"I suppose it is the best thing I can do," replied Beauchamp. "But if you want me out, you must carry me out, my good fellow, for they have lamed me, and I can not stand."
"That's a bad job!" replied the other, speaking in a rough but kindly tone. "Wat will be sorry for that; for they did not intend to hurt you, I can tell you."
"Perhaps not," said Beauchamp; "though knocking me down, and stunning me on the spot, were not very unlikely to hurt me."
"Ay, but if a man will poke his nose into what he has no business with, master," replied the other, "he must take what he gets."
"Very true!" answered Beauchamp, dryly, though somewhat surprised at the fellow's coolness. "Very true, indeed! But it was purely accidental on my part. I had not the slightest intention of intruding upon the gentlemen in the pursuit of their avocations. But, as I said before, if you mean me to get out of this boat--and I am heartily tired of it--you must carry me; for I can only stand upon one leg, and the ground is somewhat uneven."
"True enough, true enough!" answered the man. "Here, Bill, lend us a hand to lift the lad out of the boat. They have broke his leg among them. It will teach you, master, to keep out of the way when there is any thing to be run upon the coast. Always sheer off when you see what's going on. But we will get it spliced for you, never fear. Here, Bill, I say!"
A youth of about seventeen or eighteen now came up and helped his father, as it proved the old man was, to lift the stranger on shore. Beauchamp then, with the assistance of the elder personage, made his way from the little sandy cove into which the boat had been run, to a lonely house, standing high upon the bank, with two boats drawn up, nearly to the door, and about a square yard of cabbage-garden at the back. The old smuggler, for such he evidently was, led his unwilling guest in, and was about to conduct him into a room, the door of which opened at a right angle with that which entered from the shore. Various signs and symbols, however, within the chamber, made the man pause ere he went in; and at length he exclaimed, as he still stood in the entrance--"Well, well! But give us a candle, though! How the devil can one see up the stairs? It's as dark as Davy's locker!"
Beauchamp made as much use of his eyes as possible; but it was in vain that he did so, for the persons that the room contained were concealed from his sight by the half-closed door; and all that he could distinguish was a part of the common interior of the fisherman's kitchen--a large chest, a deal table, a wide fireplace, and two shelves covered with clean blue-edged plates and porringers, together with a vial bottle, half-full of ink, and having a pen stuck in the top of it, pendent by a bit of string from the corner of one of the shelves.
A moment after, a clean, little, well-salted fisherman's wife, emerged from behind the door, with a brazen candlestick, and three inches of lighted candle in her hand; and Beauchamp, conducted up stairs with no inconsiderable agony, was ushered into a small bed-room (of which there appeared to be four, by the way), which amidst all its faults and deficiencies, was at least clean.
As they went up the stairs, and for a moment after they entered the room, the eyes of the smuggler continued to run over his guest's apparel and face with a look of surprise, and even anxiety, which increased at every glance; and when he had done, there was a change in his whole demeanor which might have made Beauchamp smile at any other time, or under any other circumstances. He now, however, threw himself down in a chair, exhausted with the pain his exertion had caused him, and was about to demand that a surgeon should be sent for, when the old man, setting down the candle on the table, told him, with a tone of respectful civility, that he would return in a moment, and left him.