And at every loaning-end we heard the clinking of the smugglers' chains, and I thought the sound a livening and a merry one.
"A fair guide-e'en, young Airyolan!" cried one to me, as we came by Killantrae. And I own the name was sweet to my ears. For it was the custom to call men by the names of their farms, and Airyolan was my father's name by rights. But mine for the night, because in my hands was the honor of the house.
Ere we got down to the Clone, we could hear, all about in the darkness, athwart and athwart, the clattering of chains, the stir of many horses, and the voices of men.
Black Taggart was in with his lugger, the "Sea Pyet," and such a cargo as the Clone men had never run—so ran the talk on every side. There was not a sleeping wife or a man left indoors in all the parish of Mochrum, except only the laird and the minister.
By the time that we got down by the shore there was quite a company of the Men of the Fells, as the shore men called us—all dour, swack, determined fellows.
"Here come the hill nowt!" said one of the village men, as he caught sight of us. I knew him for a limber-tongued, ill-livered loon from the Port, so I delivered him a blow fair and solid between the eyes, and he dropped without a gurgle. This was to learn him how to speak to innocent strangers.
Then there was a turmoil indeed, to speak about, for all the men of the laigh shore crowded about, and knives were drawn. But I cried, "Corwald, Mochrum, Chippermore, here to me!" And all the stout lads came about me.
Nevertheless, it looked black for a moment, as the shore men waved their torches in our faces, and yelled fiercely at us to put us down by fear.
Then a tall young man on a horse rode straight at the crowd which had gathered about the loon I had felled. He had a mask over his face which sometimes slipped awry. But, in spite of the disguise, he seemed perfectly well known to all there.
"What have we here?" he asked, in a voice of questioning that had also the power of command in it.