"Ay, sir, but there's a spirit in the thing," said Mowle, shaking his head; "the very country people in general love the smugglers, and help them whenever they can. There's not a cottage that will not hide them or their goods; scarce a gentleman in the county who, if he finds all the horses out of his stable in the morning, does not take it quietly, without asking any more questions; scarce a magistrate who does not give the fellows notice as soon as he knows the officers are after them. The country folks, indeed, do not like them so well as they did; but they'll soon make it up."
"A strange state, certainly," said the officer of dragoons; "but what has become of the horses you mention, when they are thus found absent?"
"Gone to carry goods, to be sure," answered Mowle. "But one thing is very clear, all the country is in the smugglers' favour, and I cannot help thinking that the people do not like the Custom's dues, that they don't see the good of them, and are resolved to put them down."
"Ignorant people, and, indeed, all people, do not like taxation of any kind," replied Osborne; "and every class objects to that tax which presses on itself, without the slightest regard either for the necessity of distributing the burdens of the country equally, or any of the apparently minute but really important considerations upon which the apportionment has been formed. However, Mr. Mowle, we have only to do our duty according to our position--you to gain all the information that you can--I to aid you, to the best of my ability, in carrying the law into effect."
"From the smugglers themselves, little is the information I can get, sir," answered Mowle, returning to the subject from which their conversation had deviated, "and often I am obliged to have recourse to means I am ashamed of. The principal intelligence I receive is from a boy who offered himself one day--the little devil's imp--and certainly, by his cunning, and by not much caring myself what risks I run, I have got some very valuable tidings. But the little vagabond would betray me, or anyone else, to-morrow. He is the grandson of an old hag who lives at a little but just by Saltwood, who puts him up to it all; and if ever there was an old demon in the world she is one. She is always brewing mischief, and chuckling over it all the time, as if it were her sport to see men tear each other to pieces, and to make innocent girls as bad as she was herself, and as her own daughter was, too,--the mother of this boy. The girl was killed by a chance shot, one day, in a riot between the smugglers and the Customs people; and the old woman always says it was a smuggler's shot. Oh! I could tell you such stories of that old witch."
The stories of Mr. Mowle, however, were cut short by the entrance of a servant carrying a letter, which the young officer took and opened with a look of eager anxiety. The contents were brief; but they seemed important, for various were the changes which came over his fine countenance while he read them. The predominant expression, however, was joy, though there was a look of thoughtful consideration--perhaps in a degree of embarrassment, too, on his face; and as he laid the letter down on the table, and beat the paper with his fingers, gazing up into vacancy, Mowle, judging that his presence was not desired, rose to retire.
"Stay a moment. Mr. Mowle--stay a moment," said Osborne. "This letter requires some consideration. It contains a call to a part of Kent some fifteen or sixteen miles distant; but as it is upon private business, I must not let that interfere with my public duty. You say that this enterprise of Mr. Radford's is likely to be put in execution to-morrow night."
"I cannot be sure, colonel," answered the officer: "but I think there is every chance of it."
"Then I must return before nightfall to-morrow," replied the gentleman, with a sigh.
"Your presence will be very necessary, sir," said the Custom-House officer. "There is not one of your officers who seems up to the business, except Major Digby and yourself. All the rest are such fine gentlemen that one can't get on with them."