“No fear, commander. If it is as we suppose, it is high time to make a strong example.”
Hours had been lost, as the captains of the cruisers knew too well by this time. Robin Lyth's stratagem had duped them all, while the contraband cargoes might be landed safely, at either extremity of their heat. By the aid of the fishing-boats, he had learned their manoeuvres clearly, and outmanoeuvred them.
Now it would have been better for him, perhaps, to have been content with a lesser triumph, and to run his own schooner, the Glimpse, further south, toward Hornsea, or even Aldbrough. Nothing, however, would satisfy him but to land his fine cargo at Carroway's own door—a piece of downright insolence, for which he paid out most bitterly. A man of his courage and lofty fame should have been above such vindictive feelings. But, as it was, he cherished and, alas! indulged a certain small grudge against the bold lieutenant, scarcely so much for endeavoring to shoot him, as for entrapping him at Byrsa Cottage, during the very sweetest moment of his life. “You broke in disgracefully,” said the smuggler to himself, “upon my privacy when it should have been most sacred. The least thing I can do is to return your visit, and pay my respects to Mrs. Carroway and your interesting family.”
Little expecting such a courtesy as this, the vigilant officer was hurrying about, here, there, and almost everywhere (except in the right direction), at one time by pinnace, at another upon horseback, or on his unwearied though unequal feet. He carried his sword in one hand, and his spy-glass in the other, and at every fog he swore so hard that he seemed to turn it yellow. With his heart worn almost into holes, as an overmangled quilt is, by burdensome roll of perpetual lies, he condemned, with a round mouth, smugglers, cutters, the coast-guard and the coast itself, the weather, and, with a deeper depth of condemnation, the farmers, landladies, and fishermen. For all of these verily seemed to be in league to play him the game which school-boys play with a gentle-faced new-comer—the game of “send the fool further.”
John Gristhorp, of the “Ship Inn,” at Filey, had turned out his visitors, barred his door, and was counting his money by the fireside, with his wife grumbling at him for such late hours as half past ten of the clock in the bar, that night when the poor bilander ended her long career as aforesaid. Then a thundering knock at the door just fastened made him upset a little pyramid of pence, and catch up the iron candlestick.
“None of your roistering here!” cried the lady. “John, you know better than to let them in, I hope.”
“Copper coomth by daa, goold coomth t'naight-time,” the sturdy publican answered, though resolved to learn who it was before unbarring.
“In the name of the King, undo this door,” a deep stern voice resounded, “or by royal command we make splinters of it.”
“It is that horrible Carroway again,” whispered Mrs. Gristhorp. “Much gold comes of him, I doubt. Let him in if you dare, John.”
“'Keep ma oot, if ye de-arr,' saith he. Ah'll awand here's the tail o' it.”