Then I began to bethink me that I had a more desperate ploy than any of them that were down there. For they were many, and I was only one. Moreover, easily as young Maister William might say, "Meet Muckle Jock and keep him till the morn at noon!" the matter was not so easy as supping one's porridge.
Now, I had never seen the Exciseman, but my brother had played at the cudgels with Jock before this. So I knew more of him than to suppose that he would bide for the bidding of one man when in the way of his duty.
When the young laird went away he slipped me a small, heavy packet.
"Half for you and half for the gauger, gin he hears reason," he said.
By the weight and the jingle I judged it to be yellow Geordies, the best thing that the wee, wee German lairdie ever sent Tory Mochrum. And not too plenty there, either! Though since the Clone folk did so well with the clean-run smuggling from the blessed Isle of Man, it is true that there are more of the Geordies than there used to be.
So I rode round by the back of the White Loch, for Sir William had a habit of daunering over by the Airlour and Barsalloch, and in my present ride I had no desire to meet with him.
Yet, as fate would have it, I was not to win clear that night. I had not ridden more than half-way round the loch when Brown Bess went floundering into a moss-hole, which are more plenty than paved roads in that quarter. And what with the weight of the pack, and her struggling, we threatened to go down altogether. When I thought of what my father would say, if I went home with my finger in my mouth, and neither Black Bess nor yet a penny's-worth to the value of her, I was fairly a-sweat with fear. I cried aloud for help, for there were cot-houses near by. And, as I had hoped, in a little a man came out of the shadows of the willow bushes.
"What want ye, yochel?" said he, in a mightily lofty tone.
"I'll 'yochel' ye, gin I had time. Pu' on that rope," I said, for my spirit was disturbed by the accident. Also, as I have said, I took ill-talk from no man.
So, with a little laugh, the man laid hold of the rope, and pulled his best, while I took off what of the packages I could reach, ever keeping my own feet moving, to clear the sticky glaur of the bog-hole from off them.