Near Tonacombe Cross is a stone called the Witan-stone. To that Tristam one day guided his master, the vicar. “And now, your honour,” he said, “let me show you the wonderfullest thing in all the place, and that is the Gauger’s Pocket.” He then showed him, at the back of the Witan-rock, a dry secret hole, about an arm’s-length deep, closed by a moss-grown stone. “There, your honour,” said he, with a joyous twinkle in his eye, “there have I dropped a little bag of gold, many and many a time, when our people wanted to have the shore quiet, and to keep the exciseman out of the way of trouble; and then he would go, if he were a reasonable officer; and the byword used to be, when ’twas all right, one of us would meet him, and say: ’sir, your pocket is unbuttoned’; and he would smile, and answer: ‘Ay, ay! but never mind, my man, my money’s safe enough.’ And thereby we knew that he was a just man, and satisfied, and that the boats would take the roller in peace; and that was the very way it came to pass that this crack in the stone was called evermore the Gauger’s Pocket.” In former times, when a ship was being driven on the rocks on Sunday, whilst divine service was going on, news was sent to the parson, who announced the fact from the pulpit, or reading-desk, whereupon ensued a rapid clearance of the church. The story is told of a parson at Poughill, near Morwenstow, who, on hearing the news, proceeded down the nave in his surplice as far as the font; and the people, supposing there was to be a christening, did not stir. But when he was near the door he shouted: “My Christian brethren, there’s a ship wrecked in the cove: let us all start fair!” and, flinging off his surplice, led the way to the scene of spoliation. “I do not see why it is,” said a Cornish clerk one day, “why there be prayers in the Buke o’ Common Prayer for rain and for fine weather, and thanksgivings for them and for peace, and there’s no prayer for wrecks, nor thanksgiving for a really gude one when it is come.” Mr. Hawker relates a good story in his _Footprints_, which was told him by an old man in his parish named Tony Cleverdon.