There was an opening to the eastward; and they pursued it, feeling rather than seeing that the river lay open on their right hand. They seemed to have this bank all to themselves. Except a public house or two, with open door and lighted windows, all was dark and silent;—so silent, that when three clocks had done striking their long story, one after the other, the plash of oars was heard from the water. Presently, there was a little clatter among the boats moored near the margin, and the walkers pitied the rowers who had to encounter worse perils than those of Holborn and the Strand. In another instant, they stood stock still in a prodigious consternation. The yells and oaths left behind in Fleet-street were nothing to those which now burst forth immediately in front of them. There seemed to be threatening, struggling, grappling, fighting,—all in noise and darkness. “Back! let us go back!” cried Jane. There was no use in attempting it. People poured out of the public houses, and seemed by their multitude, to drop from the clouds or come up in swarms from the river. As soon as Jane moved back, she met with a buffet; and was so pushed about, that she began to fear slipping into the water if she left the spot she occupied. The only thing to be done was to plant themselves against a house, and wait for an open way, or for light. Light came;—a gleam or two from an opened upper window, whence black heads projected, marvellously exaggerated by the fog; and then, after several abortive experiments with naked candles, a torch,—a flaring red torch, which did more execution on the gloom than all the cotton wicks in Cheapside could have done. “A smuggling fray! Those are smugglers. How daring! to come up so far,” said Henry. Jane was making her observations, and correcting her imaginings. She was scarcely aware till now that she had always fancied a smuggler a large, stout, grim man, with a bit of red drapery dangling somewhere about him; a leathern belt; a pistol in his hand, and a keg just before, or just behind, or just on one side of him. But one of these men was slight and wan; and another was deformed; and a third wore a brown coat, like any other man; and none scowled as smugglers and patriots always do in pictures, but one laughed, and the rest looked vexed or angry in a plain way. She even thought that the one in a brown coat looked very like a shopman,—very like Michael. Thus much was ascertainable while the shifting light from the torch danced from tub to face, and from the packages on the shore to the shadowy boat behind, with still a black figure or two in it. “How very daring!” exclaimed Henry again. “Yes,” said a voice from a window immediately in their rear. “These are the days for smuggling frolics. These fellows hold that they are in favour with the minister, as ’tis certain they are maintained by him.” “By his multiplying the customs and excise duties, you mean.”