Page:Devonshire Characters and Strange Events.djvu/372

306 midnight. He had been to see, and 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?"

"I daresay."

"If you had taken the left-hand road you would never have seen next morning."

"Why so?"

"There was a large cargo of ’run' goods being transported that night—and you would have met it."

"What of that?"

"What of that? You would have been chucked over the cliffs."

"But how could they suppose I would peach?"

"Sir! They'd ha' took good care you shouldn't ha' had the chance!"

The principal ports to which the smugglers ran were Cherbourg and Roscoff; but also to the Channel Islands. During the European War, and when Napoleon had formed, and forced on the humbled nations of Europe, his great scheme for the exclusion of English goods