of real smuggling, when fortunes were made by it and sometimes lives marred. The coastguard had a small station just beyond the village, and the officers looked pretty sharply after the beach and the doings of the fishermen.

Just opposite the Friar's Keep, on the other side the road, was a lane, called Chapel Lane, flanking a good-sized clump of trees, almost a grove; and within these trees rose a small, low, thatched-roof building, styled the Hutt. The gentleman inhabiting this dwelling, a slight, bronzed, upright, and active man, with black eyes and black hair, was named Teague. Formerly an officer on board a man-of-war, he had saved enough for a competency through prize money and else, and had also a pension. The village called him Commodore: he would have honestly told you himself that he had no right to that exalted rank--but he did not in the least object to the appellation. He was a vast favourite with the village, from the coastguardsmen to the poor fishermen, fond of treating them in his Hutt, or of giving them a sail in his boat, or a seat in his covered spring cart--both of which articles he kept for pleasure. In habits he was somewhat peculiar; living alone without a servant of any kind, male or female, and waiting entirely on himself.

Chapel Lane--a narrow, pleasant lane, with trees meeting overhead, and wild flowers adorning its banks and hedges in summer--led into the open country, and went directly past Greylands' Rest, the residence of the Castlemaines. This lane was not the chief approach to the house; that was by the high coach-road that branched off by the Dolphin Inn. And this brings us to speak of the Castlemaines.

Greylands' Rest, and the estate on which it stood, had been purchased and entered upon many years before by the then head and chief of the family, Anthony Castlemaine. His children grew up there. He had three sons--Basil, James, and Peter. Basil was three or four years the elder, for a little girl had died between him and James; and if he were living at the present time, he would be drawing towards sixty years of age. It was not known whether he was living or not. Anthony Castlemaine had been a harsh and hasty man; and Basil was wild and wilful. After a good deal of unpleasantness at home, and some bitter quarrelling between father and son, in which the two younger sons took part against their brother, Basil quitted his home and went abroad. He was twenty-two then, and had come into possession of a very fair sum of money, which fell to him from his late mother. The two other sons came into the same on attaining their majority. Besides this, Mr. Castlemaine handed over to 

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