"Now, just look here: we must do it as if we took no interest in it, but you ask your father to-night, and I'll ask mine, whether they ever heard of there being smugglers in the Crag." "Well, I will," said Vince; "but you must do the same." "Of course I shall; and we shall find that it must have been an enormous time ago, and that we've as good a right to those things as anybody, for they were brought there and then forgotten." "Well, we shall see," said Vince; and that night, at their late tea, he started the subject with-- "Have you ever known any smugglers to be here, father ?" "Smugglers?
No, Vince," said the Doctor, smiling.

"There's nothing ever made here that would carry duty, for people to want to get it into England free; and on the other hand, it would not be of any use for smugglers to bring anything here, for there is no one to buy smuggled goods, such as they might bring from Holland or France." Somewhere about the same time Mike approached the question at the old manor house.
"Smugglers, Mike ?" said Sir Francis.

"Oh no, my boy, we've never had smugglers here.

The place is too dangerous, and perfectly useless to such people, for they land contraband goods only where they can find a good market for them.

Now, if you had said pirates, I could tell you something different." "Were there ever pirates, then ?" cried Mike excitedly.