gacious préfet, albeit a sufficiently good Catholic, dropped a few words significative of his thought that Allut might have picked up the stirring events that marked Picaud's misfortunes and crimes without the aid of a disembodied spirit.

France furnishes to many examples of frightful crimes committed by escaped and liberated forçats, and if any of our humanitarians would wish to know the consequences of the criminal stay-at-home system, even with such a lynx-eyed police

turn to the vivid word-pictures in a novel,* founded mainly on fact. Deeply and dreadfully interesting as it is, the murder of one of the principal characters, and the most startling of the incidents, are no mere emanations from the brain of the novelist, but terrible realities, giving the dark story as good a title as The Bride of Lammermoor to the character of an " ower true tale."

I.

ON a certain part of the English coast, lying sufficiently contiguous to France for the convenience of smuggling, and rising high above the sea, was a bleak plateau of land. It was a dizzy task to walk close to its edge, and look down over the cliff to the beach below. A small beach, in the form of a half-moon, accessible only from the sea, and, at low water, by a very narrow path round the left projection of rock. Beyond this narrow path lay the village if the few poor fishermen's huts deserved the name. Some were erected on the low grass-land, and some up the cliffs, not there so perpendicular. The Half-moon was never under water, for the tide did not reach it, though it had used to, years ago. Rude steps shelved down from it to a lower beach which met the sea. Standing on the plateau overhead, with your back to the sea and looking inland, the eye fell upon a cultivated dell, where rose a large red-brick house, called Red-Court Farm. It was built on the site of an ancient castle, part of whose ruins lay still around.

To the left of this house (but to your right hand as you stood looking) might be seen the church; and, beyond that, some five minutes' walk, lay a handful of gentlemen's houses. On the plateau itself, not a long way from its edge, rose an old circular wall, breast high, with a narrow door or opening. It was called the Round Tower, and was supposed to have been the watch-tower in former times.

The name of the family living at the Red Court was Thornycroft. Mr. Thornycroft rented and farmed the land around, about three hundred acres. He was a county magistrate, and rode in to the fivemile-off town, Jutpoint, when the whim took him, and sat upon the bench. Never was there a pleasanter companion than he, and the other magistrates chuckled when they got au invitation to the Red-Court dinners, for they loved the hearty welcome and the jolly cheer. Three sons had Mr. Thornycroft; two of them fine towering men like himself. Richard, the eldest, was dark, stern, and resolute, but he would unbend to courtesy over his wine; and Isaac, the second, was of elegant form,

bland features, and fair complexion. The third was Cyril. He was only of middle height, his health less robust than that of his brothers, and he was less given to outdoor pursuits. They were all engaged in agriculture. "A thriving farm the RedCourt must be," quoth the neighbors, "for the old man to keep all his three sons upon it."

Only gentlemen had hitherto visited at the Red-Court, for Mrs. Thornycroft was dead, and the daughter, the youngest of the family, was at school near London. She rarely visited her home: a house without a mistress was not the place for a young girl, Mr. Thornycroft was wont to say. But now that she had attained her nineteenth year, she came home to live: a lady-like, agreeable girl, with Cyril's love for reading, Isaac's fair skin and handsome features, and Richard's resolute eye and lip. She assumed her post as mistress of the house with a spirit of determination which said she meant to maintain it, and soon the servants whispered about, that Miss Thornycroft and her brothers had already had some words together, for both sides wanted the mastery. She wished regulation in the house, and they set all regulation at defiance, especially in the matter of coming in to meals. One day in January, Richard went striding out of the house to find his father. The Justice was in the grounds with a gun.

"This girl's turning the house upside down," he began. "We shall not be able to keep her at home."

"What girl? Do you mean Mary Anne ?"

"There's nobody else I should mean," returned the young man, who was not remarkable for courtesy of speech, even to his father. "I'd pretty soon shell out any body else who came spoiling sport. She has gone and invited some fellow and his sister down to stop. We can't have prying spies here."

"Don't fly in a flurry, Dick. I'll go and speak to her. Here, take the gun." "What is all this, Mary Anne ?" demanded Justice Thornycroft, when he reached his daughter. "Richard says you have been inviting people here."

"So I have, papa. Susan Hunter and her brother. She was one of my schoolfellows, and often stops the holidays at school. I should like her to come for a week before they are over."

"Not if Richard's whims are to be studied," returned Miss Thornycroft, angrily. "Do you wish me to live on in this house for ever, papa, without a soul to speak to, save my brothers and the servants? And cordial companions they are," added the young lady, alluding to the former, "out, out, out, as they are, night after night! I should like to know where it is they go to. I'll find out."

Mr. Thornycroft started. "Daughter!" he cried, in a hoarse whisper, "hold your peace about where your brothers go to. what is it to you? Are you a firebrand come amongst us? Write, and put off these intruders you have been inviting; and, if you wish to remain under my roof, shut your eyes and ears to all that does not concern you."

