Again I got head over ears--money must be got, and I became acquainted with a set of wild fellows--smugglers. I had always been fond of the sea, and took to the trade readily. Full of risk and danger, it was exactly what I liked; I rapidly made headway, paid my score, and rose to be one of the leading men. "By the time I was five-and-twenty, or thereabout, I was captain of a lugger craft, and well known as a desperate fellow. When my old father heard of my evil doings he sternly reprimanded me for the first time in my life. I was not able to brook censure, and told him so; he tried entreaty, all was vain. I left him and brought down his gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. My voyages were never very far, Holland was the extent of them at that time, and I had a magnet at home which kept me ever coming back; this was a young and pretty girl, who lived near Musselburgh; her name was Agnes Macgregor, and a finer lass I never saw. I had known her for years, and she had long been my sweetheart; she had no father or mother, and her grandmother was an old, decrepit, blind woman of seventy, so the girl was under little restraint. Many's the time I have walked and talked with her for hours in the evenings when I was ashore; she did not care a straw about the illicit course of life I led, nay, I think she thought all the better of me for it. I left her, as I was to go to Flushing first before our marriage, and promised to bring home lace enough to deck her out like a queen. I remember well how she waved her kerchief to me as our craft put off at moonlight. I thought on her all the way over the rough German Ocean--it was winter time, and a bitter nor'-easter blew in our teeth, with driving sleet and hail. I reached Holland; I got the very finest lace for Agnes. I left again with a rich cargo, and landed in the old country. I had been absent some three months, winter had changed and spring set in; more than winter had changed, too--I found woman as variable as the seasons. I went to seek her at the old house--it was empty. I inquired--they had removed to a cottage near the Towers. I followed, I found her out--the hussy would have nought to say to me. In vain I argued, in vain I tried to get back her heart, it was all no go. I tried to find a reason for the change; she only gave one I would not receive--my manner of life, my being a smuggler. I loved that girl as I loved my own life; I offered to give up all, and seek an honest livelihood; all to no purpose, the wench had no more to say to me, and I was miserable.