Two miles onward, along sea and river-bank, Bradwell Quay is reached, where the “Green Man” inn in these times turns a hospitable face to the wayfarer, but was in the “once upon a time” apt to distrust the casual stranger, for it was a house “ower sib” with the free-traders, and Pewit Island, just off the quay, a desolate islet almost awash, formed an admirable emergency store. The old stone-floored kitchen of the “Green Man,” nowadays a cool and refreshing place in which to take a modest quencher on a summer’s day, still remains very much what it was of old; and the quaint fireplace round which the sly longshore men of these Essex creeks foregathered on those winter nights when work was before them keeps its old-time pot-racks and hooks.
Among the very numerous accounts of smuggling affrays we may exhume from the musty files of old newspapers, we read of the desperate encounter in which Mr. Toby, Supervisor of Excise, lost an eye in contending with a gang of smugglers at Caister, near Yarmouth, in April 1816; which shows—if we had occasion to show—that the East Anglian could on occasion be as ferocious as the rustics of the south.
The shores of East Anglia we have already noted to be largely composed of wide-spreading sandy flats, in whose wastes the tracks of wild birds and animals—to say nothing of the deeply indented footmarks of heavily-laden men—are easily distinguished; and the chief problem of the free-traders of those parts was therefore often how to cover up the tracks they left so numerously in their passage across to the hard roads. In this resort the shepherds were their mainstay, and for the usual consideration, _i.e._ a keg of the “right stuff,” would presently, after the gang had passed, come driving their flocks along in the sandy trail they had left: completely obliterating all evidences of a run of contraband goods having been successfully brought off.
Blakeney, on the Norfolk coast, is associated with one of the best, and most convincing, tales ever told of smuggling. This coast is rich in what are known as “cart gaps”: dips in the low cliffs, where horses and carts may readily gain access to the sea. These places were, of course, especially well watched by the preventive men, who often made a rich haul out of the innocent-looking farm-carts, laden with seaweed for manure, that were often to be observed being driven landwards at untimeous hours of night and early morn. Beneath the seaweed were, of course, numerous kegs. Sometimes the preventive men confiscated horses and carts, as well as their loads, and all were put up for sale. On one of these painful occasions the local custom-house officer, who knew a great deal more of the sea and its ways than he did of horses, was completely taken in by a farmer-confederate of the smugglers whose horses had been seized. The farmer went to make an offer for the animals, and was taken to see them. The season of the year was the spring, when, as the poet observes, “a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love”—and when horses shed their coats. Up went the farmer to the nearest horse, and easily, of course, pulled out a handful of hair. “Why,” said he, in the East Anglian way, “th’ poor brute hey gotten t’ mange, and all tudderuns ’ull ketch it, of yow baint keerful.” And then he examined “tudderuns,” and behold! each _had_ caught it: and so he bought the lot for five pounds. That same night every horse was back in its own stable.
