214 A HUNDRED YEARS 



when lie was young and his father distilled every 

 Saturday what was needed for the following week. 

 He was of the same mind as a grocer in Church Street , 

 Inverness, who, though licensed to sell only what was 

 drunk off the premises, notoriously supplied his cus- 

 tomers in the back shop. Our pastor, Donald Eraser, 

 censuring this breach of the law, was told, * But I never 

 approved of that law !' which was an end to the argu- 

 ment. He and the Dean agreed entirely that the law 

 was iniquitous and should be broken. 



" Laws against smuggling are generally disliked. 

 People who if you dropped a shilling would run a mile 

 after you with it, not even expecting thanks, will 

 cheerfully break the law against smuggling. When 

 I was young everyone I met from my father downwards, 

 even our clergy, either made, bought, sold, or drank 

 cheerfully, smuggled liquor. Excisemen were planted 

 in central stations as a terror to evil-doers, but they 

 seemed to stay for life in the same localities, and report 

 said they and the regular smugglers of liquor were 

 bosom friends, and that they even had their ears and 

 eyes shut by blackmail pensions from the smugglers. 

 Now and again they paraded in the newspapers a 

 * seizure of whisky,' to look as if they were wide awake; 

 wicked folks hinted that the anker of whisky was dis- 

 covered and seized when it was hidden in the gangers' 

 peat stack ! This saved the ganger much trouble 

 searching moors and woods for bothies and liquor. I 

 was assured that one of our old gangers, when pensioned 

 ofi, retired rich enough to buy a street in a southern 

 town, and I believe the story was quite true. Indeed, 

 in my young days few in the parish were more popular 



