Moonfleet | Page 2

the darkness, because he would not give up the lamp till he stood safe
on the surface again. This scene reminded me of one of those dreadful
nightmares, where we dream we are shut in a little room, the walls of
which are closing in upon us, and so impressed me that the memory of
it served as a warning in an adventure that befell me later on. So I gave
up reading and stepped out into the street. It was a poor street at best,

though once, no doubt, it had been finer. Now, there were not two
hundred souls in Moonfleet, and yet the houses that held them straggled
sadly over half a mile, lying at intervals along either side of the road.
Nothing was ever made new in the village; if a house wanted repair
badly, it was pulled down, and so there were toothless gaps in the street,
and overrun gardens with broken-down walls, and many of the houses
that yet stood looked as though they could stand but little longer.
The sun had set; indeed, it was already so dusk that the lower or
sea-end of the street was lost from sight. There was a little fog or
smoke-wreath in the air, with an odour of burning weeds, and that first
frosty feeling of the autumn that makes us think of glowing fires and
the comfort of long winter evenings to come. All was very still, but I
could hear the tapping of a hammer farther down the street, and walked
to see what was doing, for we had no trades in Moonfleet save that of
fishing. It was Ratsey the sexton at work in a shed which opened on the
street, lettering a tombstone with a mallet and graver. He had been
mason before he became fisherman, and was handy with his tools; so
that if anyone wanted a headstone set up in the churchyard, he went to
Ratsey to get it done. I lent over the half-door and watched him a
minute, chipping away with the graver in a bad light from a lantern;
then he looked up, and seeing me, said:
'Here, John, if you have nothing to do, come in and hold the lantern for
me, 'tis but a half-hour's job to get all finished.'
Ratsey was always kind to me, and had lent me a chisel many a time to
make boats, so I stepped in and held the lantern watching him chink out
the bits of Portland stone with a graver, and blinking the while when
they came too near my eyes. The inscription stood complete, but he
was putting the finishing touches to a little sea-piece carved at the top
of the stone, which showed a schooner boarding a cutter. I thought it
fine work at the time, but know now that it was rough enough; indeed,
you may see it for yourself in Moonfleet churchyard to this day, and
read the inscription too, though it is yellow with lichen, and not so
plain as it was that night. This is how it runs:
SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF DAVID BLOCK

Aged 15, who was killed by a shot fired from the Elector Schooner, 21
June 1757.
Of life bereft (by fell design), I mingle with my fellow clay. On God's
protection I recline To save me in the Judgement Day.
There too must you, cruel man, appear, Repent ere it be all too late; Or
else a dreadful sentence fear, For God will sure revenge my fate.
The Reverend Mr. Glennie wrote the verses, and I knew them by heart,
for he had given me a copy; indeed, the whole village had rung with the
tale of David's death, and it was yet in every mouth. He was only child
to Elzevir Block, who kept the Why Not? inn at the bottom of the
village, and was with the contrabandiers, when their ketch was boarded
that June night by the Government schooner. People said that it was
Magistrate Maskew of Moonfleet Manor who had put the Revenue men
on the track, and anyway he was on board the Elector as she
overhauled the ketch. There was some show of fighting when the
vessels first came alongside, of one another, and Maskew drew a pistol
and fired it off in young David's face, with only the two gunwales
between them. In the afternoon of Midsummer's Day the Elector
brought the ketch into Moonfleet, and there was a posse of constables
to march the smugglers off to Dorchester Jail. The prisoners trudged up
through the village ironed two and two together, while people stood at
their doors or followed them, the men greeting them with a kindly word,
for we knew most of them as Ringstave and Monkbury men, and the