“I never knew no good come of smuggling,” observed Thole, rather sententiously. “What they makes they spends as fast as they gets, and no one’s the better for it.”
Nobody had a better right than had he to know this, for he had been somewhat addicted to the practice in his youth, and had in consequence been sent on board a man-of-war. The flood and fair wind carried us right into Portsmouth Harbour, where I dropped my anchor and pulled on shore to report my arrival to the custom-house authorities. I was in one respect sorry that my cruise was over, because I was obliged to descend from my rank as commander to that of midshipman; but as I hoped some day to regain it, I did not grieve much about it, especially as I expected to be soon able to set off and pay Larry a visit. The two smugglers were sent to prison; one afterwards entered on board of a man-of-war; the unhappy father died raving mad in the hospital, calling himself the murderer of his son.
Thus ended what I may consider my first cruise.
Chapter Four.
Myers the Smuggler—I Learn to Play the Fiddle—Smell Gunpowder—Action with a Lugger—Left in the Lurch.
The cutter soon after came in, and after seeing my men safe on board her, I got leave for a day to pay a visit to Larry. On ringing, I heard him stumping downstairs to open the door. When he saw me, he could scarcely contain his delight; and forgetting etiquette and all rules and precedents, he seized me in his arms as if I had been a baby, and almost squeezed the breath out of my body. Though I had not been away six weeks, he vowed that I had grown wonderfully, and looked like a man already. Mrs Harrigan was equally complimentary, and I could not help feeling myself a person of mighty importance. I was very glad to find that my old friend was perfectly contented with his wife, and that he made himself very useful to her, so that there was every prospect of their being comfortable together. The house was full of lodgers; but there was a little room which they insisted on my occupying. They themselves lived in a back parlour, where I spent the evening with them. I slept at their house, and the next morning returned on board the cutter. We were ordered to keep an especial look-out for Myers, whose lugger was reported to have run more cargoes than any free-trader among the vast numbers engaged in the illicit traffic. She belonged to Beere, a small town on the Dorsetshire coast, in West Bay. It is a pretty, quiet little place, and consists of one long, broad street, built in the centre of a valley reaching close down to the water’s edge, with white cliffs on either side of it. The lugger was often seen off there; but we could not then touch her, as she was never found with anything in her to enable us to prove that she was engaged in smuggling. Myers, whenever on these occasions we paid him a visit, was always the politest of men; and a stranger might suppose that he had a vast regard for all king’s officers, and for us especially; and yet in reality no man hated us more cordially, or would more readily have worked us harm.
Cruising after smugglers is not the noblest work, perhaps, in which one can be engaged; but it is necessary, not altogether unprofitable, and at times highly exciting. In the war time, the smugglers had large armed vessels, which set the king’s cruisers at defiance, and seldom failed to show fight. When I was in the Serpent, they were frequently armed; but their business was to run, and they never fired unless in hopes of knocking away the spars of a pursuer, or, at the last extremity, to defend themselves.
I should be very ungrateful to old Hanks if I omitted to mention his kindness to me, and the pains he took to give me instruction in my profession. Among other accomplishments, he taught me one of which he was not himself a little proud.