congregates at Salcot, across the wooden bridge, and consisted—a hundred years ago—of labourers, and men more or less engaged in the contraband trade. Every house had its shed and stable, where was a donkey and cart, to be let on occasion to carry smuggled goods inland. At the end of the village stands a low tavern, the Rising Sun, a mass of gables; part of it, the tavern drinking-room, is only one storey high, but the rest is a jumble of roofs and lean-to buildings, chimneys, and ovens, a miracle of picturesqueness. Mehalah walked into the bar, and found there the landlady alone.
"I have come here, mistress," she said abruptly, "in search of work. I am strong and handy, and will do as much as a man. I will serve you faithfully and well if you will engage me. I have an infirm mother who must be lodged somewhere, so I ask for small wage."
"Who are you? Where do you come from?" asked the landlady eyeing her with surprise.
"My name is Mehalah Sharland. I lived on the Ray till the house was burned down. Since then I have been at Red Hall."
"Oh!" exclaimed the woman, her countenance falling. "You are the young woman, are you, that I heard tell of?"
"I am the young woman now in service there but wanting to go and work elsewhere."
"I've heard tell of you," said the landlady dryly
"What have you heard of me?
The woman looked knowingly at her, and smiled.
"Pray what does Master Rebow say to your leaving him? You and he have fallen out, have you?" said the hostess knowingly. "You'll come together all the faster for it. There's nothing like a good breeze for running a cargo in."
"Can you give me work?"
"I dursn't do it."
"Have you need of anyone now?"
"Well," with a cough, "if Master Rebow were agreeable, I might find such a girl as you wery handy about the house. I've lost the last girl I had; she's took with the small-pox. You could have her bed, and her work,
