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