“What is it, my man?” asked the occupier, coming to the door.
“Well, yer honour, ’tis some o’ the finest whusky that iver was made up yon, and niver paid the bawbee’s worth o’ duty.”
“D’ye know who I am?” returned the householder. “I’m an officer of excise, and I demand to know who sent you to me.”
The smuggler told him.
“Now,” said the exciseman, “go back to him and sell him your whisky at his own price, and then begone.”
The man did as he was bidden; sold his consignment, and left the town. It was but a few hours afterwards that the innkeeper’s premises were raided by the excise, who seized the whisky and procured a conviction at the next Assizes, where he was heavily fined.
One of the last incidents along the Border, in connection with whisky-smuggling between Scotland and England, occurred after the duty had been considerably lowered. This was a desperate affray which took place on the night of Sunday, January 16th, 1825, at Rockcliffe Cross, five miles from Carlisle on the Wigton road. One Edward Forster, officer of excise, was on duty when he observed a man, whose name, it afterwards appeared, was Charles Gillespie, a labourer, carrying a suspicious object, and challenged him. This resulted in an encounter in which the excise officer’s head was badly cut open. Calling aid of another labourer, who afterwards gave evidence, he remarked that he thought the smuggler had almost done for him, but pursued the man and fired upon him in the dark, with so good an aim that he was mortally wounded, and presently died. It was a dangerous thing in those times for an excise officer to do his duty, and at the inquest held the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of “Murder”; the men who formed the jury being doubtless drawn from a class entirely in sympathy with smuggling, and possibly engaged in it themselves. Forster, evidently expectant of that verdict, did not present himself, and was probably transferred by his superiors to some post far distant. There the affair ends.
About the same time, on the Carlisle and Wigton road, two preventive men at three o’clock in the morning met a man carrying a load, which, when examined, proved to be a keg of spirits. Two other men then came up and bludgeoned the officers, one of whom dropped his cutlass; whereupon a smuggler picked it up, and, attacking him vigorously, cut him over the head. The smugglers then all escaped, leaving behind them two bladders containing eight gallons of whisky.
CHAPTER XV
Some Smugglers’ Tricks and Evasions—Modern Tobacco-Smuggling—Silks and Lace—A Dog Detective—Leghorn Hats—Foreign Watches