listened, or appeared to listen, without moving
a muscle—without the faintest change
to anger in his face. The only words
he said when Shrowl had done, were these
two—

"Go out!"

Shrowl was not an easy man to move,
but he absolutely changed colour when
he heard that unprecedented and
uncompromising command. After leading his
master, from the first days of their
sojourn together in the house, just as he
pleased, could he believe his ears when he
heard himself suddenly ordered to leave
the room?

"Go out! " reiterated Mr. Treverton.
"And hold your tongue henceforth and
for ever, about my brother and my
brother's daughter. I never have set eyes
upon the player-woman's child, and I never
will. Hold your tongue leave—me alone—
go out!"

"I'll be even with him for this," thought
Shrowl, as he slowly withdrew from the
room. When he had closed the door, he
listened outside it, and heard Mr. Treverton
push aside his chair, and walk up and down,
talking to himself. Judging by the confused
words that escaped him, Shrowl concluded
that his thoughts were still running on the
"player-woman" who had set his brother and
himself at variance. He seemed to feel a
barbarous sense of relief in venting his
dissatisfaction with himself, after the news of
Captain Treverton's death, on the memory of
the woman whom he hated so bitterly, and
on the child whom she had left behind her.
After a while, the low rumbling tones of his
voice ceased altogether. Shrowl peeped
through the keyhole, and saw that he was
reading the newspaper-slips which contained
the account of the shipwreck and the Memoir
of his brother. The latter adverted to some
of those family particulars which the vicar
of Long Beckley had mentioned to his guest;
and the writer of the Memoir concluded by
expressing a hope that the bereavement
which Mr. and Mrs. Frankland had suffered
would not ultimately interfere with their
project for repairing Porthgenua Tower, after
they had gone the length already of sending
a builder to survey the place. Something in
the wording of that paragraph seemed to
take Mr. Treverton's memory back to his
youth-time, when the old family house had
been his home. He whispered a few words
to himself which gloomily referred to the
days that were gone, rose from his chair
impatiently, threw both the newspaper slips
into the fire, watched them while they were
burning, and sighed when the black gossamer
ashes floated upward on the draught, and were
lost in the chimney.

The sound of that sigh startled Shrowl as
the sound of a pistol-shot might have startled
another man. His bull-terrier's eyes opened
wide in astonishment, and he shook his
head ominously as he walked away from
the door.

HOVELLING.

IT is a dark night in December, and it
blows a gale of wind. The hovelling world
of Broadstairs is on the alert, for somebody
has heard a gun, and it is expected that a
ship is on shore on the Godwin Sands.

Some five-and-twenty men, all hovellers,
are now congregated on the pier. Both life-
boats are in readiness, and so are the three
luggers. How impatiently some of the men
walk to and fro! That tall and strongly-
built man with the handsome features and
open countenance is old Jem Taylor. If
asked to guess his age, you would say five-
and-forty; but to my knowledge he is over
sixty-six. He served his thirty years in the
Royal Navy, and was a quartermaster for
twenty-two years of the period. He is now
an out-pensioner of Greenwich Hospital,
and draws his twenty-nine pounds per
annum. There is scarcely a port in the
world that he has not visited—East and
West Indies, China, South America, Africa,
Australia. He has served in fourteen of her
Majesty's ships, and from every captain has a
certificate that his conduct was very good,
and that he was always obedient to
command. Taylor has seen some hard fighting
in his day, and wears upon his Sunday jacket
several silver medals; but the medal of
which he seems the most proud is the one
awarded him for saving life.

If you ask Taylor why, at his time of life,
and now that he is provided for by his
pension, he engages in the dangerous business of
hovelling, he will tell you that he feels a
young man still; that he likes a life of
adventure, and that idleness would drive him
mad.

Near to Taylor stands a short and thickset
man, named Thompson. He is past sixty,
but he does not look anything like so old.
To see that man crawl about the pier, with
his hands in well-patched trousers, you would
scarcely credit that on board a boat he is as
active as a squirrel and as brave as a lion.
He, too, has served in a man-of-war. Forty
years ago he was caught smuggling, and had
to pay the penalty of serving tor five years.

To the right of Thompson stands young
Bruce, who is conspicuous for his daring,
even among his conspicuous companions.
In the hour of danger, he is always the
first to jump into the boat. There is not
a man among those now assembled who
has not assisted in saving the crew of some
vessel or other. I miss the dauntless Edward
Chattenden in that group. Poor fellow! he
was drowned last year, by the capsizing of
his boat in a heavy squall.

I have mentioned that we have two life-
boats at Broadstairs; the favourite is the
small one, the Mary White. She was presented,