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their duty, it were a clumsy
smuggler indeed who could not go aboard a Dutch lugger and bring away
anything he needed, in reason.
    Thus it was that although, as was natural, no great cordiality existed
between the coastguard and the villagers, these latter were not so
ill-affected toward the revenue men as in the days when they were at war with
a profitable trade. And when they went away to fight the Russians they became
even popular characters; for every smuggler in Essex had ever been a
patriotic Englishman, and Roboshobery Dove, old man o’-warsman, fisherman,
and retired smuggler, the most positive patriot of them all.
    Young Jack Martin and Dorrily Thorn were parted by all the sea that lay
this side of the frigate Phyllis , with the Baltic fleet; but a broken
half of the same sixpence hung about each of their necks, and when
Roboshobery Dove winked invisibly in the dark lane it was because he knew
that young Jack was grown more than cousin and old playmate to the watching
girl.
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IV. — A DAY OF FEASTING
    IT was the way of Hadleigh Fair to begin betimes on
Midsummer Day morning, so that it had pushed Hadleigh village almost out of
sight before breakfast was generally in progress. It was not great among
fairs, perhaps, but neither was Hadleigh great among villages. The Fat Lady
came there, and the Living Skeleton, and, one fair in three, the Fire-eater
of Madagascar, when free from engagements before All the Crowned Heads. There
had been two Mermaids within living recollection, though the last, as a
sight, was considered unworthy the penny admission; but the really great
exhibitions that graced Rayleigh Fair a month earlier—Wombwell’s,
Clarke’s, Johnson and Lee’s—these rarely or never took stand at
Hadleigh. So that there was all the more money left to buy gingernuts,
bull’s-eyes, ribbons, and—more important than all—Gooseberry
Pies. And if the Fat Lady, and the Living Skeleton, and the rest of the
prodigies were not enough, the sight-seer would find peep-shows
everywhere—half a dozen of them at least. And as to every other sort of
stand, booth, stall, shanty, or wigwam, they made Hadleigh village a town for
the day, whereof the chief population was contributed by Leigh, Prittlewell,
Eastwood, Rochford, Bemfleet, Canvey, Hockley, and a score more parishes.
Little was spent in the serious matters of cattle, horses, and farm produce
at Hadleigh Fair, and the dealings—beside those in Gooseberry
Pie—were mainly in ballads, spicenuts, penny toys, gown pieces,
garters, peppermint stick, china and watches sold by Dutch auction, and
gingerbread bought outright or knocked down by the expert with a stick.
    The visitors from a distance bought their gooseberry pies at the booths
and stalls, except such as had friends living in Hadleigh, with home-made
pies of their own. The home-made pies were in general esteemed superior,
because of a greater substance in the crust and a more liberal disposition of
fruit. Those at the stalls, though handsome, plump, high, delicate, round,
and full to look at, had a disappointing way of collapsing “aw to crumbles”
at the first bite of a healthy jaw, revealing in the remains the hidden
chamber of air that had given the pie its goodly seeming; a hidden chamber
filled and widened, it was commonly reported, by a puff of the bellows under
the paste before baking. Moreover, to put no more than four gooseberries in a
penny pie was justly regarded as an act of rapine. The homemade pie, on the
other hand, offered something for the teeth to get to work on. Made in the
biggest pie-dish available, it was roofed over with a noble arch of crust,
solid and enduring, more often than not made of bread-dough an inch thick;
and its complete filling of gooseberries left no room for air. It was a piece
of politeness to exchange wedges of this pie among friends, or even, for them
that aspired to a gentility beyond that of their neighbours, to