Under such circumstances, the officials who were entrusted with the administration of these laws led a very hard life. They were the Ishmaels against whom every man's hand was raised, and the more strictly they performed their duty, by so much more were they hated. One striking incident has survived out of many such that must have happened. The mounted excise officers who in 1694 patrolled the district made a capture of ten men escorting a large pack-horse train of wool-bales to some pushing-off place for France, and haled them before his worship the Mayor of New Romney. Sworn information and due process of law were followed, and Mr. Mayor was desired to commit the captives to prison. Instead of doing so, he strained his discretionary powers to the utmost, and admitted them to bail. Possibly he had an interest in that very consignment thus put under embargo, or at the very least of it claimed friendship with, or was under neighbourly or business obligations to those to whom it did belong--so thoroughly bound up with smuggling was every detail of trade and intercourse in the marsh. This admission of the whole gang to bail was but the second act of the comedy, of which the seizure was the first, and it was followed by another, and a more stirring one. During the night the furious populace of Romney burst in upon the Revenue men, and so threatened them with violence that the Mayor's son advised them, in God's name, begone, lest worse befell. Most excellent advice, and they take it. Half-dressed, and flinging themselves upon their horses in haste, they ride out of Romney with the whole town after them, and the town's pots and kettles hurtling in the air after pursued and pursuers alike. Jacob Rawlings, as good a freetrader as anyone, and hating an Exciseman as he ought to hate the Devil, is downed by a saucepan intended for a King's officer; Nehemiah Crutwell, who thinks good wool ought never to be taxed, has got a cut in the cheek from a brass skillet, flung with uncertain aim; the sconce of another is cracked by a broomstick intended for the crupper of one of the horses. Off they go into the night, pursued by fifty armed men, vowing death and destruction, and not until they have floundered across Guildford Level, and are come to Camber Point and Sussex, do their enemies draw off. CHAPTER VII ROMNEY MARSH (_continued_)