“My own case precisely!” murmured Sir John. Then, with one accord, they turned to glance back at the _Seahorse_ brig, now fast disappearing in the haze of a hot, midsummer morning. CHAPTER XI OF AN ALTRUISTIC SCOT Despite her wounds, the _True Believer_ made a fair crossing, and the day was still young when Sir John, stumbling up from the dark and noisome hole Mr. Nye called his “state-room,” drank deep of the sweet morning air and hasted to the rail, there to lean and gaze ecstatic upon the Sussex shore. A coast of fair, green slopes, of snowy cliffs, just now all pink and gold in the early sunshine, with, above and beyond, the blue swell of the Downs. A coast that has known much of storm and battle since Roman armour flashed beneath the resistless eagles, and William the Norman landed on Pevensey Level to march his eager mercenaries against the war-worn ranks of Saxon Harold. And yet it is a gentle coast of white and green and purple distances, its every rock and headland seeming to beckon the weary, home-returning traveller, speaking to him of remembered hamlets nestling amid the green; of familiar roads, tree-shaded, a-wind between flowery banks and hedgerows; of quiet villages and sleepy, ancient towns backed by the swelling grandeur of the silent, mysterious Downs. The peep of clustered homesteads drowsing in sheltered cove, the majesty of towering white cliffs soaring from boulder-strewn, foam-washed foreshore; the wide beaches backed by the grey spires and towers of some town—these are “home,” and their mere sight like the welcoming grip of some friendly hand. Thus stood Sir John, scanning remembered hamlet and village glad-eyed: Shoreham and Brighthelmstone, Rottingdean, Newhaven and Seaford, the snowy cliffs of Cuckmere Bay, with the dim shape of mighty Beachy Head afar. So lost was he in memories conjured up of these well-remembered, boyish haunts that he started to feel a hand upon his shoulder, and turned to find Sir Hector beside him; he bore a neatly bandaged arm in a sling beneath his coat and was smoking the short, clay pipe he affected. “How are you now, Hector?” “Gey an’ bonny, thanks tae yon Rose. Faith. John, she’s by ordinar’, I’m thinkin’!” “My own idea exactly, Hector——” “An’ the hand o’ her, John!” “Ah, so you have noticed them also, Hector? So white and shapely ... and pretty——” “Pretty? Hoot awa’, ’tis their gentleness, their quickness——” “Such slender fingers, Hector, such pink palms——” “Umph-humph!” snorted Sir Hector, and turned to stare landwards. “A fair prospect, John lad!” quoth he suddenly in his precise English. “’Tis better than your perfumed salons in Paris, or the gilded pomp and pageantry of Versailles. Aye, a sweet and homely prospect—though, mind ye, ’tis no’ tae be compared wi’ Scotland, whateffer.” “Why did you leave Scotland, Hector? And how come you, of all men, to be friends with Mr. Nye and his fellow-smugglers?”