“Can’t, fellow?” angrily responded the vicar; “what do you mean by ‘can’t’?”
“Well, then, sir,” said the sexton, “if you must know, the church is full of tubs, and the pulpit’s full of tea.”
An especially impudent smuggling incident was reported from Hove on Sunday, October 16th, 1819, in the following words:
“A suspected smuggling boat being seen off Hove by some of the custom-house officers, they, with two of the crew of the Hound revenue cutter, gave chase in a galley. On coming up with the boat their suspicions were confirmed, and they at once boarded her; but while intent on securing their prize, nine of the smugglers leapt into the Hound’s galley and escaped. Landing at Hove, seven of them got away at once, two being taken prisoners by some officers who were waiting for them. Upon this a large company of smugglers assembled, at once commenced a desperate attack upon the officers, and, having overpowered them, assaulted them with stones and large sticks, knocked them down, and cut the belts of the chief officer’s arms, which they took away, and thereby enabled the two prisoners to escape.”
A reward of £200 was offered, but without result. The cargo of the smugglers consisted of 225 tubs of gin, 52 tubs of brandy, and one bag of tobacco.
Many of the ghost-stories of a hundred years and more ago originated in the smugglers’ midnight escapades. It was, of course, entirely to their advantage that superstitious people who heard unaccountable sounds and saw indescribable sights should go off with the notion that supernatural beings were about, and resolve thenceforward to go those haunted ways no more. The mysterious “ghostly drummer” of Herstmonceux, who was often heard and seen by terrified rustics whose way led them past the ruined castle at night, was a confederate of the Hastings and Eastbourne smugglers, to whom those roofless walls and the hoary tombs of the adjoining churchyard were valuable storehouses. Rubbed with a little phosphorus, and parading those spots once in a way with his drum, they soon became shunned. The tombstones in Herstmonceux churchyard, mostly of the kind known as “altar-tombs,” had slabs which the smugglers easily made to turn on swivels; and from them issued at times spirits indeed, but not such as would frighten many men. The haunted character of Herstmonceux ceased with the establishment of the coastguard in 1831, and the drummer was heard to drum no more.
The churchyards of the Sussex coast and its neighbourhood still bear witness to the fatal affrays between excisemen and smugglers that marked those times; and even far inland may be found epitaphs on those who fell, breathing curses and Divine vengeance on the persons who brought them to an untimely end. Thus at Tandridge, Surrey, near Godstone, may be seen a tall tombstone beside the south porch of the church, to one Thomas Todman, aged thirty-one years, who was shot dead in a smuggling affray in 1781. Here follow the lamentable verses, oddities of grammar, spelling, and punctuation duly preserved:
Thou Shall do no Murder, nor Shalt thou Steal
are the Commands Jehovah did Reveal
but thou O Wretch, Without fear or dread
of Thy Tremendous Maker Shot me dead
Amidst my strength my sins forgive
As I through Boundless Mercy
hope to live.
The prudery of some conscientious objector to the word “wretch” has caused it to be almost obliterated.