"The river!" he went on. "The river, guv'nor! Don't this here river, running into the free and bounding ocean six miles away, offer the best chance? What we want to do is to take a look round these here docks and quays and wharves--keeping our eyes open--and our ears as well. Come on with me, guv'nor--I know places all along this riverside where you could hide the Bank of England till it was wanted--so to speak." "But the others?" suggested Copplestone. "Hadn't we better fetch them?" "No!" retorted Spurge, assertively. "Two on us is enough. You trust to me, guv'nor--I'll find out something. I know these docks--and all that's alongside 'em. I'd do the job myself, now--but it'll be better to have somebody along of me, in case we want a message sending for help or anything of that nature. Come on--and if I don't find out before noon if there's any queer craft gone out o' this since morning--why, then, I ain't what I believe myself to be." Copplestone, who had considerable faith in the poacher's shrewdness, allowed himself to be led into the lowest part of the town--low in more than one sense of the word. Norcaster itself, as regards its ancient and time-hallowed portions, its church, its castle, its official buildings and highly-respectable houses, stood on the top of a low hill; its docks and wharves and the mean streets which intersected them had been made on a stretch of marshland that lay between the foot of that hill and the river. And down there was the smell of tar and of merchandise, and narrow alleys full of sea-going men and raucous-voiced women, and queer nooks and corners, and ships being laden and ships being stripped of their cargoes and such noise and confusion and inextricable mingling and elbowing that Copplestone thought it was as likely to find a needle in a haystack as to make anything out relating to the quest they were engaged in. But Zachary Spurge, leading him in and out of the throngs on the wharves, now taking a look into a dock, now inspecting a quay, now stopping to exchange a word or two with taciturn gentlemen who sucked their pipes at the corners of narrow streets, now going into shady-looking public houses by one door and coming out at another, seemed to be remarkably well satisfied with his doings and kept remarking to his companion that they would hear something yet. Nevertheless, by noon they had heard nothing, and Copplestone, who considered casual search of this sort utterly purposeless, announced that he was going to more savoury neighborhoods. "Give it another turn, guv'nor," urged Spurge. "Have a bit o' faith in me, now! You see, guv'nor, I've an idea, a theory, as you might term it, of my very own, only time's too short to go into details, like. Trust me a bit longer, guv'nor--there's a spot or two down here that I'm fair keen on taking a look at--come on, guv'nor, once more!--this is Scarvell's Cut."