. Devonshire characters and strange events. r had also another way bywhich it could be entered, and this was through a holein the floor of a bedroom above. A plank of the floorcould be lifted, when an opening was disclosed bywhich any one might pass under the wall through asort of door and down steps into this apartment, whichwas entirely without light. Of what use was thissingular concealed chamber? There could be littlequestion. It was a place in which formerly kegs ofsmuggled spirits and tobacco were hidden. The placelies some fourteen or fifteen miles from Boscastle, adangerous little harb
. Devonshire characters and strange events. r had also another way bywhich it could be entered, and this was through a holein the floor of a bedroom above. A plank of the floorcould be lifted, when an opening was disclosed bywhich any one might pass under the wall through asort of door and down steps into this apartment, whichwas entirely without light. Of what use was thissingular concealed chamber? There could be littlequestion. It was a place in which formerly kegs ofsmuggled spirits and tobacco were hidden. The placelies some fourteen or fifteen miles from Boscastle, adangerous little harbour on the North Cornish coast,and about a mile off the main road from London, byExeter and Launceston, to Falmouth. The coach-travellers in old days consumed a good deal of spirits,and here in a tangle of lanes lay a little emporiumalways kept well supplied with a stock of spirits whichhad not paid duty, and whence the taverners along theroad could derive the contraband liquor, with whichthey supplied the travellers. Between this emporium. SH])! f!, S IS, Ji^O: T jS M jS, VJ 1£ ;T ol Be>ii, t H V. -\-iiiH v: (1/ ot liio V,^;;3T JACK RATTENBURY 303 and the sea, the roads—parish roads—lie over wildmoors or creep between high hedges of earth on whichthe traveller can step along when the lane below is con-verted into the bed of a stream, also on which the warysmuggler could stride, and keep a look-out whilst hisladen mules and asses stumbled forward in the conceal-ment of the deep-set lane. A very noticeable feature of the Devon and Cornwallcoasts is the trenched and banked-up paths from thelittle coves. By these paths the kegs and bales wereremoved under cover of night. As an excuse for keeping droves of donkeys, it waspretended that the sea-sand and the kelp served asadmirable dressing for the land ; and no doubt so theydid; the trains of asses sometimes came up laden withsacks of sand, but not infrequently with kegs ofbrandy. Now a wary preventive man might
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