For this, it some happened that the
shebeen man was hanged; but as his death only multiplied that of the
excisemen in a geometrical ratio, the sharp-scented fraternity resolved,
if possible, not to risk their lives, either by exposing themselves to
the necessity of travelling by night, or prosecuting by day. In this
they acted wisely and prudently: fewer of the unfortunate peasantry
were shot in their rencounters with the yeomanry or military on such
occasions, and the retaliations became by degrees less frequent, until,
at length, the murder of a gauger became a rare occurrence in the
country.
Peter, before his marriage, had wrought as laboring servant to a man
who kept two or three private stills in those caverns among the remote
mountains, to which the gauger never thought of penetrating, because he
supposed that no human enterprise would have ever dreamt of advancing
farther into them than appeared to him to be practicable. In this he
was frequently mistaken: for though the still-house was in many cases
inaccessible to horses, yet by the contrivance of slipes--a kind of
sledge--a dozen men could draw a couple of sacks of barley with less
trouble, and at a quicker pace, than if horses only had been employed.
By this, and many other similar contrivances, the peasantry were often
able to carry on the work of private distillation in places so distant,
that few persons could suspect them as likely to be chosen for such
purposes.
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