“That’s Beachy Head,” said Sampson, pointing at the cliff.  “It’s the hoiest p’int down Channel, and they have a look-out place up there to report ships as pass.  It was a Muster Lloyd as put it up.  I doan’t know who he be, that same Muster Lloyd, but he do seem to take a powerful deal of interest in everythink which has to do wi’ shipping.  He’s an admiral belike, or something o’ the sort.”

Neither of the Girdlestones appeared inclined to enlighten him upon the point.

“What’s the town?” asked Ezra.

“Eastbourne,” the fisherman answered shortly, and lounged away into the bows, while his son remained at the tiller.

The two fugitives had their breakfast; but as it consisted of nothing more appetising than tinned corned-beef and ships’ biscuits, and as neither of them had much inclination for food, it was not a very lengthy meal.  Then they sat in the sheets once more, watching the grand panorama of green woodland and swelling down and towering cliff, which passed before them on the one side while on the other the great ocean highway was dotted with every variety of vessel, from the Portland ketch or the Sunderland brig, with its cargo of coals, to the majestic four-masted liner which swept past, with the green waves swirling round her forefoot and breaking away into a fork of eddying waters in her wake.

Ezra cautioned his father to sit down, for he observed a row of curious faces gazing at them over the quarter of one great vessel.

“Our dress isn’t quite what you would expect to see in a fishing-boat,” he said.  “There is no use setting tongues wagging.”  There was still a fresh breeze, and the little boat continued to fly before it at the rate of six or eight knots.  “This wind is a lucky chance,” Ezra remarked, rather to himself than to his companion.

“It is the working of Providence,” answered John Girdlestone, with an earnestness which showed that his mind still retained its habitual peculiarity.

By ten o’clock they were abreast of the long stone terraces of Hastings; at half-past eleven they saw the masts of the fishing-smacks of Winchelsea.  By one they were rounding the sharp bold promontory of Dungeness.  They kept further to sea after that, so that the long white wall and the spires of Folkestone and of Dover lay far on the horizon.  On the other side a dim haze upon the blue water marked the position of the French coast.  It was nearly five, and the sun was beginning to sink down again in the west, when the fisherman, after gazing steadily ahead for some time, with his horny hand shading his eyes, touched Ezra on the sleeve.

“See them breakers over there,” he said, pointing over the starboard bow.  Far away Ezra could see a long roll of foam breaking the monotony of the broad stretch of ocean.  “Them’s the Goodwins,” he went on; “and them craft ahead is at anchor in the Downs.”

The vessels in question were miles away, but Ezra brightened up at the sight of their destination, and he once again arranged his toilet and that of his father.