and his gain is bought by the sweat of his brow. But your gentleman smuggler is my abomination--your fellow that risks little hut an exchequer process, and gains ten times what the others do, without their labour or their danger. Give me your bold, brave fellow, who declares war and fights it out, There's some spirit in him."

"Gentlemen smugglers!" said Osborn; "that seems to me to be a strange sort of anomaly. I was not aware that there were such things."

"Pooh! the country is full of them," cried Mr. Croyland. "It is not here that the peasant treads upon the kybe of the peer; but the smuggler treads upon the country gentlemen. Many a merchant who never made a hundred pounds by fair trade, makes thousands and hundreds of thousands by cheating the Customs. There is not a man in this part of the country who does not dabble in the traffic more or less. I've no doubt all my brandied cherries are steeped in stuff that never paid duty; and if you don't smuggle yourself, your servants do it for you. But I'll tell you all about it," and he proceeded to give them a true and faithful exposition of the state of the county, agreeing in all respects with that which has been furnished to the reader in the first chapter of this tale.

His statement and the various conversation, which arose from different parts of it, occupied the time fully, till the coach, as it was growing dark, rolled into Ashford. There Mr. Croyland quitted his two companions, shaking them each by the hand with right goodwill; and they pursued their onward course to Hythe and Folkestone, without any farther incident worthy of notice.