Wrecking was another form of sea-poaching. Terrible stories of ships lured to destruction by the exhibition of false lights are told, but all belong to the past. I remember an old fellow--the last of the Cornish wreckers--who ended his days as keeper of a toll-gate. But he never would allow that he had wilfully drawn a vessel upon the breakers. When a ship was cast up by the gale it was another matter. The dwellers on the coast could not believe that they had not a perfect right to whatever was washed ashore. Nowadays the coastguards keep so sharp a look-out after a storm that very little can be picked up. The usual course at present is for those who are early on the beach, and have not time to secure--or fear the risk of securing--something they covet, to heave the article up the cliff and lodge it there where not easily accessible. If it be observed--when the auction takes place--it is knocked down for a trifle, and the man who put it where it is discerned obtains it by a lawful claim. If it be not observed, then he fetches it at his convenience. But it is now considered too risky after a wreck to carry off anything of size found, and as the number of bidders at a sale of wreckage is not large, and they do not compete with each other keenly, things of value are got for very slender payments.
The terrible story of the murder of a son by his father and mother, to secure his gold, they not knowing him, and believing him to be a cast-up from a wreck--the story on which the popular drama of Fatal Curiosity, by Lillo, was founded--actually took place at Boheland, near Penryn.
To return to the smugglers.
When a train of asses or mules conveyed contraband goods along a road, it was often customary to put stockings over the hoofs to deaden the sound of their steps.
One night, many years ago, a friend of the writer--a parson on the north coast of Cornwall--was walking along a lane in his parish at night. It was near midnight. He had been to see, or had been sitting up with, a dying person.
As he came to a branch in the lane he saw a man there, and he called out "Good-night." He then stood still a moment, to consider which lane he should take. Both led to his rectory, but one was somewhat shorter than the other. The shorter was, however, stony and very wet. He chose the longer way, and turned to the right. Thirty years after he was speaking with a parishioner who was ill, when the man said to him suddenly, "Do you remember such and such a night, when you came to the Y? You had been with Nankevill, who was dying."
"Yes, I do recall something about it."
"Do you remember you said 'Good-night' to me?"
"I remember that someone was there; I did not know it was you."
"And you turned right, instead of left?"