This put the spirited free-traders on their mettle. Fifty years ago, that Scotch interloper would have learned the restful qualities of a greener sod than his. But it is of interest to observe how the English nature softened, when the martial age had lapsed. It scarcely occurred to this gentler generation, that a bullet from behind a rock would send this spry enquirer to solve larger questions on his own account. Savage brutality had less example now.
The only thing therefore was to over-reach this man. He was watching all the roads along the coast, to east and west; but to guard all the tangles of the inward roads, and the blessed complexity of Devonshire lanes would have needed an army of pure natives. Whereas this busy foreigner placed no faith in any man born in that part of the world—such was his judgment—and had called for a draft of fellows having different vowels.
This being so, it served him right to be largely out-witted by the thick-heads he despised. And he had made such a fuss about it, at head-quarters, and promised such wonders if the case were left to him, that when he captured nothing but a string of worn-out kegs filled with diluted sheep-wash, he not only suffered for a week from gastric troubles—through his noseless hurry to identify Cognac—but also received a stinging reprimand, and an order for removal to a very rugged coast, where he might be more at home with the language and the manners. And his predecessor's son obtained that sunny situation. Thus is zeal rewarded always, when it does not win the seal.
None will be surprised to hear that the simple yet masterly stratagem, by means of which the fair western county vindicated its commercial rights against northern arrogance and ignoble arts, was the invention of a British Tar, an old Agamemnon, a true heart of oak, re-membered also in the same fine material. The lessons of Nelson had not been thrown away; this humble follower of that great hero first mis-led the adversary, and then broke his line. Invested as he was by superior forces seeking access even to his arsenal, he despatched to the eastward a lumbering craft, better known to landsmen as a waggon, heavily laden with straw newly threshed, under which was stowed a tier of ancient kegs, which had undergone too many sinkings in the sea (when a landing proved unsafe) to be trusted any more with fine contents. Therefore they now contained sheep-wash, diluted from the brook to the complexion of old brandy. In the loading of this waggon special mystery was observed, which did not escape the vigilance of the keen lieutenant's watchmen. With a pair of good farm-horses, and a farm-lad on the ridge of the load, and a heavy fellow whistling not too loudly on the lade-rail, this harmless car of fictitious Bacchus, crowned by effete Ceres, wended its rustic way towards the lowest bridge of Otter, a classic and idyllic stream. These two men, of pastoral strain and richest breadth of language, carried orders of a simplicity almost equal to their own.
No sooner was this waggon lost to sight and hearing in the thick October night, and the spies sped away by the short cuts to report it, than a long light cart, with a strong out-stepping horse, came down the wooded valley to the ghostly court. In half an hour, it was packed, and started inland, passing the birthplace of a very great man, straight away to Farringdon and Rockbear, with orders to put up at Clist Hidon before daylight, where lived a farmer who would harbour them securely. On the following night they were to make their way, after shunning Cullompton, to the shelter in Blackmarsh, where they would be safe from all intrusion, and might await fresh instructions, which would take them probably towards Bridgwater, and Bristol. By friendly ministrations of the Whetstone men, who had some experience in trade of this description, all this was managed with the best success; Jem Kettel knew the country roads, by dark as well as daylight, and Harvey Tremlett was not a man to be collared very easily. In fact, without that sad mishap to their very willing and active nag, they might have fared through Perlycross, as they had through other villages, where people wooed the early pillow, without a trace or dream of any secret treasure passing.
Meanwhile at Sidmouth the clever Scotchman was enjoying his own acuteness. He allowed that slowly rolling waggon of the Eleusine dame to proceed some miles upon its course, before his men stood at the horses' heads. There was wisdom in this, as well as pleasure—the joy a cat prolongs with mouse—inasmuch as all these good things were approaching his own den of spoil. When the Scotchmen challenged the Devonshire swains, with flourish of iron, and of language even harder, an interpreter was sorely needed. Not a word could the Northmen understand that came from the broad soft Southron tongues; while the Devonshire men feigning, as they were bidden, to take them for highwaymen, feigned also not to know a syllable of what they said.
This led, as it was meant to do, to very lavish waste of time, and increment of trouble. The carters instead of lending hand for the unloading of their waggon, sadly delayed that operation, by shouting out "thaves!" at the top of their voice, tickling their horses into a wild start now and then, and rolling the Preventive men off at the tail. MacSpudder himself had a narrow escape; for just when he chanced to be between two wheels, both of them set off, without a word of notice; and if he had possessed at all a western body, it would have been run over. Being made of corkscrew metal by hereditary right, he wriggled out as sound as ever; and looked forward all the more to the solace underlying this reluctant pile, as dry as any of his own components.
Nothing but his own grunts can properly express the fattening of his self-esteem (the whole of which was home-fed) when his men, without a fork—for the Boreal mind had never thought of that—but with a great many chops of knuckles (for the skin of straw is tougher than a Scotchman's) found their way at midnight, like a puzzled troop of divers, into the reef at bottom of the sheefy billows. Their throats were in a husky state, from chaff too penetrative, and barn-dust over volatile, and they risked their pulmonary weal, by opening a too sanguine cheer.
"Duty compels us to test the staple;" the Officer in command decreed; and many mouths gaped round the glow of his bullseye. "Don't 'ee titch none of that their wassh!" The benevolent Devonians exclaimed in vain. Want of faith prevailed; every man suspected the verdict of his predecessor, and even his own at first swallow. If timber-leg'd Dick could have timed the issue, what a landing he might have made! For the Coast-guard tested staple so that twenty miles of coast were left free for fifty hours.