Many years after, an ugly incident broke the spell of monotony in the village.  A hideous-looking creature came to it and addressed himself to a fisherman.  His voice was that of a drunkard.  He was dirty, his eyes were bleared, and the cunning, shifty look betokened a long life of vicious habits.  He wished to know when Mrs. Clarkson died, where all her relations that lived round about her were, to whom the estates were sold, and whom the money they realized went to; what had become of Turnbull and his family, and how long was it since the smugglers were driven off the coast?  These questions were only meagrely answered, as the man he inquired of belonged to another generation, and there were only very few left who knew anything of the period or the people that he desired information about.  The following day the body of a man, supposed to be a tramp, was found in a barn.  He had left evidence of his identity, and when it was discovered that the stranger was Stephen Lawrence, Mrs. Clarkson’s nephew, the once flashy young gentleman who controlled her estates, and who had been sent abroad when grave suspicion rested upon him of being seriously involved in pecuniary defalcations, it created a fresh sensation, and revived all the old stories of bygone days.  He had come to die within the shadow of the home in which he was so indulgently reared, and his remains were buried by those who knew not of him.  It was probably through him and Melbourne that the secret locality of the cave and other valuable information which led up to the final conflict and defeat of the smugglers became known.

The “Mugger’s Lonnin,” all blazing with red and yellow flowers and long silvery grass growing wild, and covering the mysteries that lie beneath, is still there.  The superstitions regarding its history still exist.  The sandhills, capped with the rustling, silky bents, looking down into the bay, are still there.  The thrilling sea winds come and go, and the music of the shells on the beach is whispering as before, but the shrill wail of the curlew is never sounded from knoll to knoll now.  The horn lantern is not seen by the roadsides, nor the quick flashlight that signalled the coast was clear; and the rattle of the horses’ hoofs on the stones during the mystic night is never now heard.  There is nothing to indicate, in fact, that this lonely, superb piece of England was once (not so long ago) a great centre of illicit trading.  The smuggler and Revenue man have disappeared, and the scenes of their successes or failures, daring, comic, and sometimes tragic, are undisturbed save by nature’s sights and sounds.  Man-o’-war sailors (fine fellows though they be), with ribboned caps, and trousers that flap like sails of a ship tacking, have replaced the trim, gentlemanlike civilian of old.  Some of the latter are still remembered with affection, and even veneration, by people who were young when the last of them passed away.

Smugglers of the Rock