One moonlight night, when he was anxiously waiting and watching for the
return of his boats, he saw them in the distance being rapidly pursued
by His Majesty's Revenue cutter the _Fairy_. The smuggler placed his
cannon on the top of the cliff and gave orders to his men to fire on the
_Fairy_, which, as the guns on board could not be elevated sufficiently
to reach the top of the cliff, was unable to reply. Thus the boats
escaped; but early the following morning the Revenue boat again
appeared, and the officer and some of the crew came straight to Carter's
house, where they met the smuggler. He loudly complained to the officer
that his crew should come there practising the cutter's guns at midnight
and disturbing the neighbourhood. Carter of course could give no
information about the firing of any other guns, and suggested it might
be the echo of those fired from the _Fairy_ herself, nor could any other
explanation be obtained in the neighbourhood where Carter was well
known, so the matter was allowed to drop. But the old smuggler was more
sharply looked after in future, and though he lived to a great age, he
died in poverty.
Our road crossed the Perran Downs, where, to the left, stood the small
village of Perranuthnoe, a place said to have existed before the time of
St.
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