On such a cargo being brought, according to preconcerted plan, within easy distance off-shore, generally at night, a lantern or other signal shown from cliff or beach by confederates on land would indicate the precise spot where the goods were most safely to be beached; and there would be assembled a sufficient company of labourers engaged for the job. A cargo of eighty tubs required forty men, who carried two each, slung by ropes over chest and back. According to circumstances, they marched in company on foot, inland; or, if the distance were great, they went on horseback, each man with a led horse, carrying three or four tubs in addition. These labourers, although not finally interested in the safe running of the goods, and not paid on any other basis than being hired for the heavy job of carrying considerable weights throughout the night, were quite ready and willing to fight any opponents that might be met, as innumerable accounts of savage encounters tell us. Besides these carriers, there were often, in case of opposition to the landing being anticipated, numerous “batsmen,” armed with heavy clubs, to protect the goods. The pay of a labourer or carrier varied widely, of course, in different places, at different times, and according to circumstances. It ranged from five shillings to half a sovereign a night, and generally included also a present of a package of tea or a tub of brandy for so many successful runs. It is recorded that the labourers engaged for riding horseback, each with a led horse, from Sandwich, Deal, Dover, Folkestone, or Romney, to Canterbury, a distance of some fifteen miles, were paid seven shillings a night. The horses cost the smugglers nothing, for they were commandeered, as a general rule, from the neighbouring farmers, who did not usually offer any objection, for it was not often that the gangs forgot to leave a tub in payment. The method employed in thus requisitioning horses was quite simple. An unsigned note would be handed to a farmer stating that his horses were wanted, for some purpose unnamed, on a certain night; and that he was desired to leave his stables unlocked for those who would come and fetch them. If he did not comply with this demand he very soon had cause to regret it in the mysterious disasters that would shortly afterwards overtake him: his outbuildings being destroyed by fire, his farming implements smashed, or his cattle mutilated. The farmers, indeed, were somewhat seriously embarrassed by the prevalence of smuggling. On the one hand, they had to lend their horses for the smugglers’ purposes, and on the other they discovered that the demand for carriers of tubs and other goods shortened the supply of labour available for agricultural purposes, and sent up the rate of wages. A labourer in the pay of smugglers would often be out three nights in the week, and, with the money he received and with additional payment in kind, was in a very comfortable position. CHAPTER I