"I won't say but it do. Thinks I, now where will they try to run their cargo? Tonkin went off in a 'nation hurry, and the reason o't you know as well as I, but we won't speak o' that. There warn't time for him to fix up with the shoremen, leastways with many of 'em, afore he went, so thinks I, Zacky won't try to carry his kegs inland. What then? Why, she'd sink 'em somewheres off the coast, and let 'em lay till he gets a chance o' liftin' 'em. I've knowed a crop o' goods lay for a month afore they could be lifted."
"Doesn't it spoil the spirits?" asked Dick.
"It do, if the tubs lay too long. Then the spirits be stinkibus and fit for nothing. Howsomever, they'll sink 'em, thinks I, and what's to be the place? Well, I mind that ten year or more ago they dropped a big crop just beyond St. Cuby's Cove, and got 'em clean away in two nights, while Mr. Curgenven was playin' cat and mouse miles down the coast. Says I to myself, that's the very place."
"But how did you know it ten years ago?"
"By one or two things I noticed when I went a-rambling at foot of cliffs; trifles I could hardly tell 'ee of. That's the very place, says I, so I has a little talk with Mr. Polwhele, and he made it known to Mr. Mildmay, and betwixt us we hitched up a pretty scheme to circumvent 'em. And I was right, and wrong too, as you'll see.
"Well, we sent over to Plymouth for a half-troop of dragoons, and put them in Penruddock's empty farmhouse on the moor yonder. They came quiet last night, and not a soul knowed about 'em. You see, 'twas only my calcerlation as Tonkin wouldn't try a run, and 'twas best to be on the safe tack, as you may say. Wi' the dragoons on shore, and Mr. Mildmay at sea, we reckoned we'd spoil their game, whether 'twas sinkin' or runnin'. When 'twas dark, we brought the sojers down to shore, and put 'em among the rocks on each side of where I thought 'twould happen. I had a sort o' suspicion that the smugglers had a hiding-place somewhere along shore thereabouts, though I'd never been able to find it."
"What made you suspect that?"
"Because we grappled for the sunk crop two days arter 'twas sunk, but 'twas gone; yet 'twas more than a week arterwards afore the stuff was carr'd into the country, so it must ha' been hid somewhere. Well, we had waited some hours, and the cutter had sailed away down the coast to put 'em off the scent, when just afore six bells we heard the creakin' o' the lugger's gear, and I knowed I was right. At the same time the fellers come creepin' round the cliff from the village. 'Twas to be a run arter all. Our plan was to let 'em get warm to work, and not pounce on 'em till we'd seed where their hiding-place was. Mr. Mildmay meant to fetch about and come on 'em from seaward, while the sojers took 'em from landwards.
"Drown it all, 'twas ruined—ruined, I say; but 'twas not so bad as that neither—'twas almost ruined, by a sappy landlubber of a sojer. The unloadin' was goin' on as merry as you please when this soft stunpoll of a chap let out a sneeze fit to blow yer gaff off. 'Twas all up then; no good waiting for Mr. Mildmay; the smugglers' look-outs heard the tishum and gave the alarm. Mr. Polwhele blew his whistle for the attack, and we pounced out from our lairs, sojers and tidesmen, and dashed upon 'em from two sides at once.
"Some of 'em dropped their tubs like hot taters, and slipped off in the darkness. But the rest stood their ground like men, and there was a tidy little tumble, pistols cracking, cutlasses flashing——"