According to the Rev. S. Baring-Gould, Coppinger was not really a Dane, but an Irishman, and had a wife at Trewhiddle near St. Austell. He, on the same authority, is said to have done extremely well as a smuggler, and had not only a farm at Trewhiddle, but another at Roscoff, in Brittany. A daughter, says Mr. Baring-Gould, married a Trefusis, son of Lord Clinton, and Coppinger gave her £40,000 as a dowry. A son married the daughter of Sir John Murray, Bart., of Stanhope. The source of this interesting information is not stated. It appears wildly improbable. Hawker very cleverly embodied the smuggling sentiment of Cornwall in a sketch he wrote, styled “The Light of Other Days.” “It was full six in the evening of an autumn day when a traveller arrived where the road ran along by a sandy beach just above high-water mark. The stranger, who was a native of some inland town, and utterly unacquainted with Cornwall and its ways, had reached the brink of the tide just as a ‘landing’ was coming off. It was a scene not only to instruct a townsman, but to dazzle and surprise. At sea, just beyond the billows, lay the vessel, well moored with anchors at stem and stern. Between the ship and the shore, boats, laden to the gunwale, passed to and fro. Crowds assembled on the beach to help the cargo ashore. On one hand a boisterous group surrounded a keg with the head knocked in, for simplicity of access to the good cognac, into which they dipped whatsoever vessel came first to hand; one man had filled his shoe. On the other side they fought and wrestled, cursed and swore. Horrified at what he saw, the stranger lost all self-command, and, oblivious of personal danger, he began to shout, ‘What a horrible sight! Have you no shame? Is there no magistrate at hand? Cannot any justice of the peace be found in this fearful country?’ “‘No; thanks be to God,’ answered a gruff, hoarse voice. ‘None within eight miles.’ “‘Well, then,’ screamed the stranger, ‘is there no clergyman hereabout? Does no minister of the parish live among you on this coast?’ “‘Aye, to be sure there is,’ said the same deep voice. “‘Well, how far off does he live? Where is he?’ “‘That’s he, yonder, sir, with the lantern.’ “And, sure enough, there he stood on a rock, and poured, with pastoral diligence, ‘the light of other days’ on a busy congregation.” [Picture: “The Light of other Days”] The complete, true story of smuggling along the Cornish coast will never be told. Those who could have contributed illuminating chapters to it, and would not, are dead, and those who now would are reduced to seeking details and finding only scraps. But some of these scraps are not unpalatable.