just before the late alteration in the Customs\' import laws, when the duty on lace and other light articles was large: making the smuggling of them into England a clever and enormously profitable achievement, when it could be accomplished with impunity.]

Robert Hunter thought the story sounded about as likely as that of the ghost. The incredulous, amused light in his eye caused Mary Anne to laugh.

"Where can it be hidden?" she asked of the supervisor. "There\'s no place."

"I wish I could tell you where, Miss Thornycroft."

Anything but inclined to laugh did he appear himself. The fact was, Mr. Kyne was growing more fully confirmed in his opinion day by day, and had come out this morning determined to do something. Circumstances were occurring to baffle all his precautions, and he felt savage. His policy hitherto had been secrecy, henceforth he meant to speak of the matter openly, and see what that would do. It was very singular--noted hereafter--that Robert Hunter and this young lady should have been the first who fell in his way after the resolution to speak was taken. But no doubt the remark with which Mr. Hunter greeted him surprised him into it.

"But surely you do not think, Mr. Kyne, that boat-loads of lace are really run here!" exclaimed Robert Hunter.

"I do think it. If not in this precise spot,"--pointing with his finger to the Half-moon beach underneath--"somewhere close to it. There\'s only one thing staggers me--if they run their cargoes there, where can they stow it away? I have walked about there"--advancing to the edge cautiously and looking down--"from the time the tide went off the narrow path, leading to it round the rocks, until it came in again, puzzling over the problem, and peering with every eye I had."

"Peering?"

"Yes. We have heard of caves and other hiding-places being concealed in rocks," added the supervisor, doggedly; "why not in these? I cannot put it out of my head that there\'s something of the sort here; it\'s getting as bad to me as a haunting dream."

"It would be charming to find it!" exclaimed Mary Anne. "A cave in the rocks! Ah, Mr. Kyne, it is too good to be true. We shall never have so romantic a discovery at Coastdown."

"If such a thing were there, I should think you would have no difficulty in discovering it," said Mr. Hunter.

"I have found it difficult," returned Mr. Kyne, snappishly, as if certain remembrances connected with the non-finding did not soothe him. "There\'s only one thing keeps me from reporting the suspicions at head quarters."

"And that is--?"

"The doubt that it may turn out nothing after all."

"Oh, then, you are not so sure; you have no sufficient grounds to go upon," quickly rejoined Mr. Hunter, with a smile that nettled the other.

"Yes, I have grounds," he returned, somewhat incautiously perhaps, in his haste to vindicate himself. "We had information a short time back," he continued after a pause, as he dropped his voice to a low key "that a boat-load of something--my belief is, it\'s lace--was waiting to come in. Every night for a fortnight, in the dark age of the moon, did I haunt this naked plateau on the watch, one man with me, others being within call. A very agreeable task it was, lying perdu on its edge, with my cold face just extended beyond!"

"And what was the result?" eagerly asked Mr. Hunter, who was growing interested in the narrative.

"Nothing was the result. I never saw the ghost of a smuggler or a boat approach the place. And the very first night I was off the watch, I have reason to believe the job was done."

"Which night was that?" inquired Miss Thornycroft.

"This day week, when I was dining at the Red Court. I had told my men to be on the look-out; but I had certainly told them in a careless sort of way, for the moon was bright again, and who was to suspect that they would risk it on a light night? They are bold sinners."

The customs officer was so earnest, putting, as was evident, so much faith in his own suspicions, that Robert Hunter insensibly began to go over to his belief. Why should cargoes of lace, and other valuable articles, not be run? he asked himself. They bore enough duty to tempt the risk, as they had borne it in the days gone by.

"How was it your men were so negligent?" he inquired.

"There\'s the devil of it!" cried the supervisor. "I beg your pardon, young lady; wrong words slip out inadvertently when one\'s vexed. My careless orders made the men careless, and they sat boozing at the Mermaid. Young Mr. Thornycroft, it seems, happened to go in, saw them sitting there with some of his farm-labourers, and, in a generous fit, ordered them to call for what drink they liked. They had red eyes and shaky hands the next morning."

"How stupid of my brother!" exclaimed Mary Anne. "Was it Richard or Isaac?"

"I don\'t know. But all your family are too liberal: their purse is longer than their discretion. It is not the first time, by many, they have treated my fellows. I wish they would not do so."

There was a slight pause. Mr. Kyne resumed in a sort of halting tone, as if the words came from him in spite of his better judgment.

"The greatest obstacle I have to contend with in keeping the men to their duty on the plateau here, is the superstition connected with it. When a fellow is got on at night, the slightest movement--a night-bird flying overhead--will send him off again. Ah! they don\'t want pressing to stay drinking at the Mermaid or anywhere else. The fact is, Coastdown has not been kept to its duty for a long while. My predecessor was good-hearted and easy, and the men did as they liked."

"How many men do you count here?"

"Only three or four, and they can\'t be available all together; they must have some rest, turn on, turn off. There\'s a longish strip of coast to pace, too; the plateau\'s but a fleabite of it."

"And your theory is that the smugglers run their boats below here?" continued Robert Hunter, indicating the Half-moon beach.

"I think they do--that is, if they run them anywhere," replied Mr. Kyne, who was in a state of miserable doubt, between his firm convictions and the improbabilities they involved. "You see, there is nowhere else that privateer boats can be run to. There\'s no possibility of such a thing higher up, beyond that point to the right, and it would be nearly as impossible for them to land a cargo of contraband goods beyond the left point, in the face of all the villagers."

There was a silence. All three were looking below at the scrap of beach over the sharp edges of the jutting rocks, Miss Thornycroft held safe by Mr. Hunter. She broke it.

"But, as you observe, Mr. Kyne, where could they stow a cargo there, allowing that they landed one? There is certainly no opening or place for concealment in those hard, bare rocks, or it would have been discovered long ago. Another thing--suppose for a moment that they do get a cargo stowed away somewhere in the rocks, how are they to get it out again? There would be equal danger of discovery."

"So there would," replied Mr. Kyne. "I have thought of all these things myself till my head is muddled."

"Did you ever read Cooper\'s novels, Mr. Kyne?" resumed Miss Thornycroft. "Some of them would give you a vast deal of insight into these sort of transactions."

"No," replied the officer, with an amused look. "I prefer to get my insight from practice. I am pretty sharp-sighted," he added with complacency.

Robert Hunter had been weighing possibilities in his mind, and woke up as from sudden thought, turning to the supervisor.

"I should like to go down there and have a look at these rocks. My profession has taken me much amidst such places: perhaps my experience could assist you."

"Let us walk there now!" exclaimed the supervisor, seizing at the idea--"if not taking you out of your way, Miss Thornycroft."

"Oh, I should be delighted," was the young lady\'s reply. "I call it quite an adventure. Some fine moonlight night I shall come and watch here myself, Mr. Kyne."

"They don\'t do their work on a moonlight night. At least," he hastened to correct himself; with a somewhat crestfallen expression, "not usually. But after what happened recently, I shall mistrust a light night as much as a dark one."

"Are you sure," she inquired, standing yet within them on the plateau, "that a cargo was really landed the night you speak of?"

"I am not sure; but I have cause to suspect it."

"............