"Then, if it is not our affair, what business have you interfering in it?" retorted Richard. "Interpose your authority, sir, and forbid her to concern herself with men's work," he added, turning sharply to his father. "No woman would do it who retains any sense of shame."
"Miss Thornycroft has done nothing unbecoming a lady," exclaimed Mr. Hunter, in a tone of wonder. "You forget that you are speaking to your sister, Mr. Richard. What can you mean?"
"Oh, he means nothing," said Mary Anne, "only he lets his temper get the better of his tongue. One would think, Richard, you had something to do with the smugglers, by your taking it up in this way," she pursued, in a spirit of aggravation. "And, indeed, it was partly your fault that they got their last cargo in."
"Explain yourself," said Cyril to his sister, pushing his arm before Richard's mouth.
"It was a night when we had a dinner party here," she pursued. "Mr. Kyne was here; the only night he had been off the watch for a fortnight, he says. But he left orders with his men to look out, and Richard got treating them to drink at the Mermaid, and they never looked. So the coast was clear, and the smugglers got their goods in."
Cyril burst into a pleasant laugh. "Ah, ha!" said he, "new brooms sweep clean. Mr. Superintendent Kyne is a fresh hand down here, so he thinks he must trumpet forth his fame as a keen officer--that he may be all the more negligent by-and-bye, you know. None but a stranger, as you are, Mr. Hunter, could have given ear to it."
"I have given both ear and belief," replied Robert Hunter, firmly; "and I have offered Mr. Kyne the benefit of my engineering experience to help him discover whether there is or is not a secret opening in the rocks."
"You have!" exclaimed Justice Thornycroft. He glared on Robert Hunter as he asked the question. From quite the first until now he had been bending over his note, leaving the discussion to them.
"To be sure I have, sir. I have been with him now, on the Half-moon, sounding them; but I had only an umbrella, and that was of little use. We are going to-morrow better prepared. It strikes me the mystery lies right in the middle. It sounds hollow there. I will do all I can to help him, that the fellows may be brought to punishment."
"Sir!" cried the old justice, in a voice of thunder, rising and sternly confronting Robert Hunter, "I forbid it. Do you understand? I forbid it. None under my roof shall take act or part in this."