Hidden away in the recesses of a tortuous valley, amid hills whose steep sides bristled with tier after tier of bare, broken rocks, to reach or to leave Polperro by any other mode than on foot was a task of considerable difficulty. Wagons were unknown, carts not available, and it was only at the risk of his rider's life and limbs that any horse ventured along the perilous descents and ascents of the old Talland road. Out of these obstacles, therefore, arose the necessity for a number of men who could manage the drays, dorsals and crooks which were the more common and favored modes of conveyance. With the natural love of a little excitement, combined with the desire to do as you would be done by, it was only thought neighborly to lend a hand at whatever might be going on; and the general result of this sociability was that half the place might be found congregated about the house, assisting to the best of their ability to impede all progress and successfully turn any attempt at work into confusion and disorder. To add to this tumult, a keg of spirits was kept on tap, to which all comers were made free, so that the crowd grew first noisy and good-tempered, then riotously merry and quarrelsomely drunk, until occasions had been known when a general fight had ensued, the kegs had got burst open and upset, the men who were hired to deliver them lay maddened or helpless in the street, while the spirit for which liberty and life had been risked flowed into the gutters like so much water. In vain had Adam, to whom these scenes afforded nothing but anger and disgust, used all his endeavors to persuade his fellow-workers to give up running the vessel ashore with the cargo in her. The Polperro men, except under necessity, turned a deaf ear to his entreaties, and in many cases preferred risking a seizure to foregoing the fool-hardy recklessness of openly defying the arm of the law. The plan which Adam would have seen universally adopted here, as it was in most of the other places round the coast, was that of dropping the kegs, slung on a rope, into the sea, and (securing them by an anchor) leaving them there until some convenient season, when, certain of not being disturbed, they were landed, and either removed to a more distant hiding-place or conveyed at once to their final destination. But all this involved immediate trouble and delay, and the men, who without a complaint or murmur would endure weeks of absence from their homes, the moment those homes came in sight grew irritable under control and impatient of all authority.