The only person (with the exception of His Majesty’s Collector of Customs) who was not entirely pleased was Eli. In defrauding the Revenue he had no scruples whatever, but it interfered with his farming. This smuggling was all very fine and remunerative, but it was a mere side line. Bosula was his lifework, his being. If he and Bohenna had to be up all night horse leading they could not be awake all day. The bracken was creeping in again. However, they were making money, heaps of it; there was no denying that. With the instinctive dislike of a seaman for a landsman, and vice versa, neither Jacky’s George nor Pyramus would trust each other. The amphibious Ortho was the necessary link between them and, as such, paid out more or less what he thought fit—as has been the way with middlemen since the birthday of the world. He paid Jacky’s George one and six per cask for landing and Pyramus three shillings for packing (they went two to a horse), making a profit of ten shillings clear himself. Eli, the only person in the valley who could read, write or handle figures, kept the accounts and knew that at the end of March they were three hundred and forty pounds to the good. He asked Ortho where the money was. “Hid up the valley,” said his brother. “Put away where the devil himself wouldn’t find it.” “What are you hiding it like that for?” Eli asked. “Mother,” said Ortho. “That last rip-roar she had must have nigh baled her bank dry and now she’s looking for more. I think she’ve got a notion who bubbled her last year and she’s aiming to get a bit of her own back. She knows I’ve got money and she’s spying on me all the time. I’d tell you where it is only I’m afeard you’d let it out without meaning to. I’m too sly for her—but you, you’re like a pane of glass.” Wholesale smuggling finished with the advent of spring. The shortening nights did not provide sufficient cover for big enterprises; dragoons and preventive men had not the same objections to being out of their beds in summer as in winter, and, moreover, the demand for liquor had fallen to a minimum. This was an immense relief to Eli, who now gave himself heart and soul to the farm, haling Bohenna with him; but two disastrous seasons had impaired Ortho’s vaunted enthusiasm for “the good old soil,” and he was absent most of the week, working up connections for next winter’s cargo-running—so he told Eli—but it was noticeable that his business appointments usually coincided with any sporting events held in the Hundred, and at hurling matches, bull-baitings, cock-fights and pony-races he became almost as familiar a figure as his mother had been, backing his fancy freely and with not infallible judgment. However, he paid his debts scrupulously and with good grace, and, though he drank but little himself, was most generous in providing, gratis, refreshment for others. He achieved strong local popularity, a priceless asset to a man who lives by flouting the law. The money was not all misspent.