There was stirring, therefore, in remote farms, rattling on doors, hurried scrambling up and down stable ladders. Young men on the outskirts of villages might have been seen stealing through gardens, stumbling among cabbage-stocks and gooseberry bushes as they made their way by the uncertain flicker of our far-away beacon to the place of rendezvous.
Herds rising early to “look the hill” gave one glance at the red dance of the flames over the tree-tops of Marnhoul great wood, and anon ran to waken their masters.
For in that country every farmer—aye, and most of the lairds, including a majority of the Justices of the Peace—had a share in the “venture.” Sometimes the value of the cargo brought in by a single run would be from fifty to seventy thousand pounds. All this great amount of goods had to be scattered and concealed locally, before it was carried to Glasgow and Edinburgh over the wildest and most unfrequented tracks.
The officers of the revenue, few and ill-supported, could do little. Most of them, indeed, accepted the quiet greasing of the palm, and called off their men to some distant place during the night of a big run. But even when on the spot and under arms, a cavalcade of a couple of hundred men could laugh at half-a-dozen preventives, and pass by defiantly waving their hands and clinking the chains which held the kegs upon their horses. The bolder cried out invitations to come and drink, and the good-will of the leaders of the Land Free Traders was even pushed so far that, if a Surveyor of Customs showed himself pleasantly amenable, a dozen or more small kegs of second-rate Hollands would be tipped before his eyes into a convenient bog, so that, if it pleased him, he could pose before his superiors as having effected an important capture.
The report which he was wont to edit on these occasions will often compare with the higher fiction—as followeth:—
“Supervisor Henry Baskett, in charge of the Lower Solway district, reports as follows under date June 30th: Found a strong body of smugglers marching between the wild mountains called Ben Tuthor and Blew Hills. They were of the number of three hundred, all well mounted and armed, desperate men, evidently not of this district, but, from their talk and accoutrement, from the Upper Ward of Lanerickshire. Followed them carefully to note their dispositions and discover a favourable place for attack. I had only four men with me, whereof one a boy, being all the force under my command. Nevertheless, at a place called the Corse of Slakes I advanced boldly and summoned them, in the King’s name and at the peril of their lives, to surrender.
“Whereat they turned their guns upon us, each man standing behind his horse and having his face hidden in a napkin lest he should be known. But we four and the boy advanced firmly and with such resolution that the band of three hundred law-breakers broke up incontinent, and taking to flight this way and that through the heather, left us under the necessity of pursuing. We pursued that band which promised the best taking, and I am glad to intimate to your Excellencies, His Majesty’s Commissioners, that we were successful in putting the said Free Traders to flight, and capturing twenty-five casks best Hollands, six loads of Vallenceen, etc., etc., as per schedule appended to be accounted for by me as your lordship’s commissioners shall direct. In the hope that this will be noted to our credit on the table of advancement (and in this connect I may mention the names of the three men, Thomas Coke, Edward Loval, Timothy Pierce, and the boy Joseph McDougal, whom I recommend as having done their duty in the face of peril), I have the honour to sign myself,
“My Lords and Hon. Commissioners of H. M. Excise,
”Your obedient, humble servant,
“Henry Baskett (Supervisor).”
The other view of this transaction I find more concisely expressed in a memorandum written in an old note-book belonging to my Uncle Tom.
“Baskett held out for forty best French, but we fobbed him off with twenty-five low-grade Rotterdam—the casks being leaky, and some packs of goods too long left at Rathan Cave, which is at the back of the isle, and counted scarce worth the carrying farther. The night fine and business most successful—thanks to an ever-watchful Providence.”