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.
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 Port in Stranryan, or a boat's crew was seen making for the beach of any of the Back Shore coves, messengers, ragged and brown, sped inland to warn the farms and villages engaged in the business, or even those merely acting as recipients and depots. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, all men under forty-five disappeared from the fields. The teams found their own way homewards or stood still till they were loosed by girls hurrying out from the steadings.