It was in the Lizard district that smuggling reached its zenith. The Bookworm put a copy of the "Autobiography of a Smuggler" into his pocket when he tramped over to Prussia Cove, a place which Nature and a little art intended for an emporium for smugglers. Blind harbours, blind caves, hidden galleries, mysterious inlets and exits form a delicate network of safety and concealment. Only a century ago, the man who lived here was the king of Cornish smugglers and privateers, and defended himself with his own cannon.[C] Now the fine caves are fern-arched, and the water drips, drips, drips upon nothing precious. The smugglers borrowed these caves from the piskies who have re-entered into possession, for here are the piskie sands and piskie caves.
"Here, in cool grot, the piskies dwell," hummed Guy.
The caves seemed none the worse for having been smugglers' storehouses; but the gingerbeer and sandwich man left his trail, as usual. What he couldn't reach or cut down, he left alone, but broken glass he left behind.
Guy ran across a gentleman anxious to tell us things. He was a "pensioner." The man with a pension is a common object by the seashore. After a time, you get to know him as a superior sort of being reduced from his high estate, and only making the two ends meet by the grace of God. "Get a pension, and don't worry" is very good advice when the pension is big enough; but generally the pension-man is a trifle seedy—his pension won't spread all over him, but leaves him minus gloves, with patched shoes, and short everywhere. This honest old gentleman was Guy's find, and he was so eager to tell all he knew, and more on top of it, that Guy was glad, at last, to get rid of him with some excuse covered deftly with a small consideration.
[Chapter VII]