He left the room as he spoke, and Mary Anne looked after him. Shut my eyes and ears!-that I never will. I can see how it is: papa has lived so long under Richard's finger and thumb, that he gives way to his slightest whim. I don't think they are well-conducted, these brothers of mine; and papa winks at it—at least Richard and Isaac. They frequent low company and public houses, as I believe: where else can they go to in an evening without dressing, and stop away for hours? Last night they went out in their velveteen jackets, and gaiters all mud. Richard thinks if we had visitors he must remain in, and be attentive to himself, so he has set his face against their coming. But I will show Richard that I have a will of my own, and as good a right to exercise it as he."

The two eldest sons of Justice Thornycroft certainly did appear to be rather loose young men, and their dog-cart, a favorite vehicle of theirs, might be heard going out or coming in at all hours of the night. But they were much liked in the neighborhood for all that, were social with their equals, and generous to the fishermen and their families.

Miss Thornycroft did not write to stop her guests, and on the following Monday one of them arrived, Mr. Hunter. His sister had gone to her parents' house in the north. Miss Thornycroft was walking toward the village, and saw him alight from the railway omnibus, which stopped at the Mermaid. She knew him directly, though she was at some distance; knew him by his coat, if by nothing else. It was a remarkable coat of white cloth,

"Or else you might have been ?" "That's a home question," laughed Mr. Kyne. "I really cannot answer for what might have been. My betters were tempted to be."

"There!" exclaimed Mary Anne, "you acknowledge that you custom-house gentlemen are not proof against temptation, and yet you boast of looking so sharply after these wretched fishermen !"

"If the game is carried on here as I suspect, Miss Thornycroft, it is not wretched fishermen who have to do with it; except, perhaps, as subordinates."

It was a short walk, as they made their way down to the village, and thence to the narrow path winding round the projection of rock. The tide was out, so they shelved round it with dry feet, and ascended to the half-moon beach. They paced about from one end of the place to the other, looking and talking. Nothing was to be seen; nothing; no opening, or sign of opening. The young engineer had an umbrella in his hand, and he struck the rocks repeatedly : in one part in particular, it was just the middle of the Half-moon, he struck and struck, and returned to strike again.

"What do you find?" inquired Mr. Kyne.

"Not much. Only it sounds hollow just

here."

They looked again: they stooped down and looked; they stood upon a loose stone and raised themselves to look; they pushed and struck at the part with all their might and main. No, nothing came of it.

"Did you ever see a more convenient spot for working the game ?" cried the supervisor. "Look at those embedded stones down there, rising from the grass: the very things to moor a boat to."

"Who do you suspect does this contraband business?" inquired Robert Hunter. "My suspicions don't fall particularly upon any one. There are no parties in the neighborhood whom one could suspect, except the boatmen, and if the trade is pushed in the extensive way I think, they are not the guilty men. A week ago, as I tell you, they ran one cargo; I know they did; and may I be shot this moment, if they are not ready to run another! That's a paying game, I hope."

"How do you ascertain this ?"

"By two or three things. One of them, which I have no objection to mention, is that a certain queer craft is fond of cruising about here. Whenever I catch, sight

of her ugly sides, I know it bodes no good for her Majesty's revenue. She carries plausible colors, the huzzy, and has, I doubt not, a double bottom, false as her colors. I saw her stern, shooting off at daybreak this morning, and should like to have had the hauling over of her." "Can you not ?"

"No. She is apparently on legitimate business. And once, when it was done, nothing came of it. She happened, by ill luck, to be really empty, or the officers were not skilful enough to unearth the fox."

They left the Half-moon. Mr. Kyne quitted them, and Miss Thornycroft and her lover returned to the plateau again, and stood on its edge as before.

"This is in the middle, about as we were standing underneath; and your house, as you see, lies off in a straight line," remarked Mr. Hunter. It is a good thing your family live there, Mary Anne." "Why?"

"Because if any suspicious persons inhabited it, I should say that house might have something to do with the mystery. There can be little doubt, from what the officer says, that smuggled goods are landed and stowed away in these rocks, though the ingress is hidden from the uninitiated. Should this be really the case, depend upon it there is some passage, some communication in these rocks to an egress inland."

"But what has that to do with our house?" inquired Mary Anne, wonderingly.

"These old castles, lying contiguous to the coast, are sure to have subterranean passages underneath, leading to the sea. Many an escape has been made that way in time of war, and many an ill-fated prisoner has been so conducted to the waves, and put out of sight for ever. Were I your father, I would institute a search. He might come upon the hoarding-place of the smugglers."

"But the smugglers cannot get to their caverns and passages through our house!"

"Of course not. There must be some other opening. How I should like to drop upon the lads."

When they reached home, they found the family in the dining-room, all but Isaac. Mr. Thornycroft had his spectacles on, writing, Richard was doing something to a gun, and Cyril lay almost at length in