May agreed to the wisdom of this proposal; indeed she would have been very unwilling to venture beyond the grounds by herself.
Chapter Twenty One.
The Smuggler’s Vault.
The appearance of young Gaffin at Hurlston must be accounted for.
The old mill on the cliff, which belonged to Sir Reginald Castleton, was in a somewhat decayed condition, and had long been unoccupied, when a short time before the period at which our story commences, a stranger, calling himself Miles Gaffin, a miller by trade, called on Mr Groocock, and offered to take it. As he was ready to give a better rent than the steward expected to receive, he was glad to let it.
Miles Gaffin had occupied the mill for about a year, when, leaving it in charge of his man, he disappeared for a time and returned with a wife and three boys, whom he placed in a neat cottage at some little distance from the mill. His wife was a foreigner, of dark complexion, who spoke no English, a care-worn, spirit-broken woman, it was said.
She had little or no intercourse with her neighbours, who were unable to find out anything about her; indeed, either by her husband’s order or her own wish, she never admitted any of them within her doors.
Some time after Miles Gaffin had been established at the mill, a lugger appeared off the coast, on board which he was seen to go. He had previously declared to Mr Groocock, notwithstanding his sunburnt countenance and undoubted sailor-like look, that he knew nothing of nautical affairs.