Winefred: A Story of the Chalk Cliffs

by S. Baring-Gould

Winefred had formed her plan, and she knew her way. She had to ascend from the undercliff to the down, and the chalky path lay before her as though phosphorescent.

There would have been complete stillness but for the mutter and fret of the sea and the piping of the wind.

The smugglers would certainly have preferred less light and more noise, a howling wind, a blinding fog, and a booming sea.

Above every sound Winefred could hear the throbbing of her heart.

She was now upon the down, where the turf was short, strewn with flints bleached by sun and rain. She crossed it, and descended into a deep, lateral combe, through which a trickle ran into the river. Here were trees, but they were bare of leaves. Beyond stood the crest of Hawksdown with its earthworks thrown up, none knew by whom, but haunted, in the opinion of the people, by a ghostly warrior with a fire-breathing dog. She was now among fields, and in a tangle of lanes, but she knew her direction, and although the ways twisted, she made as straight as was possible for the crest of the opposite hill, and for a while skirted a fir plantation that lay like an ink blot on her left. She was not able wholly to escape the shadows of the pines, for she was forced to enter by a gate, the hedge being too thick and thorny for her to scramble over it. In the gloom she became uneasy, alarmed, thinking that eyes were watching her, and that mysterious beings lurked among the branches, ready to leap upon her. To her excited imagination it was as though there came to her whisperings from among the bushes. She walked faster, turning her head from side to side, and sometimes looking over her shoulder.

At the beginning of the present century 'free trade' was in repute among the daring and adventuresome along the coast. Smuggling was a passion, like poaching. Those who were engaged in it rarely abandoned it. It was gambling for enormous stakes—the profits were great, but, on the other hand, so were the risks. If now and then a cargo was run and sold, and the profits measured out in pint mugs, on another occasion an entire cargo was confiscated. Not only was freedom jeopardised, but life as well. Neither 'free trader' nor coastguard was nice in the matter of shedding blood.

Smuggling methods were infinitely varied. The game was a contest of wits as well as of pluck, and in that lay much of its charm. The spice of danger attending it attracted the young men instead of deterring them from it.

In order to obtain information relative to the trade, so as to be able to 'nab' those who prosecuted it, the Government had paid spies in the English and the foreign ports. It sought to undermine the integrity of those combined together in the trade, and to encourage treachery. So well aware of this were smugglers that no mercy was shown to the man who was detected in clandestine communication with the preventive service men. He was sometimes dashed over the cliffs, sometimes taken out in a boat and literally beaten to death with a marline-spike before his body was committed to the waves.

There was something to be urged in extenuation of English smuggling. Customs-duties were first imposed in England for the purpose of protecting the coasts against pirates who made descents on unprotected villages and kidnapped men and children to sell them as slaves in Africa, or who waylaid merchant vessels, plundered and then scuttled them.