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 314 settle and founder, while the best climber on board clings alone to the top of the mast above the water; to watch the lifeboat making its way to a brig, where the sailors are clustered in the rigging, and to be more and more doubtful whether it can ever reach them, and even afraid of its crew of well-known men being washed away; to see the country people come thronging in all directions to the cliffs or the beach, and carrying away whatever they can lay hold of—the fellows even going into the water to meet and seize some tempting plank, or yard, or bit of sail; all this going on while the winds are roaring, and the sea seething, and rushing, and splashing, is about as melancholy a scene as I know. Yet one would rather witness the worst than be unable to give any help to the wrecked sufferers. It is worse not to know of the case till, in the depth of the night, the boom of a gun at sea—the alarm signal from some distressed ship—thumps upon one’s heart. The impossibility of staying at home, and the impossibility of doing anything by going out; the entreaties of wife and child not to go to the edge of the cliff in wind and darkness; the gleam of the light in the rigging, a yellow spark, tossing about, and hidden every minute by an intervening wave; the startling apparition of the rocket, sent up as a petition for aid; the listening, in the pauses of the gale, for cries of distress; the thought of men drowning at the very moment; these things are real sufferings to dwellers on the coast. Worse still is the failure to save the victims of the tempest. After battling with the wind and spray on the cliff through the night, and getting the lifeboat brought to the spot, and using the first break of daylight to try for a communication with the wreck, it is heart-breaking to have no effectual response from the ship, and to see, as the light advances, corpses drifting about in the surf below, or lying face downwards on the sands. It is agonising to see the boat return with one or two of the crew, as the only survivors, or with none, and to have to go home and tell wife and children that their warm blankets and hot coffee are in vain. We have certainly never found that the much-vaunted pleasure of saving human life was any compensation for witnessing the destruction of it. When our neighbours and we saved as many as we could, we still saw in them sufferers under a great misfortune and an awful shock—men more occupied with the destruction around them than with their own rescue; and in this we certainly sympathised with them. On windy nights in March my wife and I feel strongly that, while hoping that we should have discharged the common duties of humanity to shipwrecked people as long as we lived, if it had been our lot to spend our lives on the coast, we cannot but feel the relief of dwelling inland, where the appeals of the needy come in so much more deliberate and so much less horrifying a form than that of a midnight wreck.

We were under another liability at this season which we extremely disliked, though it did not wear us out so much. There was still a good deal of smuggling going on on that part of the coast, and dark and windy nights were chosen for such adventures. A dark night was good, as far as it went; but a windy one, when also dark, was better. On a still starless night the coast-guard might be hidden close at hand, overhearing everything; and it was certain that they were all ear, whether on the cliff or the beach. Not a dip of an oar, nor a clink of the boat-chain, nor a step on the shingle, nor the roll of a barrel on the sand would escape observation. On a windy night all was safe enough, on the right side of an unmanageable storm. The guard would not go to the edge of the cliff for fear of being blown over, nor upon the sands to get drenched for nothing. When the gust rose the noisy hauls were made, and when it paused no man spoke till the whistle and roar began again. It was after such nights that my horses were found in a rough and dirty and tired condition in their stables, and the roads and turf showing marks of much recent trampling. No means that I could devise saved my horses. Every sort of lock, bolt, and bar was defied by the process of taking the doors off their hinges, or absolutely breaking them in, and we could not possibly know beforehand what nights would be chosen by the smugglers for landing their goods, so that it would have been random work sending the horses away, or obtaining a guard from the county town. The fellows tried to recompense us by paying for the use of the horses after their notions of fitness. More than once a parcel was left at the door, in our absence or after dark, containing silk stockings for me, or lace and gloves for my wife; but when we put these things into the hands of the police, and gave out that we had done so, the gifts ceased, and our horses were used without acknowledgment. It was not agreeable to be kept restless on windy nights, nor to go to the stables once or twice between bedtime and daylight; nor to be waked up by one or another, who was sure there were people about in the yard; nor to see the condition of our pet horses in the morning; but it was far worse to see the effect of smuggling habits on our neighbours. The spirit-drinking spread from the men to the women, and the lying from the women to the children; and there was no training the children to industry while they saw their parents as rich as the squire (as they thought) one week, and in the next, pressed for large debts. No preaching in church or by death-beds did any good; nor any teaching in school; nor any setting of dogs, or plans of patrolling, or erection of defences. The dogs disappeared; all barriers were levelled; and the patrol were simply laughed at. The cure came at last, though later than in most places, by the natural operation of improved principles of finance. Reduced import duties rendered smuggling unprofitable, and it died out. The last time we were in that neighbourhood, we heard from some of the cottagers significant hints that they were better pleased with their present ways than the old ones: that, though they had more money formerly, and a good deal of fun and frolic, there was more comfort in being steady, and having regular earnings; and, above all, it was better for the children. Those days are long past; but the impression is as fresh as ever on windy nights. When the blast comes surging towards us from the park woods, in these March