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.
