Here many kegs of
spirit that paid no duty were deposited by an arrangement with the
clerk, and the stone lifted on again. This secret hiding-place was never
discovered, neither did the curate find out who requisitioned his horse
when the nights favoured smugglers.
In the wild days of Cornish wreckers and wrecking, both priest and clerk
are said to have taken part in the sharing of the tribute of the sea
cast upon their rockbound coast. The historian of Cornwall, Richard
Polwhele, tells of a wreck happening one Sunday morning just before
service. The clerk, eager to be at the fray, announced to the assembled
parishioners that "Measter would gee them a holiday."
I will not vouch for the truth of that other story told in the
_Encyclopaedia of Wit_ (1801), which runs as follows:
"A parson who lived on the coast of Cornwall, where one great business
of the inhabitants is plundering from ships that are wrecked, being once
preaching when the alarm was given, found that the sound of the wreck
was so much more attractive than his sermon, that all his congregation
were scampering out of church. To check their precipitation, he called
out, 'My brethren, let me entreat you to stay for five words more'; and
marching out of the pulpit, till he had got pretty near the door of the
church, slowly pronounced, 'Let us all start fair,' and ran off with the
rest of them.
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