come across!" insinuated the
Superintendent of Enlistments.

Everard turned hotly upon his companion.

"And who brought us here to rub noses against rough stones climbing your
accursed dykes, only to be insulted by country bumpkins and outwitted by
half-clad minxes? You are a spy, and no fit company for gentlemen. I
tell you so much to your face. But when you are in your own country and
doing your foul business, you might at least have your information
correct before calling out the forces of His Majesty."

And ten minutes later the boat of the _Britomart_ was being rowed fast
in the direction of that ship, because the men knew well that their
officer was in no mood to be trifled with.

CHAPTER IV

BY FORCE OF ARMS

The press-gang and its ugly work, Castle Raincy and its feudal
associations, stern Cairn Ferris, the Abbey Burn and the bright new
house of Julian Wemyss--Patsy going from one to the other, and the
patriarchal simplicity of the farm of Glenanmays, with its girls and
boys, its cave-riddled shore and its interests in the Free
Traffic--these are what the district of the Back Shore meant in later
Napoleonic times.

Most of this was on the surface, to be seen of all men, but the traffic
and the "press" are only spoken of in whispers. As to them it is
dangerous to appear too knowing.

Even great people were mysteriously tongue-tied. Silence was
particularly golden in these days, and in the stillness of the night the
little click of a sheep's trotters descending a mountain pathway was
often mistaken for the clank of a scabbard point, or the clink of a
gun-butt striking a loose stone.

Girls in moorland farms lay awake, half-fearing, half-hoping to hear the
saddle-chains of the laden horses, each led by a lover or a brother.

King George might (and did) multiply officials and send what could be
spared in the way of landing parties to support the executive, but the
claims on the ministry were too many. They could only say, "Wait for a
time of peace and then we will regulate the matter of the Solway free
trade once for all."

But the most ignorant lad on the shore of Galloway from Loch Ryan to
Annan Waterfoot knew that so long as the government waged war against
Napoleon and America, it had no time to attend to them. The press-gang
was all they had to avoid, and for that they trusted to their clear eyes
and nimble feet.

They were also well informed. So soon as a patrol cleared the Irishman's