Page:Joan, the curate.djvu/151

Rh sharp lookout was to be kept for the smugglers, to whom such a night was as propitious as it was to his own purpose, Tregenna went ashore, and started alone and on foot across the cliffs for Rede Hall.

He had taken care to procure a loose, rough countryman's coat, waistcoat, and breeches, which disguised him very effectually, and which had the further advantage of enabling him to conceal a brace of pistols and a cutlass, with which he thought it prudent to arm himself. A brown George wig and an enormous three-cornered hat, in a high state of shabbiness, completed his attire. And there was nothing but the springy, elastic walk of youth about him to betray that he was not some decent innkeeper or small farmer on a late trudge along the lanes.

He took a short cut, and was in sight of the hall in less than an hour.

He had kept a careful watch to see that he was not observed or followed; and he was quite sure, when he first saw the faint lights of the farmhouse through the drizzling rain, that so far he had passed unsuspected and undetected by such wayfarers as he had met on the road.