As for the smugglers themselves, they practised a thousand tricks to outwit their enemies of the law: they shod their horses backwards to throw their pursuers off the scent, they gave false information to draw the officers astray, they tried every device known to outwit them. One day a very active and zealous officer, much dreaded by the smugglers of his neighbourhood, made his appearance in a small fishing village at a very awkward time. In a cove below the cliff there was a string of loaded horses waiting for the darkness to come up the cliff road and gallop inland with their burdens. The preventive officer rode up to the inn, where the landlord, secretly quaking, for he was one of the smugglers, made a great show of welcoming him.
In a short time there was an uproar in the village street; one of the fishermen appeared to be beating his wife severely, and there was a great hubbub for a time. Before long the ill-treated woman came into the room where the officer was making a meal, and, apparently in a state of anger and agitation, accused her husband of being a smuggler, and offered to post the officer in a spot where he should have ample evidence of the guilt of the villagers.
"I'll put ye within a yard of 'em as they pass by," said the woman, "and then ye can get all their names and know where they are."
The officer, feeling sure that she was inspired by a spirit of revenge, agreed to follow her directions, and, as dusk began to settle down, he crept quietly to the back of her house, a spot which overlooked the cliff road.
The woman met him, and cautioned him not to make a sound. "For," said she, "if they get to know of ye, they'll take your life; they be such terrible smugglers hereabouts."
She bade him get into a large cask beside the back-door, and pointed out that he could see all who passed through the bung-hole. Eager to discover the smugglers and the way they would take, he did so. But no sooner was the unlucky man in the cask than a cover was popped on it by the woman's husband, hidden near at hand, and the cover was held down until it was firmly secured by hammer and nails. Then a spigot was driven into the bung-hole, and a voice shouted, "Come on, boys! We've boxed him up."
At the next moment the preventive officer heard the tramp of hoofs as the horses filed past the cask where he was shut up in utter darkness. The whole thing had been a trick from beginning to end. The quarrel between husband and wife had been a sham one, intended to lure the officer into the trap, and there he was fast in the cask; nor was he released until the smugglers were far beyond reach of pursuit.
THROUGH WESSEX—III.
Wessex has many beautiful and peaceful country towns, and of these an admirable example may be seen in Dorchester, the county town of Dorsetshire, a place often called the capital of Wessex. This very ancient town has seen the whole of the history of Wessex, the land of the West Saxons. Before a Saxon settled in the country it was a splendid city, the home of Roman nobles and the camp of Roman soldiery. The Romans knew it as Durnovaria, and they filled it with houses and adorned it with temples and theatres. To this day Roman remains are being discovered. An old house is pulled down and the foundations cleared away, and in the work the diggers come upon pavements which were laid down by Roman hands and trodden by Roman feet. Very often pottery and ornaments are discovered, and now and again a more striking relic still—the pick strikes into a Roman grave and lays bare a manly form which once marched with the legions, or the figure of a Roman maiden, whose ornaments still lie among her mortal remains.