e direction which speculation naturally took in
Scotland for more than a hundred years.

In due time, then, the dragoons arrived, greatly to the interest of all
the serving lasses--and some others. There was, of course, a vast deal
of riding about, cantering along by-ways, calling upon this or that
innocent to account for his presence at the back of a dyke or behind a
whin-bush--which he usually did in the most natural and convincing
manner possible.

The woods were searched--the covers drawn. Many birds were disturbed,
but of the crew of the _Golden Hind_, or the land smugglers by whose
arrival the capture and burning of Marnhoul had been prevented, no trace
was found. Even Kate of the Shore's present address was known to but
few, and to these quite privately. There was no doubt of her
faithfulness. That had been proven, but she knew too much. There were
questions which, even unanswered, might raise others.

Several young men, of good family and connections, thought it prudent to
visit friends at a distance, and at least one was never seen in the
country more.

One of his Majesty's frigates had been sent for to watch the Solway
ports, much to the disgust of her officers. For not only had they been
expected at the Portsmouth summer station by numerous pretty ladies, but
the navigation between Barnhourie and the Back Shore of Leswalt was as
full of danger as it was entirely without glory. If they were unlucky,
they might be cashiered for losing the ship. If lucky, the revenue men
would claim the captured cargo. If they secured the malefactors they
would sow desolation in a score of respectable families, with the
daughters of which they had danced at Kirkcudbright a week ago.

In Galloway, though a considerable amount of recklessness mingled with
the traffic, and there were occasional roughnesses on the high seas and
about the ports and anchorages of Holland and the Isle of Man, there was
never any of the cruelty associated with smuggling along the south coast
of England. The smugglers of Sussex killed the informer Chater with
blows of their whips. A yet darker tragedy enacted farther west,
brought half-a-dozen to a well-deserved scaffold. But, save for the
losses in fair fight occasioned by the intemperate zeal of some new
broom of a supervisor anxious for distinction, the history of Galloway
smuggling had, up to that time, never been stained with serious crime.

Meantime the two Maitlands, Sir Louis and Miss Irma,