E. Nesbit

“ We live so safely now; we have nothing to be afraid of. When we have wars they are not in our own country. The police look after burglars, and even thunder is attended to by lightning-rods. It is not easy for us to understand the frantic terror of those times, when, from day to day, every man, woman, and child trembled in its shoes for fear lest "the French should come"—the French, led by Boney. ”

“ Alas! too few children in these uninteresting times of ours have ever been in a smuggler's cave. To Edred and to Elfrida it was as great a novelty as it would be to you or to me.
When they came up with the brown man he was crouching in the middle of a patch of furze.
"Jump they outside bushes," he said. And they jumped, and wound their way among the furze-bushes by little narrow rabbit-paths till they stood by his side. ”

“ And still the ship came nearer.
"'Tis the Bonne Esperance," said the low voice of the smuggler friend close to Elfrida's ear, and she could only just hear him through the whistling of the gale. "'Tis true what old Betty said; the French will land here to-day—but they'll land dead corpses. And all our little cargo—they've missed our boat in the gale—it'll all be smashed to bits afore our eyes. It's poor work being a honest merchant." ”

“ By the light of the lantern the smuggler solemnly winked.
"You two can keep a secret, I know," he said. "The French won't land; it's us what'll land, and we'll land here and not in bay; and what we'll land is a good drop of the real thing, and a yard or two of silk or lace maybe. I don't know who 'twas put it about as the French was a-coming, but you may lay to it they aren't no friends of the Revenue."
"Oh, I see," said Elfrida. "And did—"
"The worst of it'll be the look-out they'll keep. Lucky for us it's all our men as has volunteered for duty. And we know our friends." ”

“ And now once more the golden light filtered through the chinks of the tiles, and outside was the "tick, tick" of moving pigeon feet, the rustling of pigeon feathers, and the cooroocoo of pigeon voices. ”

“ A man's got his living to get, hasn't he now? So you see a man's trade comes first—what he gets his bread by. So you see these chaps as meet us mid-channel and hand us the stuff—they're free traders first and Frenchies after—the same like we're merchants before all. We ain't no quarrel with them. It's the French soldiers we're at war with, not the honest French traders that's in the same boat as us ourselves."
"Then somebody's just made up about Boney coming, so as to keep people busy in the bay while you're smuggling here?" ”

“ They found the women busy brushing and mending old scarlet coats and tight white trousers, and all along the dip of the cliff men were posted, with spy-glasses, looking out to sea. Other men toiled up the slope with great bundles of brown brush-wood and dried furze on their backs, and those bundles were piled high, ready to be lighted the moment it should be certain that the French were coming.
Elfrida wished more than ever that she knew more about the later chapters of the history book. Did Boney land in England on the 17th of June, 1807? She could not remember. ”

“ Lord Arden was so busy giving orders, and my lady so busy talking his orders over with the maidservants, that the children were left free to use their eyes and ears. And they went down into the village and saw many strange things. They saw men at the grindstone sharpening old swords, and others who had no swords putting a fine edge on billhooks, hatchets, scythes, and kitchen choppers. They saw other men boarding up their windows and digging holes in their gardens and burying their money and their teaspoons in the holes. ”