carried us back to the time when smuggling was prevalent, and an occasion when the landlord of a country inn near the sea-coast sent two men with a pony and trap to bring back from the smugglers’ den two kegs of brandy, on which, of course, duty had not been paid, with strict orders to keep a sharp look-out on their return for the exciseman, who must be avoided at all costs.  The road on the return journey was lonely, for most people had gone to bed, but as the moon was full and shining brightly, all went well until the pony suddenly took fright at a shadow on the road, and bolted.  The men, taken by surprise, lost control of the reins, which fell down on the pony and made matters worse, for he fairly flew along the road until he reached a point where it turned over a canal bridge.  Here the trap came in contact with the battlement of the bridge, causing the pony to fall down, and the two men fell on top of him.  Fortunately this saved them from being seriously injured, but the pony was bruised, and one of the shafts of the trap broken, while the kegs rolled down the embankment into the canal.  With some difficulty they managed to get the pony and broken trap into a farm building near the bridge, but when they went to look for the kegs they saw them floating in the middle of the canal where they could not reach them.  They went back to the farm building, and found two hay-rakes, and were just trying to reach the kegs, the tops of which they could plainly see in the light of the full moon, when a horseman rode up, whom, to their horror, they recognised as the exciseman himself.  When he asked “What’s the matter?” the men pretended to be drunk, and one of them said in a tipsy tone of voice, “Can’t you see, guv’nor?  We’re trying to get that cheese out o’ th’ water!” The exciseman couldn’t see any cheese, but he could see the image of the full moon on the surface of the canal, and, bursting into a roar of laughter at the silliness of the men, he rode off on his way home.  But it was now the rustics’ turn to laugh as they hauled the kegs out of the canal and carried them away in triumph on their shoulders.  The gentleman who told the story fairly “brought down the house” when he added, “So you see, gentlemen, they were not so silly after all.”

[Illustration:  HIGH STREET GATE, SALISBURY.]

One of the company asked my brother if he had heard that story before, and when he said “No, but I have heard one something like it in Yorkshire,” he at once stood up and called for “Silence,” announcing that there was a gentleman present who could tell a story about the Yorkshire Moonrakers.  My brother was rather taken aback, but he could always rise to the occasion when necessary, so he began in his usual manner.  “Once upon a time” there were two men living in a village in Yorkshire, who went out one day to work in the fields amongst the hay, taking their rakes with them.  They were good workers, but as the day turned out to be rather hot they paid too much attention to the large bottle