"It's very hard on a poor woman," sighed Poll, sinking on a stone, and resting her hands on her knees, her basket creaking loudly. "All this way up and no fish." "No; be off." "Iss, Master Luke, I'll go; but you've always been a kind friend to me, and I'm going to ask a favour, sir. I'm a lone woman, and at times I feel gashly ill, and I thought if you'd got a drop of wine or sperrits--" "To encourage you in drinking." "Now listen to him, what hard things he can say, Master Leslie, when I'm asking for a little in a bottle to keep in the cupboard for medicine." "Go and beg at my brother's," snarled Uncle Luke. "How can I, sir, with them in such trouble? Give me a drop, sir; 'bout a pint in the bottom of a bottle." "Hear her, Leslie? That's modest. What would her ideas be of a fair quantity? There, you can go, Poll Perrow. You'll get no spirits or wine from me." "Not much, sir, only a little." "A little? Ask some of your smuggling friends that you go to meet out beyond the East Town." The woman's jaw dropped, and Leslie saw that a peculiar blank look of wonder came over her countenance. "Go to meet--East Town?" "Yes; you're always stealing out there now before daybreak. I've watched you." "Now think of that, Master Leslie," said the woman with a forced laugh. "I go with my basket to get a few of the big mussels yonder for bait, and he talks to me like that. There, see," she continued, swinging round her basket and taking out a handful of the shellfish, "that's the sort, sir. Let me leave you a few, Master Luke Vine." "I don't believe you, Poll. It would not be the first time you were in a smuggling game. Remember that month in prison?" "Don't be hard on a poor woman," said Poll. "It was only for hiding a few kegs of brandy for a poor man." "Yes, and you're doing it again. I shall just say a word to the coastguard, and tell them to have an eye on some of the caves yonder." "No, no: don't, Master Luke, sir," cried the woman, rising excitedly, and making the shells in her basket rattle. "You wouldn't be so hard as to get me in trouble." "There, Leslie," he said with a merry laugh; "am I right? Nice, honest creature this! Cheating the revenue. If it was not for such women as this, the fishermen wouldn't smuggle." "But it doesn't do any one a bit of harm, Master Luke, sir. You won't speak to the coastguard?" "Indeed, but I will," cried Uncle Luke, "and have you punished. If you had been honest your daughter wouldn't have been charged with stealing down at my brother's." "And a false charge too," cried the woman, ruffling up angrily. Then changing her manner, "Now, Master Luke, you wouldn't be so hard. Don't say a word to the coastguard." "Not speak to them? Why, time after time I've seen you going off after some game." "And more shame for you to watch. I didn't spy on you when you were down the town of a night, and I used to run against you in the dark lanes by the harbour."