The Ghost of Smugglers Run

by Robert Sullivan

two years. But lucky they were, fer the King had lost interest, what with his family troubles ye see. It was good fortune, true, that they didna meet the axeman, but the jailer were waintin’, and it were the jailer that took ‘em down. And so it were, that two years gone, they was comin’ back te Looe.

  But the Revenooer had had enough o’ the doin’s o’ the Dreyfus, and the men o’ Looe and Polperro. They took the Dreyfus off te the Bailey too, though the story goes that a large stipend was paid te the King, and the Dreyfus went free and back te ‘Paree’. Sad it be, but ever true. There be little that the money canna buy it would seem. But the Revenooer didna stop there. They took the very gunpowder that the mill produced and with it they blew the mill te smithereens. Smithereens mind ye. They blew up the path the smugglers used and they burned the dories. They set Looe back nigh ten year and caused even greater hardship fer the poor souls still livin’ there. But the Looers be strong in spirit. And we be knowin’ that the spirit o’ young Jimmy Herriott lives on. Jimmy be lost, true, but his spirit walks in the Ghost o’ Smugglers Run. It do, just rightly. And the gold? The gold be gone too. Never seen again, hide nor hair, lost in the grindin’ o’ the Maw. And many’s the man has searched fer it. But all fer naught. And Jimmy? It’s said that his spirit won’t never sleep, not till the gold be found and the littluns o’ Looe be proper schooled.”

  “What about the history of Looe?” asked Dad. “Are there any official records anywhere? You know, things like registers of births and deaths and marriages, old journals, maps, other historic stuff?”

  Barney took another long draw on his pipe and then a long drink from his pint of Guinness. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and looked at Dad. “Ye kin be tryin’ the ‘liberary’” he said, drawing out the word. “They got lots of books an’ readin’ stuff at the ‘liberary’. I be pretty sure ye be findin’ maps even. Lots of old sea dog papers too. These years gone there was other ‘liberaries’ ye know, what with Seaton and Widegates, and even one all the way up in Liskeard I’m thinkin’. But they be closed long ago. I would look meself, but I canna be makin’ any sense of it. Ye should be talkin’ with Mrs. Mahoney. She be showin’ ye the books. But don’t make no noise mind ye. She be a demon fer noise, our Mrs. Mahoney. But remember, ye be followin’ all them other treasure hunters. Lots of ‘em. Many they be that have come lookin’. Many times. And like to be, they all go to see Mrs. Mahoney.”

  But we weren’t deterred. We all turned to Dad. ‘Let’s go to the library tomorrow” I said. Charlie, Max and George nodded in support. Dad glanced around, as if searching for an answer. Amos and Milo nodded as well then took big gulps of their drinks. Dad looked and Mum and she nodded too. “Ok” he said “The library it is. Tomorrow we search. We try to solve the mystery of the Ghost of Smugglers Run and the Rocks of Gold.”

  Everyone started talking at once. How would we ever sleep after listening to Barney’s story? We wanted to get going straight away. What would we find? What if we couldn’t find anything? No, that would be just too disappointing. There had to be clues somewhere, something that could help us find out a little more about Jimmy Herriot, the gold and the Ghost of Smugglers Run.

  “Thanks Barney” said Dad. “It’s a fascinating story. And it’s amazing that it’s still such a mystery. Maybe it’s one we can solve.” Dad looked at us when he said this. “And thanks for the fantastic day out fishing. We all enjoyed ourselves a lot.” We all chipped in to say thanks. “Awesome” said Max, “Sweet” was Charlie’s opinion, and a big “Rockin!” from George. “It was great Barney” I said. “Thanks a million.”

  “Ah, it be nothin’ me lads and lasses. I do enjoy the fishin’ quite rightly. And good luck in ye search. Fer a million it mebbe is if ye be findin’ the gold ye know. Fer the story goes that the gold be Spanish, mined in the New World it was, and its value now be far greater than what it were when stolen by the Frenchie or the Spaniard.

  And there be one last thing that might interest ye, but mebbe not so surprisin’ and all. Ye should be knowin’ that Jimmy Herriott was me great, great granduncle. Or mebbe a few more ‘greats’ in there, I’m never sure. And we still be searchin’ fer te find the gold and bring Jim home. It be strange indeed but in some ways we Appletons and Herriotts be like the infernal Revenooer. We never give up. Never ever.”

