nd came down as
usual three hours late. Then they seized ten casks of the best Bordeaux,
which had been left for the purpose on the sand. They were able and
intelligent officers--in especial the latter. And they had an acute
perception of the fact that if their bread was to be buttered on both
sides, it were indeed well not to let it fall.

This cargo-running and seizures were all according to rule, and the
minister of Dour had nothing to say. But at night seventeen of his kirk
members in good standing and fourteen adherents met at the Back Spital
of Port Dour to drink prosperity to the cargo which had been safely run.
There was an elder in the chair, and six unbroached casks on a board in
the corner.

There was among those who assembled some word of scoffing merriment at
the expense of the minister. Abraham Ligartwood had preached a sermon on
the Sabbath before, which each man, as the custom was, took home and
applied to his neighbour.

"Ay man, Mains, did ye hear what the minister said aboot ye? O man, he
was sair on ye!"

"Hoot na, Portmark, it was yersel' he was hittin' at, and the black e'e
ye gied Kirsty six weeks syne."

But when the first keg was on the table, and the men, each with his
pint-stoup before him, had seated themselves round, there came a
knocking at the door--loud, insistent, imperious. Each man ran his hand
down his side to the loaded whip or jockteleg (the smuggler's
sheath-knife) which he carried with him.

But no man was in haste to open the door. The red coats of King George's
troopers might be on the other side. For no mere gauger or preventive
man would have the assurance to come chapping on Portmark's door in that
fashion.

"Open the door in the name of Most High God!" cried a loud, solemn voice
they all knew. The seventeen men and an elder quaked through all their
inches; but none moved. Writs from the authority mentioned did not run
in the parish of Dour.

The fourteen adherents fled underneath the table like chickens in a
storm.

"Then will I open it in my own name!" Whereon followed a crash, and the
two halves of the kitchen door sprang asunder with great and sudden
noise. Abraham Ligartwood came in.

The men sat awed, each man wishful to creep behind his neighbour.

The minister's breadth of shoulder filled up the doorway completely, so
that there was not room for a child to pass. He carried a mighty staff
in his hand, and his dark hair shone through the powder which was