Moonfleet

Produced by Riikka Talonpoika, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team
1898
We thought there was no more behind But such a day tomorrow as today And to be a boy eternal.
Shakespeare
Says the Cap'n to the Crew, We have slipped the Revenue, I can see the cliffs of Dover on the lee: Tip the signal to the Swan , And anchor broadside on, And out with the kegs of Eau-de-Vie, Says the Cap'n: Out with the kegs of Eau-de-Vie. Says the Lander to his men, Get your grummets on the pin, There's a blue light burning out at sea. The windward anchors creep, And the Gauger's fast asleep, And the kegs are bobbing one, two, three, Says the Lander: The kegs are bobbing one, two, three.
But the bold Preventive man Primes the powder in his pan And cries to the Posse, Follow me. We will take this smuggling gang, And those that fight shall hang Dingle dangle from the execution tree, Says the Gauger: Dingle dangle with the weary moon to see.
So sleeps the pride of former days— More
The village of Moonfleet lies half a mile from the sea on the right or west bank of the Fleet stream. This rivulet, which is so narrow as it passes the houses that I have known a good jumper clear it without a pole, broadens out into salt marshes below the village, and loses itself at last in a lake of brackish water. The lake is good for nothing except sea-fowl, herons, and oysters, and forms such a place as they call in the Indies a lagoon; being shut off from the open Channel by a monstrous great beach or dike of pebbles, of which I shall speak more hereafter. When I was a child I thought that this place was called Moonfleet, because on a still night, whether in summer, or in winter frosts, the moon shone very brightly on the lagoon; but learned afterwards that 'twas but short for 'Mohune-fleet', from the Mohunes, a great family who were once lords of all these parts.
My name is John Trenchard, and I was fifteen years of age when this story begins. My father and mother had both been dead for years, and I boarded with my aunt, Miss Arnold, who was kind to me in her own fashion, but too strict and precise ever to make me love her.