One day when the lad was about half-way thither, Bill's boat ran round a bend of the creek. "Come aboard, my son, 'tis plain sailin' to-day."

They reached the spit, the little craft was moored, and they landed. It was a splendid day, the place looked bright and even gay for that locality. As they sat there smoking and yarning, a Revenue cutter dashed round a point and came at full speed towards their landing-place.

"Ah, my lad," said Winder, "a pretty sight, ain't it? The pretty cretur walks it as though she was alive."

Two of the crew landed. Winder Bill saluted, man-of-war fashion, saying, "Good arternoon, gen'lemen." They were on No-man's Land, and not trespassing on any Crown lands. At a signal a third appeared, and they patrolled the sand-pit in all directions, and then went down to the shore, where they looked intently at the little craft.

"Bide here, my lad," muttered Bill, and down he went towards them. Soon Den saw the excise officers get on board their cutter again, and stand out to sea.

When Bill rejoined Denzil he sat for some time silently puffing great clouds of smoke from his pipe; then he spoke. "If ever a chowter-headed son of a sea-cook was glad to see the small wake

of a craft at a distance, I be that: not fur my own sake, but because ye be with me.

What whisper

has reached 'em now? It is here, on the spit,' he said close in Den's ear, "and here it must lie for a time; 'tis in the old shelduck's burrow. We'll make sail from this port now. There's a trifle there will please ye, my lad." It reached Den later on.

When Winder Bill yarned, he never spun "cuffers"; in his wide experience he had seen. strange things enough. They sounded wild to some of the mud-nozzlers, as the stay-at-home ones were called in the marshes; but later experience confirmed all he told.

Rough-voiced, large-hearted Bill passed away before Den left Longshore. He never could say much on the subject of this old smuggling friend; it moved him always.

"My cruise is nearly over," the old skipper had said with difficulty, as his end drew near. "Bless your kind hearts, my lads; don't grieve. it hurts me."

Soon his mind began to wander; he was far away, living over again a part of his past life, and his voice rang out wildly

"Rake her fore and aft! Boarders-away there! -away!" Then came a pause. The next time he spoke it was in calm sensible tones.

"I've had a long cruise-it is-over. I've got to anchor. Good-bye-dear lads!—all's well!"

H

CHAPTER XIII.

BAULK AND WINKLE JOE.

DEN's favourite among the shore - shooters was "Baulk," good-natured, unfashionable, accumulating Baulk. What his eyes saw and desired he would have, if his legs and hands, supplemented by his gun and leaping-pole, could procure it for him; -anything in or about the marshes, that is to say. All the flats, mile upon mile of them, were cut up by dykes and lagoons of various width and depth, with the marsh main-road leading on to the seawall. Definite boundaries existed, although they were not easily recognisable by strangers. one man to trespass on the marsh or flat of another, was an unpardonable offence, unless permission had previously been sought and obtained; and it was fiercely resented by the grazier proprietors or renters for the time being. The seawall, the saltings, and the shore were common

For

property, or any rate free to all; but what was on the marshlands in the way of fin, fur, or feather, belonged to those who owned them.

There was one marketable commodity there in vast quantities in the proper seasons. Mushrooms

grew fine and large on the grazing lands. If you were caught in the act of taking them, the matter was very simply settled: either you received a right good thrashing, or you gave one to some one else. Each took the law so far as it was possible into his own hands. This system was found to work well; it did not run you into needless law expenses. Occasionally after having, as the folks said, "knocked each other into cocked-hats," and honour being satisfied, the trespassers, or the owner and the offender, would repair together to the one bare bleak inn on the foreshore and wash down any remaining ill-feeling in a tumbler of ague medicine. Having done that, they often returned, both parties, to the contested or forbidden ground again, or an invitation to come at some future time was freely given.

In Baulk's case extreme measures were rarely resorted to, for with his long ash leaping-pole, having a circular piece fixed at its bottom, he would leap and clear all the dykes that came in his way, followed only by as many and as hearty curses as were bestowed on that naughty little

jackdaw of Rheims. Flighter, Spring-heel-Jack, the Kangaroo, were the titles given him. Neither curses nor nicknames had any effect on Baulk. He took toll from man and beast, each in its season-hares, rabbits, fish, and wild-fowl, and mushrooms too. His speech was slow and drawling, in curious contradiction to his movements. 'Ef sich things hed bin made an' growed fur pertickler people, they'd oughter hev their names on or about 'em sumwheres," he was wont to remark.

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Baulk was a very prince of marsh-trotters, and a lover of all wild creatures; in fact he lived with them entirely, one might say. With him Den roamed over the flats for whole days in succession. His graphic anecdotes about the marsh folks were something to be remembered. He took life as he found it, in a merry, happy-go-lucky fashion. A son of one of the graziers-Ned-was a great favourite of his and of Den's. "Master Ned has been good to me many a time when I was run hard aground," he would say to Den. "He give me this 'ere shootin' suit. He said it was old, an' he reckoned it warn't up to much. Why, bless ye, it seems to me to be brand span new, an' fits me as ef I'd been measured fur it."

To women and children, as well as to birds and animals, Baulk was gentle and considerate; but