PAYING THE PARSON.
Not only did the smugglers take shelter and deposit their goods where they knew they would be safe, but they sometimes left their goods where a certain amount of risk had to be run. It was not however an unusual thing for farmers to leave certain gates unlocked, or to put the key of a barn, or even of a stable, if an extra horse should be wanted, where the smugglers knew where to find it, being well assured that, barring accidents, the horse would be returned, and there would be a tangible acknowledgment, in the shape of a " keg" left behind, of the farmer's good intentions.
The following incident, related to me by two reverend gentlemen, quite independently of each other, will serve to show the seemingly unwarrantable liberties the smugglers sometimes took with other people's pre mises. Some years ago, an incumbent of Pevensey had made his chaise-house a depository of garden tools and odds and ends. Going one morning into the chaise-house for something he wanted, he found to his surprise that he could not open the folding-doors opening into it from the stable. Being aged and somewhat infirm, and his gardener being out of the way, he was puzzled to know what to do ; but after a while he managed to climb up by the rack and manger into the hay-loft over the stable. Looking down into the chaise-house, he saw to his surprise the cause of the obstruction : the place was -
