A small river there expands into a creek, the shores of which rise rapidly from the water's edge, sometimes cultivated, and sometimes waste, frequently chequered with trees, occasionally broken by masses of rock--always rugged and picturesque. High upon one of the untilled portions, under the shelter of a ledge of slate, stood a low, straggling cottage, constructed of _cob_, and thatched with fern, of which the whitewashed front by day, and a light in the window by night, were visible far out at sea. On the over-hanging rock was a spot showing signs of fire, that commonest and simplest of signals, in by-gone years too often used in these western districts to lure mariners to their destruction; when the skipper, navigating by the fallacious beacon, was startled by the cry of "breakers ahead!" confounded by the crash of his ship's striking, and overpowered by a horde of lawless depredators, unaccustomed in their thirst for plunder, to respect life. But the fierceness of the wreckers, if it still tainted the blood of the peasantry, quailed under the law; and their organ of acquisitiveness now led them to the milder occupation of smuggling. If, in these days, a fire ever burned on the rock in question, it was a friendly warning concerning the fate of some brandy or Hollands, supposed to lurk under the broad lug-sails which the telescope had detected in the offing, and coveted with much zest in many a dwelling on the shore. This cottage was the abode of Gabriel Denis, a man whose stalwart form and firm step showed that fifty years sat light upon him; while his swarthy, weather-beaten visage, grizzled hair, and resolute eye, told of a life, which hardship and peril had familiarised with endurance and boldness. Some few years before the opening of this narrative, on a dark and stormy night, when a rich landing of spirits and tobacco repaid the country-folks about Zennor for the want of sleep, Denis was found in the morning to have been left behind by the smart schooner which had run boldly under the cliffs in the gloom, and which was then almost beyond the range of glasses. His desertion did not, however, seem to be unexpected by himself, for there were several chests left with him, and also an olive-complexioned woman, whom it appeared he called wife, and a girl about ten years old, whom he styled daughter.