"But no night-play to fill the pocket and sharpen the spirits," old Faa observed. There was nothing in cities that he liked so well as his task of the last night,--to stand on the ridge as a watch upon the sentinel, and stoop, or hold himself erect, according as the sentinel turned his back or his face, that the lads in the furze might know when to creep forward on all-fours, and when to lie still. It was far pleasanter to see them all collected safe in the shadow of Shooter's Bottom, ready for work or fighting, whichever might befal, than to mix in the medley of bustling people in London streets, who were too busy in the lamplight to heed the stars overhead, which, indeed, it took some time to make out through such an air. Mrs. Draper would forgive the air for the sake of the warmth and shelter; and the children would excuse everything for the sake of being seventy miles distant from Mr. Pim's school-room. The younger of the men hoped that the "ruin of the coast" might be delayed beyond another winter; that if they might no more have the pleasure of handing bales of silk ashore during unlawful hours, tubs of spirits might yet cross the surf between sunset and sunrise. "The 'ruin of the coast!'" cried Elizabeth, as the words struck her ear in passing some of the cottages. "Dear me! has anything happened to the fish, I wonder." She soon found,--what she ought to have known before,--that fish are not always the chief concern of fishermen on the coasts of a land where trades are severally "protected." Let the fish swarm in the waters as the motes in the sunbeam, and the coast may be not the less ruined in the opinion of fishermen who grow sophisticated under a bad law. The wives looked melancholy, as in duty bound, at the extraordinary cruelty of which the government was going to be guilty,--at the very irksome caprice by which it was endeavouring to prevent itself from being cheated, as heretofore, for the advantage of those who mocked, and occasionally murdered, its agents. The good wives thought it very strange of the government to interfere with their husbands. To set spies was bad enough; but to take away their best occupation was a thing not to be borne patiently. No wonder Ned kicked away his nets, and Jem cursed the child, and Dick left his boat, and said he should go to the parish, as his prime work at sea was taken from him. As for the children, they looked as much dismayed under the shadow of evil tidings as their mothers had done in childhood, on being told that Buonaparte and his French were coming ashore to cut all their throats. As soon as they dared speak, there was many a wail of "O mammy, mammy! are they going to 'ruin the coast?'"