She found him still asleep, and the eldest of the two children trying to keep his little sister quiet, that she might not disturb him. At length, towards eleven o'clock, he got up, and the refreshment of a night's rest, a comfortable breakfast, and the active though quiet assiduity of his wife, seemed to have restored him to good humour. "We'd a roughish time of it last night," said he. "Yes, indeed," replied Mary; "and I wish, my dear James, you did but know a hundredth part of what I have suffered since you took to your present way of life." "Why should you be more uneasy now," said James, "than when I was nothing but a fisherman? We were then often out night after night, and sometimes in rough weather too." "To be sure, I used now and then to be a little anxious," said Mary, "but you were seldom out when it blew hard, and besides"--she hesitated a little--"besides--don't now be angry with me, James, for saying it--I felt then that you were trying to get your living in a lawful and honest way. Now when you are absent, my thoughts run upon all horrible things. I do not think so much of the perils of the wind and the waves, though that is bad enough, as of the chance of your being taken as a smuggler, or of your doing some dreadful deed in order to escape. They tell me, that the preventive-service men keep a sharp look out." "A pretty deal too sharp," said Waldron, "I can tell you; if it had not been for them, we should have been back to Folkestone the night before last. We were to have landed our tubs just beyond Dimchurch, and had made a signal for the men to be ready with the horses to meet us. There was a thickish fog at the time; but still, these fellows somehow got sight of us, and pulled off in their boat, just as we were nearing the land. Jack Spraggon, the man that was here last night, proposed sinking them; but, though they deserved it, I was not quite bloody-minded enough for that. We had nothing else to do, therefore, but to put about, and as the wind blew off shore, we soon by the help of the fog gave them the slip. As it was of no use to think of landing then, we stood right out to sea. The wind soon after chopped about, and freshened to a gale. When we were nearly off Folkestone, a Dane merchantman had managed to run aground at some distance from the shore. The king's men--I must say _that_ for them--are always ready enough to help any ship in distress, and dashed away to take the poor fellows off the wreck. And while they were busy at this job, two of our boats came out to us, and put us and part of our cargo on shore in East Weare Bay--just under the red and white cliff there, under the signal house. As ill luck would have it, one of the men on the look out saw us, and gave the alarm. We soon knocked him down; but the rest of them got together so fast, that we were forced to run for it, leaving our tubs behind. I kept hold, however, of my bale of silk, and Jack and I scrambled up one of the