During dinner the Admiral was continually asking for some particulars respecting the shipwreck, and it was with delight, mixed with a sort of trepidation, that the sisters heard the different instances of intrepidity and considerate kindness of these rough seamen. Emily Mowbray especially, every now and then, could not help betraying, by the animation of her eyes and the glow on her countenance, the deep interest she felt in the display of these qualities in their commander, anxious as he seemed to be in his narrative to keep himself in the back ground.
When the servants had withdrawn, the Admiral turned to his daughters, to enquire what had become of them all the morning. "Why to tell you the truth, papa," said Emily, "we had a little business in Folkestone." "Some smuggling transaction, I dare say," replied the Admiral; "but why did that detain you so long?"
The young ladies felt, that in prudence the less they said the better, but still they were so full of their morning's adventure with the custom-house officers, that they could not help telling it. "And could there, papa, have been really any danger of their searching us?"
"They would not have dared," said Henry eagerly, his dark eyes flashing fire, and his face becoming crimson; but almost immediately both his manner and his countenance changed—"But I don't know—perhaps they would."
"Yes, indeed," said the Admiral; "from what little I have seen or heard of these custom-house officers, they are well enough disposed to be civil where they have no ground of suspicion; but where persons choose to place themselves in suspicious circumstances, they are bound to do their duty.—I own I am quite astonished that any lady, with the slightest sense of propriety or delicacy of feeling, can expose herself to the possibility of being placed in so unpleasant a predicament."
"Why do you speak of ladies only, papa? I'm sure gentlemen smuggle as much as we do."
"I am afraid that some do," said the Admiral, "but it is generally in your service. I am quite hurt for the credit of the class of society with which I associate, when I hear of any gentleman or lady taking advantage of the confidence, which is reposed in them as such, for the purpose of evading the laws of their country. And for what?—for the sake of saving a few pounds; or for the gratification of some foolish vanity. I have sometimes fallen in with men, who would have shot me through the head if I had barely hinted the possibility of their telling a lie, who would yet be guilty of the most paltry falsehood and equivocation for the sake of deceiving a custom-house officer; who, after all, allowed himself to be deceived, only because he trusted that, being gentlemen, they would not condescend to lie. No, my dear girls, don't let me hear of your smuggling again."
The two sisters in the course of the morning had received a lesson against smuggling, which had not been lost upon them; but still the spirit of Emily rose at this attack, and she replied, "What, not smuggle at all? Why it is one of the chief amusements of coming to the sea coast."
"I wonder what pleasure you can find in it," said her father.
"Why, in the first place, the things are so much better and prettier than we can get in England; and then the little difficulties which we have to surmount, and the contrivances and concealment which we have to manage, produce a sort of excitement, somewhat similar to that, which I imagine men to derive from the sports of the field. And, after all, what is the harm of smuggling? It is no offence in itself, and is merely made an offence by the arbitrary enactments of human laws."