'I remember a piece
about the Lees at Warminghurst, I do:
'There was never a Lee to Warminghurst
That wasn't a gipsy last and first.
I reckon that's truth, Pharaoh.'
Pharaoh laughed. 'Admettin' that's true,' he said, 'my gipsy
blood must be wore pretty thin, for I've made and kept a worldly
fortune.'
'By smuggling?' Dan asked.
'No, in the tobacco trade.'
'You don't mean to say you gave up smuggling just to go and
be a tobacconist!' Dan looked so disappointed they all had to laugh.
'I'm sorry; but there's all sorts of tobacconists,' Pharaoh
replied. 'How far out, now, would you call that smack with the
patch on her foresail?' He pointed to the fishing-boats.
'A scant mile,' said Puck after a quick look.
'Just about. It's seven fathom under her - clean sand. That was
where Uncle Aurette used to sink his brandy kegs from
Boulogne, and we fished 'em up and rowed 'em into The Gap
here for the ponies to run inland. One thickish night in January of
'Ninety-three, Dad and Uncle Lot and me came over from
Shoreham in the smack, and we found Uncle Aurette and the
L'Estranges, my cousins, waiting for us in their lugger with New
Year's presents from Mother's folk in Boulogne.
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