_Five and twenty ponies
Trotting through the dark,
Brandy for the parson,
Baccy for the clerk,
Laces for a lady, letters for a spy,
And watch the wall, my darling,
While the gentlemen go by!_
R. KIPLING.
On the day on which the last run of goods had been cellared, Master
Crumblejohn stood looking with pride, at the swift succession of
casks that were being rolled briskly along his stone passage. He wore
a leather apron, a good stock collar, and his hair tied in a queue,
with a black ribbon in his neck. He had big buckles to his shoes and
a canary waistcoat, and a brown coat upon his back.
Everybody knew the history of his liquor. In these days of a thriving
back-hand trade with the wines, many houses that stood fairly with
the Justices, got their supply in a manner that would have brought
humbler folk to punishment. But if inquiry was pushed in regard
to the “Mariner’s Rest,” the landlord had a good book to show the
authorities.
Everything in his cellar was duly entered and paid for; he would
show the King himself round if his Majesty chose to call. This was
a favourite jest of Master Crumblejohn’s when in lighter mood, and
it would be said with a nodding head to clinch matters, and between
quiet puffs of a long clay-pipe.
It was hardly the fault of the excisemen if they didn’t know of a
certain trap-door in the cellar, a door sufficiently hidden to be
unguessed, which led down to a vault below the basement. Now this
was how the illicit trade was carried on. There had to be people
party to it on each side of the water, and a fishing boat or lugger,
for the transport of the goods. Most of the innkeepers, and a great
many others, were in sympathy with the smugglers, and the practice
was spread in so fine a network of collusion all over the country,
that it was a matter of great difficulty for the authorities to cope
with it at all. When the liquor first came over, it was deposited
in some cave, or buried in some sandy cove along the coast. Here it
was left till notice was sent by the various receiving-houses that
they were ready for the housing of the kegs. Then, when the attention
of the authorities had been drawn off to some other quarter,
night parties would be set on foot; and where the countryside was
sufficiently lonely, the kegs were carried upon men’s shoulders and
received by the landlord, and hidden in his vault. In some places
these lawless gangs were both armed and mounted, and thus conveyed
the goods far into the interior, distributing them among the various
receiving-houses by the way. There was hardly a house that had not
its place of concealment, which could accommodate either kegs,
bales, or the smugglers themselves, as the case might be. Sometimes
the kegs would be stuffed in hay trusses, and carried disguised as
fodder along the road, to be lodged secretly by the light of a stable
lanthorn again, in some straw ricks farther inland.
You probably know the story of the Wiltshire men who hid the kegs in
the dew-pond? They were surprised one moonlight night, standing with
rakes in their hands by the excisemen. Suspicion was at once aroused,
and they were questioned.
“What are you doing there?”
“We be raaken the moon out of the water, Masters.” And the excisemen
rode on, thanking their stars they were not as these country loons.
But the answer showed that on occasion stupidity may be used as a
cloak to cover guile.
Now, in the case of Crumblejohn’s gang of smugglers, they stored
their kegs, or ankers, in a cave. Here they left their liquor as
short a time as possible, lest it should be discovered by those on
the look-out. But this cave led up to the vaults of the inn-cellars,
and very swiftly could these kegs be rolled along the tunnelled
passage in the cliff.
A boy was working strenuously at the keg-rolling, Oliver Charlock by
name. He was the odd boy and general servant of the establishment,
and had more kicks and fewer crusts than were his share. Crumblejohn
stood looking at him as he worked; if he stayed but a moment to
stretch his back, or to rest his arms, he was reminded of his
business.
“Do you think I keep servants, giving them board and bed, to see
them a-lolling back agin’ my walls and postës, a-playing the fine
gentleman abroad? No, no, Oliver Charlock, you remember what you’re
here for, and where you comes from; and let me see all them kegs
in their places, or back you goes to your field, and finds another
master.”
Oliver was nobody’s child, and had been picked up in a field of
charlock. Just where the rough margin of the field joins the yellow
flowers, he had been found by the old parson ten years before the
time of which I speak. But when the Rectory changed hands, and the
old housekeeper died, who had reared him, he was left friendless.
Then Crumblejohn had taken him as an extra lad at the Mariner’s, and
henceforth life opened for him at a different page. He slept in a
rat-riddled garret on a worn-out wool-sack on the floor. He rose at
dawn and worked till the bats were out, bearing hard words for his
services. Repeatedly was he admonished by Mr. Crumblejohn to recall
where he came from, and other sour-faced remarks. As nobody knew
his origin, least of all the boy himself, this might seem a useless
question; but for Crumblejohn it held point in tending to depress any
growth of self-esteem in Oliver, and was calculated to nip incipient
ideas as to wages in the bud.
“Little warmint what had nobody to chuck a crust to ’im, found in
a furrer of a field. I gives ’im board, and I gives ’im bed, and I
expects such-like to work for their wittels.”
And work Oliver Charlock did, and not only at keg-rolling. When the
vigilance of the authorities forbade the more usual signal of a fire
being lit on some prominent point inland, he had been sent before now
as emissary between the English smugglers, and Lambkin, in France.
Lambkin was a man named Thurot. He was a Channel Islander, and you
may read of him as rising to great prominence in the smuggling
annals of his day. He was known also as O’Farrell, and was an Irish
commodore in the French service for a time. He was but twenty-two
when he met his death, yet he was a terror, we read, to the
mercantile fleet of this kingdom. Whatever opinion we may hold as to
his right or wrong doing, there is a light about his name, because he
led a life of great romance, and daring.
Before leaving, Thurot had arranged with his confederates the place
of the intended run of goods. Now, however, that Ratface suspected
Daniel Maidment was spying on them, it became imperative to get the
message over in some dependable manner, to intimate a change of
place for beaching this next run. So a rag message had been written,
and Oliver had to bear it, and as Crumblejohn stood watching the
keg-rolling, it was with the comfortable assurance of some anxiety
having been removed. Very soon he would be standing there, watching
yet another lot rolling into his capacious cellars. Already the gold
chinked in his imagination, that was to fill his pockets so well;
and the rings of smoke from his clay pipe rose, to float up and fade
lingeringly, before his meditative eye.
But the “best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley,” and there
was something in store for Master Crumblejohn, the mere possibility
of which, his slow wits had never dreamed.