A Smuggler's Song

A Smuggler's Song (1906)
Rudyard Kipling

IF you wake at midnight, and hear a horse's feet
Don't go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street,
Them that ask no questions isn't told a lie.
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by.

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Laces for a lady; letters for a spy,
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

Running round the woodlump if you chance to find
Little barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine,
Don't you shout to come and look, nor use 'em for your play.
Put the brishwood back again - and they'll be gone next day !

If you see the stable-door setting open wide;
If you see a tired horse lying down inside;
If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore;
If the lining's wet and warm - don't you ask no more !

If you meet King George's men, dressed in blue and red,
You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said.
If they call you " pretty maid," and chuck you 'neath the chin,
Don't you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one's been !

Knocks and footsteps round the house - whistles after dark -
You've no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.
Trusty's here, and Pincher's here, and see how dumb they lie
They don't fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by !

'If You do as you've been told, 'likely there's a chance,
You'll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France,
With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood -
A present from the Gentlemen, along 'o being good !

Five and twenty ponies,
Trotting through the dark -
Brandy for the Parson, 'Baccy for the Clerk.
Them that asks no questions isn't told a lie -
Watch the wall my darling while the Gentlemen go by!

https://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/a-smugglers-song

This is another poem I remember from my childhood, but I did not realise it was by Kipling until Col bought me Puck of Pook's Hill.  It is a very dramatic poem, and makes think about what a dangerous occupation smuggling was - just one person talking and you could hang - or perhaps be deported, at best.

I think I found it vividly scary.  What if you forgot, and did say something?!  And of course the Cornwall of the 1950s was not as far from those days as it is now.  I am assuming this was set in Cornwall, in the world of Jamaica Inn.  Jamaica Inn itself is a dramatic place in a dramatic setting by the way - well worth a visit, though perhaps out of the holiday/coach party season. And the book Jamaica Inn certainly does not glamourise the danger and horror of the smuggling/wrecking profession. You would indeed be scared of them. And scared for them, knowing the consequences.

What a protection Jehovah's standards of honesty are though!  If we will listen  to our Creator, we will not only have more happiness to look forward to than we can now imagine, but we will benefit ourselves so much right now. As God told us thousands of years ago, through the prophet Isaiah: 

“I, Jehovah, am your God,
The One teaching you to benefit yourself,
The One guiding you in the way you should walk.
If only you would pay attention to my commandments!
Then your peace would become just like a river
And your righteousness like the waves of the sea."

- Isaiah 48:17,18

These words are as true today as they were then, they will guide us as safely now as they did then.

Roger is continuing his travels, and he has just sent us a short video of a real steam train!  Back to childhood for all of us. I don't know exactly where the train was - somewhere in The Americas,  guess.  And he messaged to say that the little parcel I sent arrived, just in time.  Hurray.  I have emailed Bruce to say that my reply to his latest email will be couriered to his door.