  Mrs. Mahoney

  The following morning we could hardly wait to get moving. As soon as we finished breakfast we kitted up and set off for Looe. Amos told us that Mrs. Mahoney was the librarian, and that she was very fierce. He echoed Barney’s words. “Make sure that ye dinna make too much noise” he said. “Mrs. Mahoney really likes a quiet ‘liberary’.”

  We trekked along the cliffs to Looe. The path was smooth and wide and circled the cliffs at quite a height. The scenery was terrific and, as we climbed along the face of Point Perdition, we had spectacular views of Polperro. To our right, from the south, there was an endless procession of the grey-blue rolling swells of the Atlantic Ocean and, in front of us to the east, we could see Long Nose Point, the white water of the Rocks of Gold and the Maw, and a million seabirds swirling above the Gannet. I wondered about the secrets of the Rocks and about what we might discover.

  When we arrived outside the library the village clock was chiming 10 o’clock, right on opening time. And sure enough, there was Mrs. Mahoney, a large white haired lady with an apron, sweeping the front steps and the footpath.

  “So!” she said, stopping and propping one hand on her hip. “You must be the treasure hunters. Barney called me this morning to tell me that you’d be coming over. It seems every year there’s more and more treasure hunters. Sometimes they come in droves. But ‘know-alls’ every one, they never listen. Well, I wish you luck. I only ask, like all the rest, that you be as quiet as you can. I like a tidy library. And I like a quiet library.”

  She led us into the library, which was set up in the ground floor of an old two-story building. “Used to be a tavern” Mrs. Mahoney said with a sniff. “ Place was full of taverns in its hey day. But we’ve had the ground floor since the young Elizabeth was married. And it serves us well.”

  The library was large rectangular room with a long table in the centre. Eight chairs were set around the table, four to each side. There were newspapers and magazines scattered on the top. In the ceiling above there were two large wooden fans, both revolving slowly. In one corner of the room there was a children’s section, the shelves filled with colourful books. There were also two or three children’s chairs and tables and a huge pile of thick plastic blocks in yellow, white, red and blue. All the remaining wall space of the library had floor to ceiling shelves of dark timber. The shelves were filled with books of all shapes and sizes. Mrs. Mahoney pointed to the far corner where the shelves had row upon row of large books with dark green covers and red spines. They looked like they were about the same size as our art books at school, though much thicker. “If what you’re looking for is here, it will be in that section” she said. “In the ledgers. Everything is alphabetic, we don’t use any high falutin’ number systems here. Good luck and be quiet!” And with that she went to her desk and left us to our search.

  We looked at the crowded shelves. There were lots of large registers covering ‘Births, Deaths & Marriages’, a long shelf groaning with the ‘Title Deeds for the Towns of Looe & Polperro’, and other shelves filled with journals and official looking books by the score. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands. We would never be able to search all of these books.

  “I think we need to do some planning” said Dad, so we went into a huddle near the official section. “This is what we’ll do. Max, you look for anything under ‘Smuggling’. Pat, you search for information under ‘Eighteenth Century’ and ‘18th Century’ – use both words and numbers. George, look for ‘Herriott’. And Charlie, could you search for anything under ‘Looe’. I’ll search under ‘gunpowder’ and ‘industry’.” By this time Mrs. Mahoney was looking at us menacingly. “Let’s keep it quiet too” said Dad
. And so we started.

  Dad called a halt after two hours and we went outside to discuss what we’d found. Not much really. I found lots of references to the 18th Century, but nothing related to what we were searching for. 18th Century embroidery, farming, fishing, carpentry - everything but 18th Century smuggling. No one else found anything either, except Max, who unearthed many books on “Smuggling”, but all were set in the early 17th Century. It was interesting, but we needed the 18th Century, between 1700 and 1750. That was our target.

  “Ok” said Dad “Lets first have some lunch, then we give it another try. If we don’t find anything by 3 o’clock, which is closing time, we’ll call it quits. The mysteries of the Ghost of Smugglers Run and the Rocks of Gold might have to wait another day.” I was disappointed at the thought of not finding anything. We had been whipped into frenzy by Barney’s story, but Dad’s approach was sensible. We couldn’t spend the whole of our holidays searching for maps and lost treasure. But, heck! Why not? We were having a good time so far.

  We had lunch at the only cafe in Looe, a small dingy place with rickety chairs and sticky plastic