A man, therefore, owning three or four horses could, with luck,
make a very tidy profit on the carriage, for each horse would carry two
packages, and the distances were not great. There was certainly a good
sporting chance of the convoy being captured in transit, but the
smugglers were daring, determined men, and the possibility of a brush
with the preventive officers merely added zest to the affair.
Of the other, the distilling branch of the smugglers' business, a great
deal was no doubt done in those lonely hills of Northumberland and
Roxburgh and the other Border counties. There they had wealth of fuel,
abundance of water, and a plentiful choice of solitary places admirably
adapted to their purpose; it was easy to rig up a bothy, or hut of turf
thatched with heather, in some secluded spot far from the haunts of
inconvenient revenue officers, and a Still that would turn out excellent
spirit was not difficult to construct. With reasonable care the thing
might be done almost with impunity--though there was never wanting, of
course, the not entirely unpleasurable excitement of knowing that you
were breaking the law, that somebody _might_ have turned informer, and
that at any moment a raid might be made. Every unknown face necessarily
meant danger, each stranger was a person to be looked on with suspicion
till proved harmless.
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