people to part with things for which they had no demand and no taste.
Mrs. Cracknell had them conveyed to her cottage, where she had them sorted out, and, as prudently as possible, disposed of them according to the means of her humbler customers.
After a time, she found herself gradually improving in circumstances, and, had she been content, might have gone on improving for years. Her profits were too rapid, however, not to excite a stronger mind than she possessed. She made, of course, handsome presents to the young Catchpoles, and Margaret had the mortification of seeing a smart pipe, and of smelling the fumes of rich tobacco, even in her own cottage, well knowing they were the fruits of her lover’s misdoings.
Meantime, that lover’s name began to be notorious along the coast. Margaret heard no good of him. The coastguard had set a mark upon him, and it became known throughout the country that Will Laud was the ringleader of as desperate a gang as ever infested the shores of Great Britain.
So frequent were the inroads made at this period upon the commerce of the country, that government had to employ a very active force to stay, though she could not put down, so discreditable a feature upon her coasts.
At this time the shores of Norfolk and Suffolk were most conspicuous for contraband trade. Severe and deadly were the continual actions between the preventive-service men and the smugglers; lives were continually lost on both sides; and dreadful animosities sprang up between the parties upon the sea-shore.
Will Laud and his associates had great luck; and Captain Bargood found in him as bold and profitable a fellow as he could wish. Many were the hairbreadth escapes, however, which he, in conjunction with his crew, experienced. Laud was a tool in the hands of his mate, though he himself was not aware of it; for whilst that fellow had his own way, he always managed to get it through the medium of the captain’s permission. He would, in his bluff way, suggest, with all becoming subordination, such and such a scheme, and generally succeeded in the enterprise.
They had observed for a long time a scout upon the beach under Bawdsey Cliffs, and knew that he was one of the Irish cruisers, who had been transplanted to watch their craft: Laud proposed to nab him when he could. He had been ashore one day to meet his employer, and had met this merry-hearted Irishman at the Sun Inn, in a street of that long, sandy village of Bawdsey. Pat was a loquacious, whisky-loving, light-hearted fellow, who, without fear, and with ready wit, made himself agreeable to everybody. He frequented the various inns along the border, and was generally liked for his dash of gallantry, his love of drinking, and his generous spirit; he was a brave fellow, too, and watchful for his honour. He had seen along the beach a man roaming about, and had concealed himself, not far from the fisherman’s cottage, on purpose to watch him; but all he could make out was, that the man went to the back of the cottage, and there he lost him. Pat went to the fisherman’s cot, found the man and his wife at their meals, searched about the premises, but could spy nothing. Pat had seen this thing several times, and was fully convinced that the man he saw was a smuggler.
In Bawdsey Cliff the smugglers had a cave of no small dimensions. It had formerly been a hollow ravine in the earth, formed by the whirling of a stream of water, which had passed quickly through a gravelly bed, and met with opposition in this mass of clay. It had made for itself a large crater, and then had issued again at the same place, and ran through a sand-gall and gravelly passage down to the sea. This was discovered by a tenant of the Earl of Dysart, who, in sinking a well near his shepherd’s cottage, suddenly struck into the opening of this cave. As the springs were low at this season, the cave was almost empty of water, and formed a most curious appearance. It was even then called the Robbers’ Cave, and curiosity was greatly excited in the country to visit it. It was so smoothly and regularly formed by the eddies of the whirlpool, that the nicest art could not have made it so uniform. The proprietor sank his well some feet lower, until he came to a good stream; but in making the well, he formed an archway into this curious place, and left it so for the gratification of public curiosity. Time swept on, and the cave became less frequented, and at last forgotten.
A few years, however, previously to this narration, some smugglers had been disappointed of their run, and had thrown their tubs down the well, with the consent of their agent the fisherman, probably a descendant of the old shepherd’s, who dwelt in the cottage. This led to the re-discovery and improvement of this famous depôt of arms, ammunition, stock-in-trade, and place of retreat, which was then occupied by Will Laud and his associates, and to which very spot John Luff was at that time bound.
These men had contrived to make the cave as comfortable a berth as a subterraneous place could be. They had ingeniously tapped the land stream below the cave, and laid it perfectly dry, and with much labour and ingenuity had contrived to perforate the clay into the very chimney of the cottage; so that a current of air passed through the archway directly up the chimney, and carried away the smoke, without the least suspicion being awakened. This place was furnished with tables, mats, stools, and every requisite for a place of retreat and rendezvous. The descent was by a bucket well-rope, which a sailor well knew how to handle; whilst the bucket itself served to convey provisions or goods of any kind.
Such was the place into which vanished the choice spirits which poor Pat had seen, and into which Pat himself, nolens, volens, was shortly to be introduced. It would be needless to add, that the fisherman and his wife were accomplices of the smugglers.
Some short time after, Pat had an opportunity of discovering the use of the well as an inlet and outlet of the smugglers, and conceived the idea that contraband goods were stowed away at the bottom of it. He had seen a man, after talking to the woman at the spot, descend, and then come up again, and depart.
“Now’s my turn,” says Pat to himself, as he came out from his hiding-place, and went to the well. As every sailor could let himself down by a rope, and ascend by it likewise, Pat was soon at the bottom of the well, but found nothing. He began his ascent, working away with his hands and feet in a manner which a sailor only understands. He was gaining more daylight, and hoping that he should get out before the woman (whom he concluded had gone for help) should return. He had gained the very part where the archway into the cave was formed, and there found a sort of stay, or bar, at the opposite side, to rest his leg upon. He was taking advantage of this post to get breath, and had just swung off again to ascend, when he felt his ankles grasped by a powerful pair of pincers, as it seemed, and in another instant such a jerk as compelled him instantly to let go the rope, and he came with all his weight against the side of the well. Stunned he was, but not a bone was broken, for his tormentors had taken the precaution to have a well-stuffed hammock ready to break his fall. He was in a moment in the cave, and when reviving, heard such a burst of unearthly merriment, he could think of nothing but that he had arrived at that dreaded purgatory, to escape which he had paid so much to his priest.
In a faint, feeble voice, Pat was heard to exclaim – “O, Father O’Gharty; O, Father O’Gharty, deliver me!”
This caused such another burst, and such a roar of “O, Father O’Gharty! O, Father O’Gharty!" from so many voices, that the poor fellow groaned aloud. But a voice, which he fancied he had heard when on earth, addressed him, as he lay with his eyes just opening to a red glare of burning torches.
“Patrick O’Brien! Patrick O’Brien! welcome to the shades below.”
Pat blinked a little, and opened his eyes wider, and saw, as he thought, twenty or thirty ghosts of smugglers, whom he supposed had been shot by the coastguard, and were answering for their sins in purgatory.
“Come, Pat, take a drop of moonshine, my hearty, to qualify the water you have taken into your stomach: this liquid flame will warm the cold draught.”
Pat had need of something to warm him, but had no idea of drinking flame.
“I hope,” he said, “your majesty will excuse a poor Irishman.”
“No
