In the Mist: A Tale of Smuggling Days

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 112, 4 February 1933, Page 19

In the Mist: A Tale of Smuggling Days

“Nick and I met with an adventure last week,” Elspeth toll] her cousin Patty. “It began in a haunted bouse, and ended in a ditch. . . . You remember seeing the empty house on the hill by the sea—” ' “The house they say is haunted?” asked Patty, wide-eyed. She shivered as Elspeth went on: “Yes. Nick made up his mind that we’d explore it. I was a little scared —but you know what brothers are —and at sunset I followed him to the house, and we climbed in through a window.” Hlspetli laughed, and Patty looked almost disappointed when her cousin continued! “Haunted? Pooh! Why, when we had reached the atticks I said to Nick, ‘There’s nothing uncanny about this house!’ And he said he had meant to prove to me that there was not. “At that moment we heard voices in the room below us! Nick bent down to a crack in the floorboards. “Snatches of talk came up to us.

... A small cargo to-night.... Some scent and baccy ... it only needs the two of us with out horses. We can ride inland with it to, ...” “'Smugglers!' whispered Nick. It will : go' hard with us if they find us here? Lie still,’ . “For what seemed like hours we Uy there in the quickly-darkening twilight, until at last we heard them say: ‘Well better be getting down to Park’s Creek now. We’ll get the horses; they’re sate in the stables there.’ “But no sooner had they left the house than Nick was up. 'Come, Betty! After them!’ And he hurried me out into the darkness. “Oh, Patty,' the fright I was in ! We followed those two men down to Park’s Creek; and then we waited behind a bush. There was the flash of a lantern; a little boat was rowing silently in from the sea, and the men left their horses tethered to a bush near us while they hurried down to the beach. “ ‘Unload quickly; we must be away by the turn of the tide,’ I heard one pf the men in the boat say. ‘And there's a thick mist rolling in from' the sea, too. , . “ ‘All we can do,’ Nick told me, is to wait and watch and try to discover which direction they take. There’s no

time to rouse the coastguards, and we can’t hope to prevent the smugglers getting away.’ But I scarcely beard what he was paying-1 was in such fear of being discovered. “The goods from the boat were safely on the beach, the boat had gone, and the two men were loading the goods on to their horses. The horses were restive under their loads, and in the gathering mist the smugglers were trying hard to quiet them, when suddenly one of them said: ‘What’s that? A movement over there?’ •‘As lie wheeled round I lost my head entirely. I sprang up and fled for my life up the hillside. “Seize him! He’ll raise the alarm; ’ I heard behind me, for all the men could sec was a . dim figure in the mist, and they rushed after me. “But as I ran I recovered myself. After all, I knew the hills and cliffs as well as anyone in the district; in my dark frock and hidden by the swirling

mist I had soon given them the slip, and while the baffled smugglers pounded by I was crouching in a ditch under a bush.” Elspeth paused, and Patty said: “Then you spoilt the whole adventure by running away. Oh, but that’s not all the story?” . “No, it isn’t,” said a voice, and Nick, joining his sister and cousin, took up the. tale. “It was the best thing that could have, happened,” he said. “Betty’s running away like that. The smugglers were after her in a twinkling, and X followed them through the mist until, while they returned unsuccessfully to the beach, I found Betty in a diten. B U t_~before I followed them I had done one thing. In the moment when her flight drew their attention I slashed through the rope that tied the smugglers’ horses, and the poor beasts galloped off across country.” “They were found grazing peacefully in a field next day.” Elspeth put in. “And,” went on Nick, “as Betty and I followed the path to the coastguard station, the last sounds we heard of the smugglers were their voices through the mist, raised in anger and alarm when, back on the lonely beach, they realised that their horses and their smuggled goods were gone!”