But the typical secret whisky-distiller has no commercial instincts. It cannot fairly be said that he has a soul above them, for he is just a shiftless fellow, whose soul is not very apparent in manner or conversation, and whose only ambition is to procure a sufficiency of “whusky” for self and friends; and a “sufficiency” in his case means a great deal. He has not enough money to buy taxed whisky; and if he had, he would prefer to make his own, for he loves the peat-reek in it, and he thinks “jist naething at a’” of the “puir stuff” that comes from the great distilleries. He is generally ostensibly by trade a hanger-on to the agricultural or sheep-farming industries, but between his spells of five days at the bothy (for it takes five days to the making of whisky) he is usually to be seen loafing about, aimlessly. Experienced folk can generally tell where such an one has been, and what he has been doing, after his periodical absences, for his eyelids are red with the peat-smoke and his clothes reek with it. [Picture: Dragoons dispersing smugglers] Perhaps the busiest centre of Highland illicit whisky-distilling is now to be located in the Gairloch, but anything in the shape of exact information on so shy a subject is necessarily not obtainable. Between this district and the Outer Hebrides, islands where no stills are to be found, a large secret trade is still believed to exist. Seizures are occasionally made but the policy of the Inland Revenue authorities is now a broad one, in which the existence of small stills in inconsiderable numbers, although actually known, is officially ignored: the argument being that undue official activity, with the resultant publicity, would defeat itself by advertising the fact of it being so easy to manufacture whisky, leading eventually to the establishment of more stills. The illegal production of spirits does, in fact, proceed all over Great Britain and Ireland to a far greater extent than generally suspected; and such remote places as the Highlands are nowadays by no means the most favourable situations for the manufacture. Indeed, crowded towns form in these times the most ideal situations. No one in the great cities is in the least interested in what his neighbour is doing, unless what he does constitutes a nuisance: and it is the secret distiller’s last thought to obtrude his personality or his doings upon the notice of the neighbours. Secrecy, personal comfort, and conveniences of every kind are better obtained in towns than on inclement brae-sides; and the manufacture and repair of the utensils necessary to the business are effected more quickly, less expensively, and without the prying curiosity of a Highland clachan.